Before we start, I want to explain what tightlining really is. I expect most of you will know, but if you don’t then don’t feel bad. I only learned about it 6 months ago but since then I’ve been using this technique a lot. Tightlining is basically applying eyeliner in a way that is nearly invisible, but makes your lashes look a lot fuller and gives a lot more definition to your eyes! This is a great technique for if you want to do a ‘no make-up’ look since it’s virtually indetectable when done right, but it’s also wonderful for people who don’t have a lot of visible eyelid to work with or hooded eyes and want to have the extra definition, but don’t want to lose all of their eyelid space to a thick line of eyeliner. It’s also great for people that tend to have a gap of skin showing when they do a winged liner. By tightlining you make sure that there’s no gap, which allows for a much better looking dramatic liner. This is how I tightline, I’m not saying that it’s the only correct way to do it at all, you might have a different way that works for you! I just want to show you what works for me.

The effect

Above has nothing on the eyes, the below picture is just after curling my lashes and tightlining. Even after curling, my lashes stubbornly point down. Lazy little blighters. Big difference though isn’t it? And yet, I’ve only done my eyebrows and tightlined my eyes. I didn’t apply mascara or anything. As you can see, there’s still just as much eyelid space left as before!

So how do you do this thing of magic?

It’s not difficult, but you do have to know what to do. You can either take a brown or black gel eyeliner with your preferred brush or a pencil version. Please don’t do liquid liner because it will sting like a thousand needles covered in acid. Unless you know of a liquid liner that doesn’t sting and smudge or whatever, then it’s fine.

Through the roots!

 

Take your liner of choice and go through the roots of your lashes. I don’t mean the upper waterline, but really where the roots of your lashes are! Although getting a bit in the waterline is pretty much inevitable, so don’t worry if a bit goes in there. I say this because a lot of people seem to think that tightlining your lashes is filling in your upper waterline, but all that does for me is transfer the colour to my under waterline! We don’t want that, so let’s carefully apply the liner between the roots of the lashes instead. Slowly go through the roots of your lashes, if it’s tricky to see you can lift your eyelid up with your finger so you have better access from below, or you can look straight in the mirror and go between them like that. Whatever works best for you.

Before&After

As you can see, the result is quite a dramatic change! I got some on the waterline as well, but that’s okay, just make sure that most of it is between the roots of the lashes.

End Result

Now you can add eyeshadow and mascara! Although it looked quite dramatic at first, when you add mascara the eyeliner will be virtually invisible. Do you see how much eyelid space there is left when I close my eyes? This is why this technique is ideal for people with not much space on their lids or with hooded lids!