Makeup Artist Katie Jane Hughes Has a Genius Winged Liner Trick for Hooded Eyes

Devon Abelman

I can't scroll through the Instagram of New York City-based makeup artist Katie Jane Hughes without wanting to bookmark every single glittery, graphic, and dreamy eye makeup look she posts. One of her signatures, in particular, is as practical as it is stunning. She's come up with a genius winged eyeliner trick for those of us with hooded eyes.

For those with this eye shape, which typically involves the skin around your eyes folding over your creases, drawing on eyeliner that looks as razor-sharp as Ariana Grande's can be difficult. If you create your flicks while your eye is closed, a dip often occurs when you open your eye.

I have hooded eyes and often overcompensate to make my wing more visible by bringing it toward my temples. Not everyone is as daring as me, though. Hughes's trick offers a solution. You draw on liner in a batwing-like shape, so when your eye is open your liner looks like any other cat eye. However, when it's closed it has an unexpected swooped design. For this reason, Hughes says it's two looks in one.

You can see it in action, below.

I was curious about how she came up with it so I asked Hughes about the origins of the hooded-liner trick. "I think I just developed it and learned it as I have grown creative," she tells me. "I get so annoyed hearing people tell me they have been told they can never wear liquid liner, and I’m like that’s BS."

Read on to learn everything you need to know to re-create Katie Jane Hughes's hooded-eyeliner trick.

Tools You'll Need

Instead of diving right into painting the shape with black liquid liner, Hughes first sketches it out with a pencil that is malleable and easily glides across lids. Some of her favorites include the Charlotte Tilbury Rock 'N' Kohl Eyeliner Pencil and the Em Cosmetics Matte Gel Pencil, which has won a Best of Beauty Award.

If you have softer, possibly crepey skin around your eyes, Hughes recommends mixing up your own pigment by spritzing a matte black shadow (or whatever color you want to wing it with) with a setting spray, like MAC Prep + Prime Fix+.

You'll also need a tiny angled brush, like the Sigma Beauty E06 Winged Liner Brush, and, of course, black liquid liner. Hughes is a fan of the Surrat Beauty Auto-Graphique Eyeliner, which happens to be a 2019 Best of Beauty Award winner.

Steps for Success

With your pencil in hand, look straight into the mirror with your eyes relaxed, Hughes tells Allure. Then draw a line angled upward from the outer corner of your eye using short strokes. (Don't worry, you'll smooth out the lines later.) It should look like a slightly jagged version of a classic flick. You can make the line as long or as short as you want, depending on how dramatic you're feeling.

After the angled line is the length you want, you're going to draw another line from the end of it — bringing this one horizontally across to your crease. Next, extend that same line downward toward your lash line. The pencil should naturally skip over the crease to make a gap. (You'll notice the gap when you close your eye.)

Next, fill in the triangular area of the wing, still with your eye open. Then you can close your eye and etch the pencil along your lash line.

Now grab the angled brush. With your eye open, run the clean brush along the lines to connect them and fill in any sparse areas. Be sure to go along the flick to the center of your lash line too.

Then, to make the batwing look like it's an intentional shape, Hughes recommends closing your eye and creating a rounded arc in the interior part of the wing by blending the pigment already on your lids in a C shape from your crease to your lash line.

Finally, layer black liquid liner on top to make the lines crisper, sleeker, and more intense. This step will also make your wings more long-wearing.

If any of this was confusing, you can watch a step-by-step tutorial in the Story highlight section of Hughes's Instagram.

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Originally Appeared on Allure