I Tried The Viral Eyeliner Hack That Promises People Won't Be Able To Stop Staring At You, And Now I Won't Do My Makeup Any Other Way
Hi, my name's Maya, and here’s what you need to know about me and makeup: I’m bad at it. Here’s another thing you need to know about me and makeup: I’m obsessed with it.
Makeup and I are like Claire Danes and Leo in Romeo and Juliet. It's something that I love from a distance but can never quite have. The extent of my talent is a messy smokey eye (emphasis on messy).
So when Michelle Diaz, AKA @bymichellediaz, posted a video of an eyeliner hack that's easy, eyeshadow-free, and promises that people won't be able to take their eyes off of you, I was instantly hooked. I decided to test it out and see if anyone — including my family, friends, and strangers — noticed.
@bymichellediaz Reply to @zenongirl21c #greenscreenvideo #PepsiApplePieChallenge make sure to send me/tag me on your looks bc I love to see them ❤️ #makeuptrick
♬ Soft Song - Background Jazz Ballads
The hack: Use white eyeliner to create four dots around your eyes — one on your upper lid, lower lid, inner corner, and outer corners.
Seems easy enough, right? For a hack that seems relatively simple, this trick has gone viral, with users claiming results that range from a bit of extra eye contact to people falling in love with you.
This hack took, at most, five minutes. The hardest part was making sure that the dots were aligned with each other, but the brush applicator gave perfect dots with minimal effort. Here's the final look:
In her video, Michelle uses the NYX Professional Makeup Epic Wear Liquid Liner (which you can get from Target for $11.29), so I did, too.
First test: Unsuspecting Target-goers. I've decided that the best test of this hack is to see how strangers might react. I head into Target (under fluorescents) and am sure to ask for help. It definitely feels like the Target employee is looking at me a bit longer than he normally might, but does that mean he’s in love with me?
If he is, do you think that I'd be able to use his employee discount? Also undetermined.
Here’s the silver lining of wearing a mask — almost every other part of your face is covered, so it means that all of the attention is on your eyes.
Second test: Lunch with a friend. I haven’t mentioned the eyeliner or what I’m doing it for, and it seems to go unnoticed until halfway through eating when he says, "Do you have something on your face?"
“Usually, yeah,” I say, aiming for cool and nonchalant, missing the mark completely when this statement is punctuated by me fumbling my fork and dropping Panera Bread mac and cheese into my lap.
“What is it?” He asks. He’s still looking at my eyes, but maybe he just doesn’t want to watch a grown woman pick macaroni shells out of her lap.
“Dots.” “Dots?” “Dots.” “Oh. They’re cool.” I’m going to call that a win.
Third test: Snapchat. I’ve been Snapchatting photos of myself to friends all day long. One of my best friends tells me that the white eyeliner helps bring out the whites in my eyes. When I check in the mirror, I see her point.
Side note, Michelle was right; This eyeliner will not budge.
Fourth (and final) test: My friend who's also a TikTok regular. I finish off the night trying to strategically maneuver my face into my friend's line of vision as we hang out. She's already aware of the purpose of the makeup, and, about midway through the night, I give up trying to force a reaction. Finally, she says, "I am looking into your eyes more. The dots are sort of like a guide to keep looking at you."
"Are you falling in love with me?" I ask jokingly. Any hope of romance is decidedly off the table.
This is absolutely a hack worth trying. It's affordable and easy enough to do that you can absolutely work it into your morning routine without adding too much extra time to your makeup application. Moreover, the staying power of this eyeliner is incredible. There were a few times today that I forgot that I had eyeliner on and absentmindedly rubbed my eye, and the eyeliner stayed put, no budging.
Also worth mentioning: This look is less noticeable on a webcam unless you're really close to the camera. I realized this while FaceTiming my mother, who immediately asked, “What’s going on with your face?” No doubt she was remembering my teens when I had a heavy hand with black eyeliner and wondering if, like My Chemical Romance, the eyeliner is working on a comeback.
If you're planning any Zoom Dates, try dipping the pointed back of an eye makeup brush in white eyeliner for a slightly larger stamp than the eyeliner applicator would allow. Or, be sure to finish your look early and test how it shows up on camera.
As for the whole, "Making people fall in love with you", obviously those results may vary. What I can tell you is that wearing this look helped draw attention to my eyes while encouraging me to keep eye contact with other people. To me, that makes this trick worth it.
Even if people aren't making more eye contact with me because of the eyeliner, I’m consciously making more eye contact with people because of it — which in turn, encourages them to make eye contact with me.
Plus, consistent eye contact has been shown in some studies to encourage attraction, so it makes sense that using your makeup to guide someone in that direction may actually promote eye contact and help increase desirability.
