How To: Prevent Waterline/Eye Pencil Smudging

With all these new 'smudge proof' and 'water proof' eye liners out there, I thought applying pencil/eye liner on the water line would stop being a pain. Well, I thought wrong. I know this probably may sound blasphemous to some but Urban Decay 24/7 are not the worth the hype (I'm removing it from my top ten. Ha!). Yes, there I said it. It worked for me in the beginning (I'll tell you why in a bit). 

After I got over my disappointment I started obsessing over how to make the eye pencil/kajal stay longer on my water line. There had to be something, right? Well, thankfully after reading dozen blog comments on various blogs and watching various video's on Youtube I found some tips. I thought I'd share them with you.

Obviously, you don't have to follow all the tips. Pick your favourite(s), or whatever works for you rather than doing all of the above.

• Take a oil free-mattafying powder and dab all over the eye area which is under the eye. These is where  the smudging mostly appears.  (This is for those who have an oily eye area)

• Take a Q-tip/cotton swab and gently sweep it over your water line and the inner part as well. This will eliminate some of the moisture and make the eye liner last longer. Trust me, judging by the comments and video's this is one of the most tried and tested tips. 

• After you applied the kajal or eye pencil take a matte black eye shadow and dab it over the already lined area. Use a small brush like an eye liner brush to dab the eye shadow on you water-line. This will not only make the make the pencil/kajal look more intense, it will stick to your eye liner and help in reducing the smudging.

• You can also use a oil free, mattifying face powder and dab it over the water-line to set the eye pencil as well, instead of the eye shadow.

• Some even suggested using  a water proof gel eye liner instead of the traditional eye pencil/kajal and setting it with a black eye shadow. The gel eye liner is supposed to be ideal for tight lining the eyes. (The Maybelline waterproof gel eye liner is really good, it lasts for ever.)

I have two favourites from all of the above. If I have time I'll use the Q-tip, if I don't I'll just skip that. After I apply my eye pencil, I'll dab face powder over my water line. I was really scared to do this at first, but I didn't experience anything bad (even though I wear lenses. It didn't dry out my eyes), so I stuck with it. Trust me, my pencil lasted for hours. ( I really recommend the Tarte Smooth Operator setting powder.)  

The reason my Urban Decay 24/7 worked so great in the beginning was only  because I used face powder near my lower lashes (almost on my water line) to set my concealer (this was on during the Eid days when I had to go out). This is the reason why it stayed on as long as it did. When I stopped doing that, it started smudging. I didn't even know about these tips back then.

The best thing about these tips is that you can use any pencil, liner or kajal! I really hope these tips are helpful. Now I don't worry as much as I used to about raccoon eyes. 

Sana