05/21

This TikTok Trick To Faking An Eye Lift With Makeup Actually Works

By Marissa DeSantis

If the past year spent working from home and staring at ourselves in back-to-back Zoom meetings has taught us anything, it’s that we could all use a few tricks to looking more wide-eyed and awake. One TikTok user has found the solution without actually having to visit a cosmetic dermatologist. In fact, if you have concealer and contour (or even a brown eyeshadow!) on hand, you’re halfway there.

In a post that’s since gone viral with over 7 million views, Suzana (or @suzi_sina) shared her makeup trick for faking an eye lift. Using social media’s favorite optical illusion technique, contouring, Suzana strategically placed concealer along the brow bone, at the inner corner of the eye, and flicked up from the outer corner of the eye. After using a darker brown shadow at the socket of the eye and into a winged shape, Suzana carefully blended each component outwards and upwards.

It’s a makeup technique that sounds more complicated than it looks (seriously, watch the video to see the step-by-step), and it’s also makeup artist-approved. “Any sort of contouring and pulling up technique with concealer definitely works to open the eyes and reshape them,” says celebrity makeup artist Mallorie Mason.

“Deep-set eyes, hooded eyes, saggy eyelids, can all benefit from this.”

To best recreate the effect, Mallorie advises that there are a few things to be careful of:

“When you contour, you don’t want to see the line of the contour,” she says. “Think of the contour as the shadows of your face, and the highlighter as the high points of your face.”
With that in mind, it’s not only important to blend, but to choose the right contour and concealer shades for your skin tone. “The concealer should be a basic, matte cream with no shimmer,” Mallorie stresses.
“You want it to be more skin tone, rather than too white or too dark—it should be two shades lighter than your natural skin tone, just like the concealer that you wear under your eyes.”

For the contour, Mallorie says you can use a cream product or even a taupe eyeshadow (or start with your cream contour and set it with a powder for a longer-lasting finish). “If you have lighter skin, you want to stick with a light shade of brown, whereas someone who is tanner can go with more of a medium brown,” she explains. While Mallorie notes that the brush can change depending on your preference, she recommends a skinnier blending brush that fits into the eye socket like the ColourPop Cosmetics Small Tapered Brush.

More importantly than the brush is how you blend, as Mallorie adds that blending at an upwards angle is what creates the lifted effect. “People tend to go out and back towards the ear, but you actually want to pull the brush up at an angle from the outside corner of your eyes just past the tail of your eyebrow.”

Once you’ve got the contour set, add your mascara, winged liner—or any other eye makeup you want—and you’re all set.