Many Asian women worry that their eyes are too small, but using shadows, highlights, and colors, it’s surprisingly easy to draw attention up to your eyes, no matter their shape or size.
Here are 5 Asian eye makeup tips to help you look your best.
1. Eliminate Undereye Puffiness and Darkness
Skin tone and facial features vary a lot even within people from the same ethnic group, but many Asian women struggle with under-eye dark circles, puffiness, or both. Both these features create shadows, and shadows make your eyes look smaller and less noticeable. Using one, matte color will visibly ease the puffiness, because it looks like the skin is all the same level, and it will “open up” your eye area visually.
Use special under-eye concealer to counteract the darkness, and dab it in! Regular foundation won’t absorb right and will probably be too dark, and rubbing the concealer in instead of dabbing won’t build up enough color to cancel out the shadows.
2. Don’t Overdo Your Eye Makeup
No matter the size of your eye itself, unless you’re biracial or really lucky, you’re just not going to have the eyelid space that other girls have, so makeup tips for other ethnicities will look disastrous on your eyes. If you want to use a non-neutral makeup color, choose one, not several, and use it sparingly. Every other eye makeup you put on your lids should be based on a soft, flattering, taupe-based color.
3. Take Advantage of Eyeliner
Asian women are masters (or mistresses?) of wielding eyeliner, especially tricky liquid eyeliner, like pros, probably because the normal eye makeup tips don’t work very well on Asian eyes. Black, winged eyeliner that stretches slightly beyond the outer edges of your eyes can visually expand and open your eye area. With liquid liner, use several smooth strokes to run along your actual upper eyelash line to darken the base of your eyelashes. If you’re using powder or pencil eye liner, rub back and forth to really work the color into your lash line.
I almost always advise using it on the bottom lash line, however – too much darkness on eyes that are already smaller than average just create a giant, closed-looking shadowy area. Another reason is that the traditional Asian beauty ideal, particularly East Asian like Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, is in simplicity and smooth flawless features. And if you find that look appealing, adding bottom eyeliner will just clutter up your face and take the attention away from your natural beauty.
4. Use Subtle Jewel Tones on Your Eyelids
For almost all occasions, swiping a soft, blended layer of a jewel toned color eyeshadow (choose from emerald, ruby, rich purple, and navy blue) will add the finish eyeshadow touch to make your eyes pop. Frosty colors, though I know they are popular with some Asian girls, like light blue and hot pink, have become associated with little girls wearing play makeup and teenyboppers, while jewel tones will make you look timeless.
5. Mascara and Eyelash Curlers are Your Friends
One of the biggest Western ideals of beauty is having long, curly eyelashes. For Asian women, who are almost always born with short, straight lashes, it can seem like an impossible dream to get enviable lashes. However, if you’re following all my Asian makeup tips, you’ve worked eye liner into your lash line already, which serves to make your eyelashes look both darker and thicker.
Next, you need a volumizing, jet black mascara brand. Good Asian makeup brands are Shiseido and anything from YesStyle. Honestly, Asian eyelashes are usually sparse and short enough that you probably can’t overdo it with mascara, but do use an eyelash comb to separate any clumps after you’ve gone through at least two strokes on each eye with the mascara wand. Wiggle it at the base of your lashes, and slowly pull it upward and out, through your lashes.
Finally, pull out your eyelash curler and prepare to attack your eyelashes. I’ve known some Asian girls who have heated theirs up with a blowdryer first for greater effect, but that’s not truly necessary. Clamp down with the eyelash curler for a good 10-20 seconds, pull away, and clamp again. After a few times on each eye, you will get a noticeably lifted effect.
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