How To Recreate Elle’s Go-To Signature Eye Look

By Elle Bear

I’m gonna start with the foundation I base most of my looks on, my go-to eye look. This is a basic outline of what I do, and it is very much tweakable and changeable to suit whatever you’re feeling that day. Shapes, sizes, colours are all infinitely adaptable. The most important aspect, for me, is the creation of the eye shape. I took influences from so many places it’s hard to pinpoint just one or two as no one seems to approach this in the same way. Drag queens and the kinda focus you see in eye makeup in many Asian subcultures would probably be the main ones but its an amalgamation of many different ideas. I could write pages and pages about different places I got influence and each way I have incorporated them in the past but I’ll do that another day. Today is a tutorial, and, dear Lord, I never thought I’d be doing a makeup tutorial.

1. So! As always we start out, as we do with everything, with a clean canvas and an awkward demeanor. I’m gonna be just focusing on eye makeup today. Use your foundation and all other face bits as you see fit.

2. Primer, brows and foundation. Looking like an egg with eyebrows right about now! I would usually blot out the edges of my lips with foundation during this step so when it comes to lipstick I can create the shape I want. Also I’m still living for that whole foundation lips look you’re supposed to grow out of in your late teens.

3. So, we want to start creating the shape of the eye at this time with lashings of white eyeliner on the lower waterline and lower lash line. It doesn’t have to be too specific at this moment in time. Gonna go with a real basic shape without too much flourish or extremities this time. Keeping it pure casual ya know?

4. Add your top eyeshadow and blend out the edges. Use as many or as few colours you fancy.

5. Now, we’re gonna continue with that shaping. I use an angled brush to lay down that basic shadow tracing the lower lash line, keeping it quite sharp for the time being. Take this handy, it’s very easy to make both eyes completely different shapes. Chances are you won’t notice until you’re out of the house and very much away from anywhere you can fix it.

6. Next you want to thicken that line and blend it out. You can play around with how thick and ornate you want this area to be. Bolder, more graphic ideas are great here too but we’ll keep it soft this time.

7. At this point, I like to set the inner white corner with some white eyeshadow. I am cursed with horrendously watery eyes and this stops me looking like a sad clown half way through the day. Unless that’s the look I was going for; I do enjoy a good, intentional sad clown. I also tend to add a bit of shimmer here to help finish the end points of my eyeshadow and really open up those peepers. Mad neons would be my go-to here a lot, or complimentary colours.

8. Now that we have the eyeshadow base down, we can roll out some eyeliner on the top lashline. I’m a big winger, as I feel it draws the eye further out, enhancing the shape that we’re trying to make. I try and keep the inner corner line quite thin, we’re gonna be extending that in a few minutes and anything too thick won’t flow right.

9. For the bottom line, I find it best to look at it in 3 parts. The first, and I consider most important part, is the innermost section. I tend to try keep this thin and pointed. To do this you will have VERY little amounts of product on your chosen method of lining the eye. (I’ve never tried this with a pencil, if you do you’re definitely much braver and more patient than I!) Be gentle and easy, you can always add more on but taking it off could lead you to trying to fix and reblend patches of eyeshadow and that is just not fun. I would tend to do the inner corner of both eyes before I’d finish out that line, just so I can get them both as even as possible.

10. Then we will continue that line up as far as we fancy. There’s another two wings going in here before we finish up so you want to consider where you want the bottom one to come from. My line went a bit thicker here than I would have liked but we’ll be adding some depth to this part so it’s not too important right now.

11. Aaaaand part 3 of this line will be a little wing. Baba wing. Wing beag. More of a continuation of the line but this can be played around with and made proper ‘wing-y, if the situation calls for it.

12. We add a little bit of black shadow along some of the bottom line then. It brings a bit of depth and, eh, realism to it. I would use a real small angle brush (love me some angled brushes) to use a TINY amount of black shadow to the line and drag down. Be super stingy; it’s very easy to go unintentionally full-goth at this stage and, while I think that’s amazeballs, not everyone would agree. I would not go to the inner end of the line as I feel it would look too dark and undo all your lovely inner eye highlighting.

13. We’re gonna finish off the inner eye next. We’re gonna elongate the eye in, and slightly down, to keep that shape we made with the outer wing. Very little product because, again, to try and clean up any mistakes here (while doable) is a nightmare! Rest your elbow on something when you’re doing this to help steady that delicate hand and go super slow. You can leave it here as I often do. This makes a biiig open doll eye. Oooorrrr….

14. …make it into a little pointed cat eye. I would consider the bottom line of the point as a different part to the top part we just did. Don’t try and do them together if you’re not used to it, they’re deceptively tricky.

15. And for a last flourish we add our last wing in white. Tiny brushes are your friend.

16. That would be the basic foundation for pretty much my entire life. So, if you’re going to work or looking for a low-key daytime look, stick on some mascara at this point and off you go.

17. If you’re going out-out or feel like being a bit extra, go for ridiculous false lashes. Personally, I do feel like top and bottom lashes should be mandatory for this kind of makeup but I have no way of enforcing that so i’ll let that one go.

For the moment.

If you’re looking for more makeup stylings by Elle, check out her Goosebumps inspired look and her guide to applying false lashes.