A Makeup Artist Tells Us How To Find The Right Eyeliner For Your Eye Color

Eyeliner is the makeup tool that truly keeps giving. It can make your eyes look larger, more elongated, more sultry, or more innocent. It can instantly take you from feeling like you haven’t slept in days to looking like you got a full eight hours of rest. And, with a few eyeliner tips and tricks under your belt, it isn’t that difficult to master (yep, even the more advanced cat eye). But eyeliner has another magic trick up its sleeve that you might not be aware of: it can bring out your eye color and make your baby blues, gorgeous greens, soulful brown eyes, or harmonious hazels appear brighter and more vivid. Kerrin Jackson, a 4-time Emmy-nominated makeup artist and creator of the blog The Makeup Refinery, provides top-notch tips on how to find the right eyeliner for your eye color.

You won’t need a master’s degree in art to perfect eyeliner, but knowing a little bit about the basics of color theory can help, according to Jackson. “It’s all about complimentary colors. And if this sounds like a different language to you, you can find fantastic color wheels on Amazon that make it straightforward to follow and give you an instant guide to understanding complimentary colors,” Jackson said.

A color that contrasts and complements your own eye color the most will help your eyes stand out, and these are the eyeshadow colors that do just that for each eye color, according to Jackson: 

Brown Eye Color — “Blue eyeshadow shades will make your eyes pop the most as this is a contrasting color to your brown eyes,” Jackson said. “Purples and greens can also look really vibrant and bring out the warmth of your eyes too. Although soft corals, golds and champagne tones can look so beautiful on a set of brown eyes.”

Hazel Eye Color — “Purple eyeshadows will make your hazel eyes stand out the most, according to Jackson. “Although deep, rich burgundy can look great, as will a cool mauve or pink shade,” Jackson said. “A lovely charcoal/navy eyeshadow can work really well on hazel eyes too.”

Blue Eye Color — Think orange and copper tones if you have blue eyes. “Warm browns and earthy tones are also great choices to enhance your baby blues,” Jackson said. “You can also be a rule breaker, and use a mono-chromatic color scheme on your eyes, which, despite sounding counterproductive can also cause your blue eyes to look even bluer — that is, by using blue eyeshadow (or liner).” 

Green Eye Color — “While red is the contrasting color to green, in an eyeshadow, a red tone can sometimes be unflattering and look more like a bruise or that you’ve had a big crying session than you’ve actually put on your best makeup,” Jackson cautioned. “So choose your red tones wisely — a copper or coral tone are perfect, or a maroon or deep red/brown. Even a pinkish red or rose gold tone will bring out those green eyes. Or conversely, using soft green tones and taupes, and warm earth tones will look beautiful on any set of green eyes.”

Jackson says she likes to deepen the intensity of the makeup directly around the eye, or on the top lid, if you’re not putting heavy makeup on the lower eye line. “I like to do this by starting with a black eyeliner on any skin tone,” Jackson said. “On darker skin tone you can really have a bit of fun by putting down a high-pigment white eyeliner first. This will act as a base for your color eyeshadow and cause that pigment to pop! You could also use a white cream eyeshadow to create this base for you, but be sure to give it a minute to set and you can also powder the white eye product to help it be nice and set before applying your eyeshadow.”

The other favorite trick Jackson says she likes to use to help make the eyes pop (though you may not want to do this every day) is use a couple of drops of Lumify Eyedrops in each eye once you’re finished your makeup. “They will instantly take the redness out of your eyes, whiten them up, and make those contrasting colors sing,” Jackson said. 

Have even more with colorful eyeliners and shadows and play up your natural eye color so that it looks even more spectacular.