Halloween is upon us, and just as Michaels started putting out its scary decorations months ago, celebrities have been wearing a seemingly spooky makeup look all year. Red eyeliner has been building momentum since the spring, when a scarlet waterline on anyone other than Zendaya might have been mistaken for severe allergies. In recent months, a slew of famous faces have made a very convincing case for its unexpected wearability.
Rihanna’s take on red eyeliner at the Matières Fécales spring 2027 show in Paris was simultaneously simple and striking. She wore a precise stripe of vivid ruby along her lower waterlines, wrapping around the inner corners and extending to the outer corners and a bit beyond. There’s no smoky red halo, no matching red shadow—just one vivid slash of crimson color peeking out from contoured lids and feathered lashes, as if she reached for a black liquid liner, accidentally picked up a red one, and just went with it.
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images
At the European premiere of Practical Magic 2, Maisie Williams went for a softer yet still-anything- but-inconspicuous interpretation of red eyeliner. Rather than a hard, graphic line, her makeup artist smudged burgundy tones under the lower lashes. Then there’s Zendaya, who, in addition to dabbling in the gateway shade of rust at the Rome premiere of The Drama, wore a true-red pencil all around her eyes with ever-so-slight smoking-out at a photo call for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Photo: Getty Images
Even though all three wore red eyeliner
Even though all three wore red eyeliner in different ways, the looks all have one thing in common: It’s freakin’ red eyeliner, man. Like, can we, the beauty-loving citizenry with non-celebrity jobs and lifestyles, really make this work on any other day than Halloween?
Makeup artist Karol Rodriguez says yes. “I have always been a huge, huge fan of red,” they say. “It’s one of those power colors.” Rodriguez sees red eyeliner as a way of taking the impact of a classic red lip and moving it somewhere much less expected. Depending on the application, they say, it can look bold and grungy, editorial, or feminine.
For those of us who want to try red eyeliner in a way that won’t spark concern among coworkers over a burgeoning pestilence, Rodriguez has one very practical rule: “Keep it on the top lid.” Most of us already have some redness or pinkness along the lower waterline, and as devastatingly cool as Rihanna looks, adding true red there can make you look less like you’re sitting front row at Paris Fashion Week and more like you’ve been staring at your laptop for 14 consecutive hours. Rodriguez likes the Sephora Collection 12 Hour Colorful Contour Pencil Eyeliner in Aloha for a pencil option, and Colourpop BFF Liquid Liner in Try Me for a felt-tip liquid liner pick.
Balance is another thing to keep in mind,
Balance is another thing to keep in mind, whether you keep the red to your top lid or go wild on your waterline. “If you’re doing a red liner, play down the blush a little bit,” they say. “Keep it in that same pinky-berry-red family, but make it less intense,” and keep the lips more skin-toned. And for anyone really ready to commit, they suggest pairing red liner with burgundy or red mascara—try putting burgundy mascara on the lower lashes with red liner above.
So, yes, red eyeliner is dramatic. And yes, it gets costume-y when applied without clear intention. But you can wear red eyeliner without looking like a Disney villain, or a glamorous vampire—and the worst-case scenario is that you do end up looking like a glamorous vampire, and that’s pretty awesome, too.
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