Eyeliner for beginners: start here
Most beginner tutorials start with the hardest thing: a liquid pen, a wing, and one long continuous stroke. That is why so many people decide within a week that they cannot do eyeliner. They can. They were handed the wrong tool and the wrong order.
This page gives you the order. Four skills, each one making the next easier, and a format to hold for each. If you want the short version: buy a soft pencil, learn the lash line, and leave the wing until the line has become boring. If you want to know which pencil, the liner finder gets you there in about a minute.
On this page
Which type first, and why
A beginner's real problem is not drawing. It is correcting. Every first line is uneven, and what decides whether you keep going is how much the fix costs. That is a property of the format, not of your hand.
A pencil deposits wax under light pressure. For the first minute or so it sits on the skin as a soft solid, so a wobble can be nudged into a smudge and a mistake lifts off with a cotton bud. A liquid dries into a film within seconds. A wobble becomes a permanent edge, and the only correction is to take the whole section off and start again. Same pigment, completely different cost of error. Our format comparison rates each one on difficulty for exactly this reason.
So the order of formats is the order of forgiveness. A soft pencil first. A felt-tip pen second, because the tip is firm and never needs loading, even though the ink still sets fast. A gel pot with a short brush when you want more control than a pencil gives, since you decide the pressure and the brush stays where you put it. A dip-brush liquid last, or never: it gives the sharpest line and the least forgiveness of any format.
The four skills, in order
Each step below teaches something the next one needs. Skip ahead and you are learning the wing while still guessing where your lash line is, which is what most frustrated beginners are actually doing.
- Press a pencil into the base of the lashes. Look down into a mirror held low, so the lid lies flat, and press the tip of a soft pencil into the roots of the upper lashes in small dabs, working from the outer corner inward. There is no visible line to get wrong. What you learn is where the lash line actually is and how much pressure the lid tolerates, which every later step depends on. This is the gentle version of tightlining; the guide covers the inner-rim version and what the published research says about it, so read that before you go inside the lash line.
- Draw a thin line along the upper lashes. Same pencil. Start about a third of the way in from the inner corner and draw to the outer corner in three short strokes, each one overlapping the last, staying as close to the lashes as you can. Leave the inner corner bare: it is the wettest part of the lid, the hardest to reach, and the place where a beginner's line always goes thickest. A line that starts a little way in looks cleaner and lasts longer than one that starts at the tear duct.
- Thicken the outer third only. Go back over the last third of the line and build it a little heavier, tapering into the thin line behind it. This is where all the shape comes from: the outer third is what lifts, lengthens or softens an eye. It is also where mistakes are least visible, because lashes are densest there and the corner hides an uneven edge. A pencil still works here, and a gel pot with a short brush is the natural upgrade once you want a crisper edge.
- Add the wing, last. Only when steps two and three come out the same on both eyes without thinking. Do it by the dot method: a dot where the wing should end, a dot where it should meet the lash line, then join them. The angle rule, the dot method and the fix for droopy wings are all in the winged eyeliner guide, so we will not repeat them here. This is the step where a felt-tip pen earns its place, because a firm tip gives a straighter short edge than a pencil can.
The mistakes you should expect
Every beginner makes the same four, and each one has a cheap fix. Expecting them is most of the cure.
The line is thicker on one eye. This happens because you draw one eye with your dominant hand and the other across your face. Do the harder eye first, while your patience is fresh, then match the easier one to it. Matching thin to thick is always easier than the other way round.
There is a gap of skin between the line and the lashes. The pencil is riding above the roots. Look down into the mirror rather than straight ahead: the lid flattens and the roots become reachable. Step one on the ladder exists to fix this before it becomes a habit.
The line has printed onto the upper lid. You blinked before it set, or the lid folds over the line when your eye is open. Let a pencil sit for a minute before looking up. If it keeps happening, that is a lid-shape problem rather than a skill problem, and why eyeliner smudges tells you which of the four causes you have.
The edge is wobbly. Do not wipe the whole line off. Dip a cotton bud in remover and sharpen the lower edge from below, or run a flat brush with a little concealer along it. Both leave the line and remove only the wobble. When you do need to take everything off, removing eyeliner covers how to do it without rubbing the lid.
If the tutorial never looks right on you
A standard tutorial assumes a standard lid: a visible strip of skin between the lashes and the crease, an outer corner roughly level with the inner one, and eyes large enough for a wing to have room. Plenty of people do not have that lid. If you have followed the steps exactly and the result still looks wrong, the tutorial is assuming a lid you do not have.
The most common case is a hooded lid, where a fold of skin covers the lid space when the eye is open, so a line that looked fine with the eye closed vanishes or prints. Eyeliner for hooded eyes explains how to map the line with the eye open. A monolid has no visible crease at all, which changes where the weight of the line should sit; that is in eyeliner for monolid eyes. For everything else, start at the eye shape hub and find the page that matches what you see in the mirror, then come back to the ladder with that page's adjustments.
What to buy first
One pencil is enough to learn the first three steps. These are the properties that matter, and the ones that will make the learning harder than it needs to be.
| Property | Why it matters for a beginner | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Soft and creamy | Deposits with light pressure, so you are never dragging the lid to get colour | Hard pencils that skip unless you press, which is what tugs the lid |
| Sets after a minute | Movable while you fix it, then stays put, so a soft pencil does not mean a smudged afternoon | Pure kohl that never sets, unless you will always powder over it |
| Deep brown or soft black | Lower contrast hides an uneven edge; hard black shows every wobble | Colour for a first pencil, which is a second-pencil decision |
| Built-in sharpener or twist-up | A blunt tip is a thick line you did not choose | Anything you cannot keep to a fine point |
The pencil section of our shortlists by format has the candidates, compiled from published specifications and aggregated ratings. If you already know you will want a felt-tip pen for step four, the Stila versus NYX Epic Ink comparison covers the two most common first pens. And if you are not sure a pencil is the right starting point for your eyes and your day, the liner finder asks about eye shape, skill and wear time and points you at the matching shortlist.
Questions people actually ask
Is pencil or liquid eyeliner better for beginners?
Pencil. Wax stays movable for a moment, so a wobble blends and a mistake wipes off. Liquid sets into a film in seconds, so every wobble is permanent. Move to a felt-tip pen once the pencil line is reliable.
What is the easiest eyeliner for beginners?
A soft, creamy pencil that sets after a minute. It goes on with light pressure, blends if uneven, and then stays put. Avoid hard pencils that need force and dip-brush liquids that need a steady sweep.
How do you apply eyeliner step by step for beginners?
Four skills in order: press a pencil into the base of the upper lashes with no visible line; draw a thin line in three short strokes with the inner corner bare; thicken the outer third only; then add a wing by the dot method once the line is reliable.
Should beginners start with winged eyeliner?
No. The wing depends on knowing where your lash line is and drawing a consistent line to the outer corner, and both are learned in the first three steps. Learn the line first, then read the winged eyeliner guide.
What eyeliner should a beginner with hooded eyes use?
A pencil or gel that sets fully, kept thin and tight to the lashes, and mapped with the eye open rather than closed. The full method is in eyeliner for hooded eyes and the product shortlist in best eyeliner for hooded eyes.