Two things go wrong with liner on hooded eyes: the line vanishes under the fold when you open your eye, and it transfers onto the lid above. Both are solvable, but not by the standard method.

Draw with your eyes open

This is the whole technique. Look straight ahead into a mirror and draw where you can actually see the line.

A wing drawn on a closed lid follows the shape of the closed lid — which is not the shape you present to the world. Opened, it usually points somewhere unintended and is half-hidden.

Expect the closed-eye result to look odd and asymmetric. It is meant to.

The step-by-step

  1. Set the lid. A little powder over base. This is not optional here — the fold rests on the lid and transfers anything that has not set
  2. Find the angle with the eye open. Hold a pencil from the outer corner of the eye toward the tail of the brow. That is your wing direction, and it is more upward than on a non-hooded eye
  3. Draw the flick first, short, along that angle
  4. Connect it back to the lash line with a second short stroke
  5. Fill the triangle between the flick and the lid
  6. Keep the lash line thin, thickening only toward the outer third

Why thin matters

A thick line disappears entirely under the fold, so all the effort is invisible and the eye looks smaller. Thin along most of the lash line, with the thickness saved for the outer corner where it is still visible.

Stopping the transfer

Liner printing onto the upper lid through the day is the fold touching wet product. Three fixes:

  • Set the lid with powder before lining
  • Use a longer-wearing formula — gel or a waterproof pencil rather than a soft kohl
  • Let it dry with the eye open for twenty seconds before blinking normally

The alternative worth trying

Skip the wing. Press dark pencil between the lashes instead — a tightline. It gives definition, cannot smudge onto the fold, and never disappears, because it lives among the lashes rather than on the lid.

On many hooded eyes it looks better than a wing, and it takes thirty seconds.

More on shadow placement for the same eye shape in the makeup section.