Small eyes rarely look small because of anatomy. They look small because of five habits, and makeup for small eyes works best when you subtract those before adding anything new.

Subtract these first

  • Black liner along the lower waterline. It removes visible eye area outright. Nothing else on this list costs you as much.
  • A dark shade flooded across the whole mobile lid. Depth belongs in the outer corner and the crease, nowhere else.
  • A thick liner band. Width eats the lid. Thin with a lifted tip does the same job without the cost.
  • Mascara ringed all the way round the lower lashes. A closed dark frame shrinks whatever sits inside it.
  • Uncurled lashes. Straight lashes hang over the eye and take a couple of millimetres of height with them.

The routine that replaces them

  1. Eyeshadow primer. On a small lid the crease is narrow, so any creasing shows as a dark stripe by lunchtime.
  2. A light matte shade from lash line to brow, as an even base.
  3. A warm mid-tone in the crease, blended slightly above the natural fold — this borrows visual height.
  4. The darkest shade on the outer third only, in a sideways comma, blended diagonally up toward the temple.
  5. A satin highlight in the centre of the lid and at the inner corner.
  6. A nude, beige or soft pink pencil on the lower waterline instead of black.
  7. Tightlining along the upper lash roots with a fine waterproof pencil — definition without width.
  8. Curler, then mascara, weighted toward the outer half of the upper lashes.

Choosing shades

Reach for shades two or three tones deeper than your skin rather than the darkest colour in the palette. Extreme contrast between a very pale lid and a near-black crease fragments the shape. Soft taupe, warm brown and terracotta build depth that reads as dimension rather than as a line.

Matte for the crease, satin for the lid centre. Heavy glitter across the whole lid emphasises the skin, not the eye.

Test it honestly

Do one eye the new way and one the old way, then look from arm's length rather than up close. Distance is where the nude waterline and the lifted blending prove themselves — close to the mirror both eyes look fine.

If you change only one thing, change the waterline. It takes three seconds and does more than a full palette.

Placement guides for other eye shapes are in the makeup section; long-wear shadows, kajal pencils and mascaras are listed in the current catalogue on faberlic.com.