Aug 19, 2015 - Dear LovelySkin, Is it safe to line my waterline? Eyeliner seems to find a home in one of two places under the eye. People either.
In a test, liner worn on the waterline, like left, wore off up to 30 per cent quicker than the women who had theirs below the waterline, right The migration of eyeliner beneath here was comparatively slower. According to, the results suggest that wearing eyeliner on the rim may be a bad idea for people who wear contacts or have sensitive eyes. 'In the best-case scenarios, the makeup may cause discomfort, bind to your contact lenses, or temporarily blur your vision,' writes Elizabeth Narins. 'But in the worst-case scenarios, it could set you up for an eye infection. If your eyeliner harbors bacteria, using it to line the inner rims of your eyes could be just as bad as shoving it into your eye.' Researchers found that liner worn on the waterline wore off up to 30 per cent quicker than the women who had theirs below the waterline - and it's healthier for contact lens wearers Speaking to FEMAIL, Glenn Carp, expert Ophthalmic Surgeon at London Vision Clinic, said: 'Wearing eyeliner inside or outside the lash line is a personal choice. However, applying your eyeliner outside of the lash line can minimise your risk of scratching the eye, or getting an infection.
'While using eyeliner on the waterline is safe in its own right, problems can arise through inadvertently touching the eye itself.' Also, as, by applying on the lash line you run the risk of the eyeliner contacting the eye. If this happens regularly, it could lead to the eye becoming irritable, red and in some cases swollen where the chemicals in the make-up have made contact with the eye. Dab concealer just below your lash line to keep liner in place.
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Achieve the perfect winged eyeliner by outing a triangle on the corner of your eye and filling it in. Make your liner more vibrant by applying white liner first and then going over it with black. Struggling to get that line perfect? Do it as best you can and then buff it out with a cotton bud dipped in Vaseline.
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Draw a line of little black dots and then join them. Get the perfect feline flick by positioning a spoon on its side on your eye socket and tracing it with your pen. Using the edge of a credit card works wonders, too.
The waterline—a beauty term, not a medical term—is the line of skin between the eyelashes and the eye. It’s as close to your eye as you can put eyeliner without actually drawing on your cornea. Except, according to this study, it might just amount to drawing on your cornea anyway.
Over the course of two visits, researchers drew eyeliner both outside the lash line and “behind the lash line” (or on the waterline) on the three female subjects’ eyes. They used a glittery pencil, because the glitter particles would be easier to track. Then, researchers filmed subjects’ eyes for 30 seconds while they blinked, and analyzed the video to see how many glitter particles ended up in the tear film—the thin coating on the surface of the eye.
Average Number of Particles in Eye Over Time Eye and Contact Lens Science and Clinical Practice Small as this study is, the researchers concluded that “it would be beneficial to advise patients to reserve the application of eyeliner pencils to anterior to the lash line.” Especially for people who wear contacts—though the study didn’t look at that, the lead author Alice Ng, of the University of Waterloo in Canada, speculated in: 'People who wear contact lenses are most likely to notice some problems. If they have eyeliner stuck to their lenses, increasing deposits might cause vision disruption as the lens becomes cloudier.' Some temporary glitter in your vision may be the worst consequence of coloring too close to your eye—it’s not clear what, if any, effects of long-term exposure there might be. But the Food and Drug Administration also notes that old makeup can get contaminated with bacteria and possibly cause eye infection. For mascara, two to four months is the limit, to be sure you get rid of it before things start growing in those tubes. In any case, this study is a good reminder that no matter how crisp that line is when you draw it on, the boundary between eye and eyelid is fuzzier.
The farther from the eye you draw your eyeliner, the safer you'll be—for maximum safety, consider the bottoms of your feet. We want to hear what you think about this article. To the editor or write to [email protected].
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