As a woman of a certain age, I’m always looking for ways to improve my skin and disguise signs of aging. My personal preference is to do this naturally, without the use of Botox and fillers. While cruising around YouTube, I noticed how several makeup tutorials were demonstrating how to apply eye shadow and liner. It occurs to me that it should be said that treating your eye area with appreciation and extreme care is vital.
In my 20’s, I was tugging this way and that and pulling up my lid to fill in the water line with black and white pencils depending on the look of the moment. Nowadays, I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that. Not that I don’t like the look, but there’s no way I would tug around my precious eye skin for a bit of color. Fuggetabout the counter girls with their bulbous beauty blenders…and I used to be one!
So, I did a bit ‘o research about various techniques and spoke with my doctor consultant. Here are some things to be aware of:
- Vigorously tugging and pulling on eyelids may cause micro-traumas that create small tears in elastin fibers. Not a good look.
- Some eye makeup products may contain ingredients that can “gunk up” the eye area. Foreign substances may enter the lacrimal glands (tear ducts), causing inflammation and potential infection. Take a look at our makeup removal article to learn more.
- Be extra careful when choosing products that are applied to your waterline. This area is essentially a mucus membrane. Anything applied to this area will be readily absorbed into your body. At second 55 of this video you can check out a technique that gives me pause.
- Beware of online makeup tutorials. Intense, aggressive blending on the crease of eyelids may negatively affect the integrity of your skin. If you skip to minute 2:11 of this video she’s tugging like I did in my 20’s. No bueno.
- Use the softest brushes you can find. Since I always recommend cruelty-free products, I found these bamboo, vegan brushes.
Here is an example of a beauty vlogger using a gentle touch. You see, you can get away with these things for several decades, but it does catch up with you! Since we live so much longer these days, it’s more important than ever to use a gentle touch around the eyes.
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