I had to learn to use most make-up on my own... not having sisters or anything. I never tried any until I was 20 or so... anyway, I got pretty good at it fairly quickly, so have no fear, you can do it too.
I had to do my eyes a certain way when I was a flight attendant too, they had make-up rules. It had to be there, but not tooo obvious.
I do something everyone else avoids doing. When people leave that gap between the eyelined area and the actual eye.. it always stands out too much to me, especially if it's pink from irritation or just a naturally brighter color or something. So I line as close to my eye as I can get without the color actually getting in my eye when I'm done. If the color never touches the eyeball, no watery eye or irritaion occurs, and no big gap either.
You should experiment with this, and any other make-up, at home when you have nothing much to do or places to go. The first few times you need to take your time, and if you make a mistake, be able to just go wash it off and let your eyes calm down in peace. After you've applied eyeliner a few times, your eye is less prone to get irritated and water profusely.
So... most importantly, Never pull on your eye skin to apply liner. This will give you wrinkles and your eyes will water and mess up the make-up. Plus you won't have a good enough idea of where your eye naturally contacts your under-eye skin. Instead, set your hand applying the liner on your cheekbone area.
It does take a little practice.
You want a soft liner! Don't get one of those hard pencils... no matter how good someone claims they are.. they will tug and pull and make you miserable, plus wrinkles later. Soft liners can be hard to pick... some packages say they are soft but aren't. One that unscrews out is going to be nice and soft. Some that you can sharpen are nicely soft, but it's hard to tell the difference and you can't pull them out of the package to check
I actually use one made by NYC. You can find it in
walmart or any drugstore. It's actually in a little tiny jar and it has a tiny, thin brush for applying.
It's liquid soft and less likely to wear off as power based liners. Plus I find using the brush a bit easier than a long pencil. And I would rather stab myself in the eye with a brush than with a pencil, who knows why.
When applying... get close to the mirror.. and focus in on the exact area you are coloring. Don't look at the brush, don't look at your face, look in the mirror and zero in on that thin line you want to make.
Start from the outside corners of your eye. The side of your palm rests on your cheekbone... play around with it a bit until you find the position that gives you the steadiest hand. Use your right hand to do your left eye, left hand for right eye.
You aren't going to line your whole under-eye in one sweep.. little increments are what you want. Line a small increment, and pull your hand away.. evaluate how it's going so far and how you are going to adjust the line when you do the next increment. Don't hurry.
At the outside corner of your eye, make the color as thick or as subtle as you want it to be. You can always do it differently next time. I like to make my line medium-thick at the very outermost corner.. then gradually thin it down.. so by the middle of my eye, it's a thin line.. as I get towards the inside of my eye, I make it super thin and light.. and then I stop before I get to the part that makes water (LOL). I don't go past the natural under-eye area. I don't do the top line because it looks too much to me.
So try it out at home... and then don't worry if you don't get it right the first time... just try it again, experiment with color in different ways and find what works the best for you.
I spent so much time learning to put on make-up in the car, then in planes and crazily driven airport shuttles first thing in the morning. Everyone always asked me how I didn't poke my eye you while we were careening around corners
My hand just knew when changes were coming before the rest of my brain did
So don't worry... your hand will get the hang of it too... soon enough you can put on liner without really thinking about it... and no more worrying about poking out your eyeball
