How I Finally Broke My Eyeliner Addiction and Learned to Like My Face

I don’t really know how to do makeup. Blush, contouring? Not a clue. I can’t really even apply eye shadow without looking like I have a black eye. When it comes to the finer elements of makeup application, I may be a lost cause.

But eyeliner? I know my eyeliner.

In seventh grade, my mom took me to the Clinique counter at Macy’s, where a kind, middle-aged makeup artist taught me the basics – dots of concealer on my acne-prone skin, a bit of foundation, a swipe of mascara… and the eyeliner. Oh, the eyeliner.
It was the start of a long-term love affair.

I never built upon my minimalist makeup process because, in the days before YouTube, I never learned how. But every day, I applied the crowning glory of my routine, a perfectly drawn line across both lids. Eventually, I graduated to liquid liner, perfecting the art of the cat-eye.

In high school, a popular girl lamented that she couldn’t get her eyeliner to look as good as mine did. Years later, on Instagram, pretty, successful bloggers commented on my selfies to say the same thing. The world agreed: My eyeliner was my superpower. These compliments only intensified my attachment to my makeup security blanket.

Read the rest of this essay on Her View From Home.