Last weekend, I hosted a party at my apartment. While mixing drinks for the first guests, I got a phone call from my friend Sasha:
“I’m on my way. Do you have an eye-pencil sharpener?”
When she arrived, she was wearing a man’s button-up shirt printed with fighter jets as a dress. There was no makeup on her eyes (I assumed this was what the emergency eye-pencil sharpener was for), but her lips told another story: They were a deep, dark Hague blue.
I led Sasha to the bathroom and touched up my own makeup as she sharpened her eyeliner pencil. To my surprise, she then took the pencil not to her bare eyelids, but to her navy-blue mouth. She had realized that since eyeliner is waterproof (and one's lips are often wet), it could easily double as lipliner. Plus, it's smudge-proof (and requires makeup remover to take off) — something any New York girl is always in search of.
I knew I could trust Sasha’s beauty instincts ever since she showed me a photo series she had created depicting her grandmother in recreations of Hood By Air, Jeremy Scott, and Rodarte's runway beauty looks. The application process is low-maintenance; you just line the lips as if you were using a lip pencil, and then fill them in. Note: The color looks best when it's opaque, so applying a few layers with the tip of the liner is key. And, since the possibilities are endless, it's easy to experiment with different looks.
"The best part about my new discovery is that you have so many options and can really get as specific as you want in terms of color; it’s like opening a Crayola crayon box," says Sasha. "And the options don’t stop there, since every eyeliner comes in matte and shimmer."
For a more natural look, Sasha and I immediately fell in love with the Marc Jacobs Twinkle Pop Eye Stick in Leila 416, a rosy-copper shade that brightens your original lip color. And while these neutral hues are easy to throw on, the fun in transforming liner to lipstick is getting to play around with some wild and crazy colors.
Taking cues from the metallic performers in Central Park, Sasha spiced things up with the Sephora Collection Colorful Shadow & Liner in 03 Grey, a silver, Tin Man-esque stain that's perfect for fall. For other darker tints to rock this autumn, try a botanical shade, like Sephora Collection Colorful Shadow & Liner in 09 Kaki, which she describes as a “really weird olive color that is amazing;” an eggplant purple, along the lines of Urban Decay’s 24/7 Glide-On Lip Pencil in Delinquent, is a great, daring selection for evening.
When you opt for an unexpected shade (like silver or green), the best part is not having to worry about coordinating with your skin tone. Instead, you can just pick whichever colors you like best, allowing for some serious experimentation (and fun). "Obviously, there are going to be some that are just not as flattering on your skin tone as others, but sometimes you want that, too," she says. "Sometimes, something so wrong can look so right if you do it with enough authority and defiance."
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