So for a fairly short while earlier this year, glossy eyelids had their moment. Makeup artists would slap on a glossy lid in photo editorials that had the word “summer” in the title, a hat tip to the accumulation of sweat associated with activities done on humid, sunny days. They were seen on catwalks, magazines, advertisements, and fashion spreads, which meant having oily eyelids was kinda okay.
Image source: Tom Pecheux
Thankfully, there are a million ways of replicating the wet gloss look without actually waiting for your eyelids to get all oiled up. I tried on two of the most common methods to determine whether or not they were any good for uses outside a fashion spread, with surprising results.
The lip gloss method
I actually hate lip gloss, and the only I one that I do have looks like red lipstick (of course it does). So as if it weren’t weird enough to walk around with glossy eyelids, they were going to be RED glossy lids. I applied the Inglot Sleeks Cream in #103 on my middle finger and gently dabbed it all over my eyelids.
I thought I’d end up looking like Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter, but I actually got more of a Lady Vengeance vibe from it. This is the kind of look you’d see on a Shu Uemura photo campaign too, and not real life — but I kinda dig it. Red eyeliner is making a resurgence of sorts anyway, so why not take it one step further with a glossy sheen?
But nothing good ever lasts — about thirty minutes into wearing it, the gloss started to collect and into my eyelid crease. It even started to melt and collect at the corners of the bottom lids. The look required maintenance and touching up every thirty minutes to keep that consistent glossy sheen. It’s cute but far from practical, and yet I still don’t hate it.
The Vaseline approach
If you hate lip gloss more than I do and don’t own any, you can turn to Vaseline for a cheap and easy solution. The only Vaseline I had on hand was one made for lips, but it’s basically made of the same thing. Petroleum jelly is clear, which means you can wear your favorite shade of eyeshadow underneath it to suit your moods. I tried out a shimmery blue and silver shadow by Kiko, let it settle for two minutes, ad then dabbed the Vaseline gently over it.
I only applied the Vaseline to my left eyelid, and even then it was a nightmare to deal with. The petroleum jelly rolled down into my eyelashes, giving me clumpy eyelashes; total fail! The application was difficult to control too, resulting the eyeshadow getting splotched up all over the place. I didn’t really feel like I had glam glossy lids — they kinda looked like diseased lids.
In the end, I was surprised by how much I didn’t hate the look of a glossy lid when applied with a lip gloss — but as predicted, this is not a low-maintenance look. Still, if you’re willing to touch-up the gloss every half hour, I don’t see why you can’t wear this on the daily. But what do you think of the glossy lid? Does this look like something you’d like to try out, or something that’s better off in the pages of a beauty editorial?
