A little overlining of the lips can create a perfectly plump pout in no time. And if you’re looking to make your eyes appear bigger and more open, there are certainly ways to use makeup to do that as well.

Below, we’re sharing a handful of expert-approved makeup tips for what to do (and not do) to make your eyes appear as open and bright as possible. Doe eyes, here you come.

1. Start with skincare

Before you even begin your makeup routine, you can create brighter eyes using the right skincare products. Look for an eye cream or under-eye patches that help to depuff, hydrate, and correct dark circles.

TULA SKINCARE’s Eye Feel Amazing Cooling & Brightening Hydrogel Eye Mask is one of our favorite eye care products for bright, awakened eyes. The under-eye patches use probiotic extracts, hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, and green coffee caffeine to hydrate, depuff, and wake up the entire eye area–all before you’ve even applied a drop of makeup.

2. Cover up dark circles with under-eye concealer

Dark circles can create the illusion of a shadow around your eye area, making it appear smaller overall. To help make the entire eye area appear brighter and illuminated, use a brightening concealer on the under-eyes to even out the skin tone.

Pro tip: Try applying the concealer in the shape of an inverted triangle under your eyes to create a “triangle of light” underneath the eyes. For a full rundown on how to tackle that technique, read our tutorial on how to apply concealer.

3. Blend your eyeshadow up to your brow

“My most used technique to make eyes appear bigger is taking eyeshadow very close to the brow,” says makeup artist Lennie Billy. “This gives the illusion that your lid space is bigger and opens the eyes more, especially if you have hooded eyes.

4. Use brightening eyeshadow shades

Speaking of eyeshadow, the shades you use can make a big impact on how bright and open your eyes look. “When it comes to eyeshadow colors, Billy says, “Using light to medium tone shadows will help your eyes look more open.” She likes using pastels, light shimmer shades, and light brown eyeshadows on the mobile lid to create the illusion of bigger eyes.

For a range of eye-opening eyeshadow options, look for an eyeshadow palette that features these sort of shades. COMPLEX CULTURE’s Full Time Eyeshadow Palette offers a nice mix of brightening neutrals and shimmer shades for a delicate, doe-eyed look.

5. Brighten your waterline

Tightlining the eyes with a dark brown or black liner is great for a boost of drama, but it can also make your eyes appear smaller. For an eye-opening effect, try swapping dark liner for white eyeliner or nude eyeliner like the TARTE Fake Awake Eye Highlight. Billy says she loves to use a nude eye pencil along the upper and lower waterline for bigger, wider-looking eyes.

6. Create smoky eye looks strategically

“Depending on the shape of the eyeshadow application, smoky eyes can make your eyes look smaller,” says Billy. “It’s not that if you have small eyes you can’t wear a smokey look, but I would recommend you keep the most pigmented part of your eyeshadow lower on your lid and blend it very well from the middle up so it looks more like a gradient and less like a huge saturated patch of color.”

Billy typically avoids creating a black smoky eye on small eyes, but if that’s your jam, she says, “I would recommend you incorporate dark browns or even gray to lower the intensity of the black shadow. Also, use a dark brown pencil on the waterline instead of black to avoid making the eyes look smaller.”

7. Illuminate the inner corners of the eyes

“I always recommend adding a hint of shimmer or light matte shade to the brow bone and inner corners to return light to the eyes,” says Billy. Adding just a touch of an illuminating shade is key for making the eyes pop–whether you’re rocking a neutral eye look or a smoky eye. 

Try using a brightening shimmer eyeshadow stick like the BEAUTY FOR REAL Shadow STX 24-7 to easily apply product to the inner corner of your eyes. You can also dab a touch of a highlighter like the OFRA COSMETICS Highlighter in Blissful to create the same effect.

8. Curl and define your lashes

This super simple step can really make all the difference. Straight lashes can cast a shadow on the eye area. Curling them up with a lash curler will instantly open up the eye area. Follow up this step with a curling mascara like the BENEFIT COSMETICS Roller Lash Mascara to further curl and define the lashes along both your upper lash line and lower lash line.

Looking for a full makeup tutorial on how to curl your eyelashes like a pro? We’ve got you.

9. Avoid thick eyeliner lines

Creating ultra-thick, Amy Winehouse-style eyeliner lines may not end up doing you any favors if you’re looking to create an eye-opening makeup look. Instead, allow those light, illuminating eyeshadow shades to shine by creating super thin eyeliner lines using either a sharpened pencil eye pencil or a fine-tipped liquid liner.

A precision liner like the ILLAMASQUA Liquid Eyeliner is perfect for creating razor-thin lines or an eye-opening cat eye.

10. Shape your brows

A little bit of eyebrow shaping can make a big difference. By creating an arched shape, you’re essentially lifting the ceiling of the eye area, allowing it to look bigger and more open. You can further open up the area via the brows by trying laminated brows or by using a brow gel that will help your brow hairs stay uplifted throughout the day.

Ready to become an eye makeup pro? Take our Beauty Quiz now to get started. Already an Ipster? Refer your friends to earn points, which you can use toward products. Either way, don’t forget to check us out on Instagram and Twitter @IPSY.

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Aided by nifty social-media marketing, rising digitisation and the advent of e-commerce beauty platforms, the cosmetics industry in India is headed for a major boom in sales. However, to stay relevant, brands, big or small, must continuously adapt to emerging trends, such as eco-friendly and durable makeup products.

Move over fashion and beauty magazines. Tens of millions of Indian women, young and not so young, are looking at their smartphones for the latest hot tips on beauty and make-up as Indian beauty influencers such as Kaushal Beauty, Shreya Jain and Malvika Sitlani have garnered hundreds of millions of views on their YouTube channels and Instagram accounts with creative makeup tutorials and beauty advice. This boom has been enabled by the massive and rapid shift to smartphones across India and availability of cheap data on all mobile connections, across the country.

Demographic growth, improving socio-economic standards and large-scale development of digital and manufacturing sectors has resulted in a booming demand for cosmetic products in India, which is no longer restricted to metro and mini-metro urban centres, but also equally powerful in the rural areas. The evidence of this boom in rural areas can be seen in how almost every village in India now has a beauty salon: no longer a luxury only reserved for the wealthy townsfolk.

Even in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, as several businesses in the country and indeed around the world faced devastating financial losses, beauty products showed quite a lot of resilience despite restrictions and months of lockdown, and have made an impressive comeback in sales as lockdowns eased.

Globally, the beauty industry, which constitutes an endless variety of skincare, makeup and hair products, amounts to a staggering USD 511 billion, and it is projected to reach USD 716.6 billion by 2025. Two of the world’s biggest markets are the United States, with USD 62.46 billion, and China with USD 69.4 billion. The Indian beauty industry may be catching up as well, jumping from a mere USD 11 billion in 2017 and is expected to close USD 30 billion by 2025.

Those in the beauty business in India believe this boom can largely be attributed to the sudden influx of e-commerce retailers focused on the beauty segment. Leading companies like Nykaa and Purplle have been especially crucial in helping smaller brands and startups make strides in the market. For example, Earthyblend, a Bengaluru-based personal care company focusing on vegan, environment-friendly and safe products, introduced its brand True Frog in early 2020.

“Earlier we were dependent on small outlets. After Nykaa came in, we picked up on sales and this focus on e-commerce has really contributed to the growth of the beauty industry. We don’t see any kind of decline happening; it’s only going to grow,” Merlin Atman, marketing manager at Earthyblend, tells Media India Group.

Initially founded in 2021 as a start-up, Nykaa, India’s leading cosmetics e-commerce company, has grown into a top destination for beauty products, and now has its not only its own brand of makeup and skincare products, but also its own chain of physical outlets, with a revenue of INR 18.5 billion in the year ending March 31, 2020. Its success has spurred a number of smaller competitors including Plum and Amazon-backed MyGlamm.

Online retail is also an important reason why the Covid-19 pandemic has not had too much of a devastating impact on the cosmetics industry. Although the lockdowns in 2020 reduced average monthly sales of skincare, for example, by more than 30 pc compared to December 2019, the month of June, as “unlock” began, brought a high rate of recovery in value sales.

“We are experiencing approximately 20 pc growth every month. We did have some initial issues with production because of Covid-19 but with regards to sales, it actually went up because of the change in shopping habits; people sitting at home started to shop online a lot more. I believe the beauty industry has been quite resilient to the pandemic,” says Atman.

Modern marketing

Surveys have also found that the digital shift is a large factor in the growth of the beauty industry in India. The 2020 Connected Beauty Consumer report, a joint survey by Google, Kantar, a data aggregator, and WPP, an advertising company, revealed that Indian beauty consumers are shifting their attention from television to digital avenues, and heavily relying on social media platforms such as YouTube make-up video tutorials to buy beauty products online. Among the consumers surveyed, 81 pc engaged with beauty creators on YouTube, with 26 pc purchasing a product as a direct result. The study also revealed that the gender divide was mostly non-existent, with both men and women showing similar interest in the industry and averaging three beauty products per month.

This shifting landscape means cosmetics companies must also adapt to keep up with consumer preferences.

“At Earthyblend, we primarily focus on social-media marketing, advertising our products through online beauty influencers, and usually targeting the small, growing ones. Nowadays, social media plays a huge role in a company’s advertising strategy and growth because it offers clarity on the product and it gives people a way to figure out if the product is the right choice for them. They can see the product in action, they can get first-hand feedback from similar people who are actually using them, so that has helped us a lot because it gives us proof of the product quality and how it has helped them,” explains Atman.

Seba Sulthana is an Instagram beauty influencer from Kochi in Kerala, who often makes quick transition reels showcasing creative makeup looks. She explains that a crucial part of gaining a following on apps like Instagram is audience engagement and picking up on viral trends. This is what attracts brands looking for beauty gurus to advertise their products, and big influencers on the platform can get paid ranging from INR 15,000-25,000 per post.

“The brand’s focus is to reach maximum engagement with their product so obviously they would prefer someone with a larger audience for paid collaborations. I have done some barter collaborations with brands, where they provide you with the free product and you make a reel in return,” Sulthana tells Media India Group.

It seems like a win-win situation for brands, as they can avoid spending millions in expensive deals with famous celebrities and yet achieve the same goal of brand loyalty, enticing young consumers to purchase their products.

“Influencers are the need of the hour for the beauty industry right now, and if they promote something there are more chances that people will go ahead and buy them. They are the people who resonate most with regular customers as they interact everyday with their audience and have a closer connection with them, which is not the case with big celebrities or actors,” she adds.

Green and clean cosmetics

According to a research report by Goldstein, there is rising awareness among Indian consumers of the side effects of chemical formulation-based cosmetics, with recent trends showing an increasing demand for herbal cosmetic products. Globally, the clean beauty market is growing rapidly as well, expected to reach over USD 54 billion by 2027, according to Statista.

EarthyBlend is one such company, focusing on using only vegan ingredients in their formulas and being completely anti-animal testing, as well as working on creating biodegradable and sustainable packing solutions for their products.

“A lot of what is put out in the market is not as clean as brands claim it to be, so we wanted to give the best we could within this price range. There is a huge awareness growing about clean beauty and people are actively seeking innovation and new brands in this category,” says Atman.

Some of India’s leading green brands are Lotus Herbals, Biotique and Himalaya Herbals. These companies do, however, charge higher prices than chemical cosmetic brands, and Atman explains that although awareness is increasing, the increased price of being eco-friendly does deter some potential customers.

“We aim to strike a balance between price and really good, international-standard quality. We ensure that the product never gives you any allergies and is completely safe for long-term use. We are also mindful of the sustainability aspect, as it is important to us to ensure our products don’t harm the people who are using it and by extension the environment as well. Most body care products are used in the bath, so we make sure our products do not pollute groundwater or become toxic waste and contribute to environmental pollution,” she adds.

Retail sales of cosmetics and other personal care products is growing at 15-20 pc annually, therefore making domestic demand in India one of the fastest growing across the world, and industry players like Atman believe that as brands continue to innovate and create education around trends such as clean beauty, skincare, and digital advertising, the market will continue to experience massive growth.

“We are only in India right now, but we are looking to expand internationally in the next few years. Earlier, it may not have been possible, but with online access we can now reach anywhere we want, and Indian brands definitely have enough expertise and knowledge to compete with foreign brands. We’re just getting started!” says Atman.