Angled liner brush

An angled liner is a tiny, thin wedge of firm fibres, cut on a sharp slant and set in a pinched ferrule on a long handle. It is pressed more than drawn. Laid against the roots of the lashes, the long edge prints a short, even line; moved along in overlapping presses, it builds a line of any length without the wobble of a single long stroke. The point of the slant draws the flick of a wing, and turned onto its edge the brush draws a line finer than its own width.

That makes it a forgiving liner brush to learn with. A fine, pointed liner brush draws the thinnest line and the sharpest wing but follows every tremor of the hand; a flat definer presses colour into the roots of the lashes without drawing an edge at all. The angled liner sits between them, and because the same slant fills sparse brows with short strokes, many makers sell it for both.

Firmness comes first. Gel and cream liners need a stiff brush that does not splay under pressure: press a good angled liner against the back of your hand and its fibres stay in a thin plane, with a straight edge. Most are synthetic, which suits gels and creams because the fibres do not soak them up; Smith Cosmetics makes its 205 of soft synthetic sable, which it says balances flexibility with control.

Then size and angle. A very small, sharply angled head, like Sigma’s E06, is made for the wing and a thin line; brushes sold for liner and brows alike, like MAC’s ultra-flat 263S or Clinique’s Eye Definer, lay a line quickly and fill brows as well. The steeper the slant, the finer the point; a firmer, slightly wider angle suits the short strokes of a brow. Look at the length of the fibres too: short fibres give control close to the lashes, and a brush that bends too far drags liner across the lid instead of printing it.

Read the description as well as the name. Some brushes sold as angled have a pointed head on a bent ferrule rather than a cut tip; those are fine liners, and they draw rather than press. An angled liner is one whose bristles are cut on the slant.

Load the brush lightly. Press both sides of the slant into a gel pot, or dampen the brush and press it into a powder shadow for a softer, matte line, then wipe the excess off on the back of your hand: too much product is what makes a pressed line blotchy. Looking down into a mirror, set the long edge against the upper lash line at the outer corner and press, then lift and press again a little further in, overlapping each print. Two or three passes make a thicker line; a thin one needs only one.

For a wing, look straight ahead, set the point at the outer corner and draw the slant up towards the tail of the brow in one short stroke, then join the top of the flick back to the line on the lid. Taking both eyes to the same stage before finishing either keeps them even. To tightline, press the edge up into the roots of the upper lashes from below while looking down.

Two habits spoil most pressed lines. One is starting too thick at the inner corner: begin thin at the inner third and let the line grow towards the outer corner, where it can carry more weight. The other is pressing too hard, which fans the fibres and blurs the edge. If the brush splays, lighten the pressure or wipe off some product, rather than going over the line again.

Clean the brush after every use with gel, because dried gel stiffens the fibres and opens the edge. Wipe it on a tissue, wash it with a mild cleanser, reshape the edge between your fingers and dry it lying flat.

The line along the lashes was drawn for a long time with whatever came to hand. The actor Cavendish Morton, setting out his own method in 1909, darkened the lashes “by drawing a thin line along the edges of the lids. This I do with an orange stick dipped in melted paint.” For Hamlet the line was “carried a little way out at the outer corner of the eyes”.^[1] A manicurist’s stick of orangewood, stage paint and a short extension at the corner: the parts of a winged line, without a brush.

By the 1960s the colour itself was being sold to be used either way. Among the eye make-up the British firm Eylure launched in the middle of the decade was Shadoliner, a “cake eye make-up that doubles as shadow or liner”,^[2] the kind of product that asks for a brush able to press powder into a line as easily as it spreads it.

When the first brush cut on a slant for eyeliner went on sale is not recorded in anything read for this page, and no claim to a first is made here. What the angled liner keeps from Morton’s orange stick is the method: colour laid along the edge of the lid in short, controlled touches, with the outer corner carried a little further out.