Kajal

Kajal is the South Asian eye black: a soft, dense line on the waterline, often smudged along the lower lashes. At home it is soot worked into fat. In a study of new mothers in rural Punjab published in 2023, the researchers describe kajal as black soot mixed in butter, put on babies’ eyes and pressed as a black dot on the forehead against nazar, the evil eye; one mother used only the kajal her mother-in-law made.^[1] Writing in 1940, the Indologist Moti Chandra took it that ordinary people had long blackened their eyes with lamp black applied with a finger, “as today”.^[2]

That separates it from its neighbours. Surma and kohl, in the regions that use those names, are often ground minerals, lead ore among them, and in testing in Washington State kajal carried far less lead than either.^[3] The word now also names a product: a twist-up stick, crayon or soft pencil, sold by international houses, that gives the same black rim from pigments the law allows.

Soot is not a safe alternative to lead, only a different problem. Indian kajal preparations analysed in 1988 held a median of 851.3 micrograms per gram of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.^[4] Some of those combustion products are carcinogens, which is why the carbon black American cosmetics may use, D&C Black No. 2, listed for eyeliner in 2004, is a furnace black that must come from a batch certified by the FDA, with no more than 0.5 milligrams of them per kilogram: 0.5 micrograms per gram.^[5] Nor is kajal always free of lead. One brought from Afghanistan to Albuquerque, and used on two small children, was 54 per cent lead.^[6]

The law follows the material. The FDA counts kajal among the traditional eye cosmetics it has never approved as colour additives,^[7] and its import alert lists for detention kajal from makers in Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Karachi, and an Italian cream eyeliner sold as oriental kajal.^[8] A pencil that uses the name for its look is another matter. The FDA notes that some eye cosmetics carry the word kohl only to name a shade, and that a properly labelled one can be checked against its list of colours approved for the eye;^[9] a kajal pencil stands in the same place. Every pick here is sold that way, as an ordinary cosmetic, by a maker selling to American readers.

Start with the form. A twist-up stick or a chunky crayon lays down a soft, wide line and never needs a sharpener; a wooden pencil keeps a finer point but has to be sharpened; some come with a smudger at the other end. Then the wear. Many kajals sold now are made to set: they stay movable for twenty seconds or a minute, then turn waterproof. Softer ones smudge more easily, which suits a hazy lower line better than a long day.

Choose one whose maker says it is for the waterline, and read the claims closely: one house here gives a shorter wear time on the waterline than on the lid. Black is the classic, but brown, bronze and navy give the same shape with less contrast. Look for the ingredient list that any cosmetic sold at retail in the United States must carry;^[10] a kajal without one, or bought loose from a market stall, is not for the inner rim of anyone’s eye. None of these is made for children.

Kajal is at its best on the lower waterline, the moist inner rim of the lid. Blot the rim dry with a cotton bud, look up, draw the lid gently down at the outer corner and stroke the kajal along the rim; then run it along the base of the lower lashes and smudge it outward with a fingertip or a small brush before it sets. On the upper lid, press colour into the roots of the lashes from beneath, or draw a thicker line and pull it out into a soft wing.

Because it touches the eye itself, hygiene matters more than with anything else in the bag. Wash your hands first, wipe or reshape the tip before each use, never share it, stop at the first irritation, and throw it away after an eye infection.^[11] At night, take it off with an oil-based cleanser or an eye makeup remover rather than by rubbing.

Black for the eyes enters the South Asian record as something sacred. The Vedic texts speak of anjana, an eye salve a priest applied to the eyes of the sacrificer; the Pali monastic code allowed monks five eye ointments, and the fifth-century commentator Buddhaghosa glossed one of them, kapalla, as soot from the flame of a lamp. Kajjala, collyrium, was counted among four things a wife should not go without, beside turmeric, saffron and red lead.^[12]

The paste lasted because it could be made wherever a lamp burned, and it kept its protective meaning. In a survey of 200 mothers near Lucknow published in 2021, more than half had put kajal on their newborn’s eyes.^[13] The same persistence has brought it into clinics, where lead from some kajal, surma and kohl has been traced in children’s blood.^[14] The stick and the pencil are the name’s second life. Houses from Milan to Los Angeles now sell kajal made from pigments the law lists, and one calls its black Nazar No More, after the evil eye the old kajal was worn against. What they keep is the look: a black rim, drawn close and softened at the edge.