Gel, Liquid, or Pencil Eyeliner — and What Actually Goes On First

Liquid liner gives the crispest, most precise, high-pigment line and dries down fully so it doesn't budge — best suited to sharp, defined shapes like a wing, but least forgiving of a shaky hand or a mistake, since it doesn't blend once it sets. Golden Opera Red Lip's tutorial calls for exactly this: "a thick, sharply winged liner with intense black liquid liner," applied for a precise, dramatic cat eye.

Gel liner, usually applied with a separate brush from a pot, sits between liquid and pencil in precision — a little softer to apply than liquid but still buildable and precise, popular for winged looks where a slightly softer edge than liquid's crispness is the goal. Pencil and kohl liner are the most forgiving and blendable of the three, easy to smudge intentionally for a soft, smokey effect — Sultry Gothic Glam's "smudged liner and shadow blended for a dramatic, vampy effect" leans on exactly this quality — but less precise for a sharp line and more prone to fading or transferring over a long day than liquid or gel.

Eyeshadow before eyeliner is the more common order, and Golden Opera Red Lip's real tutorial follows it exactly — Cut-Crease Gold Shimmer is step two, and the Dramatic Cat Eye liner is step three, done after the eyeshadow. Doing it this way lets any eyeshadow fallout get cleaned up before the crisp liner line goes on, and lets the liner be placed precisely against the eyeshadow shape that's already there, rather than guessing where the shadow will end up relative to a line drawn first.

Eyeliner before eyeshadow is mainly useful for a graphic or deliberately precise liner shape, where the eyeshadow needs to be blended right up to or around an already-set line, rather than the liner needing to sit cleanly on top of soft, blended shadow edges. Mascara last, after both eyeshadow and eyeliner, avoids transferring wet mascara onto liner or lid while it's being carefully placed, and lets it catch any small fallout left over from the earlier steps at the lash line.

A precise, structured look like Golden Opera Red Lip's calls for liquid liner applied after eyeshadow, in that exact order, to get a clean line against an already-placed shadow shape. A softer, more blended look like Sultry Gothic Glam's tolerates far more flexibility in order, since smudging liner and shadow together is the actual point rather than something to avoid.

Pick either look from the library, or upload a screenshot of a different eyeliner look you found, and see the formula and shape rendered on your own photo before deciding what to pick up. Every result comes with a step-by-step tutorial and the product categories used. First three tries are free, no signup required.