Just Wing It

Winged eyeliner is a sexy, seductive and bold new way to accentuate your baby blues… or greens, or browns, or hazels

Want to add a little drama to your look? Try one of this season's hottest new techniques—winged eyeliner. "It's a beautiful and sharp look for day and night," says Miami-based makeup artist Marissa Nemes, noting that it's becoming more acceptable to take risks with makeup. This is one trend she believes will have staying power.

This look is similar to the "cat-eye" technique first made popular in the '50s in which smoky shadows were used to line the eyes in black, making the outer corners pointed like a cat. In this case, it's all about the liner, which is extended outward beyond the outer corners of your eyes to give them the illusion of being bigger and more open.

"It's a sexy look and many eye shapes can pull this off," says Nemes. She explains how to create the look below:

Choose Your Lining Weapon
To get this look right, you'll need to use an eyeliner that you're comfortable applying and that works well with your skin type and eye shape. Nemes prefers gel-based liner, but you may find that a liquid or a crayon works better for you.

Gel: Try Maybelline Eye Studio Lasting Drama Gel Eyeliner, a smudgeproof and waterproof formula that comes complete with a brush to make creating a winged look easy.

Liquid: Bold effects like winged liner are often best created with a liquid liner, and Benefit Cosmetics Magic Ink is a cult favorite in the category.

Pen: For eye pencil faithfuls, a pen will probably be the easiest way for you to apply liquid liner. It will feel the same in your hand but give you better results for the winged technique. We like Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner. Crayon: If you're not comfortable using liquid liner, a crayon may be your best bet. Try POP Beauty Cat Eyes Eye Crayon.

Get the Look
Step 1: For this look, you want to keep your eyes as bare as possible. You're creating a statement with the winged eyeliner and you don't want a "busy eye" to take away from the main event. So, start with a sheer illuminating shadow across your lid from your lash line to your brow bone, applying a little more in the inner corners to bring light to the eyes.

Step 2: With a steady hand, tilt your black eyeliner and start from the inner corners of your right eye and continue outward. Keep on going beyond the spot you usually stop lining, to extend a bit beyond the natural outer corner. While Nemes says this look is work-appropriate, you may want to extend the wing even farther if you're creating this look for a night out. You could go as far as making the liner symmetrical to the ends of the brow, being careful that the symmetry from the inner eye to the outer eye is perfectly even.

Step 3: Continue by lining your left eye to match. Check to make sure both eyes match and that your lines are even.

Step 4: Complete the look with a few swipes of mascara.