Alternative aesthetic screams edgy but jolly, eye-catching, yet mysterious appeal. Gives a trite image of someone artsy, off-center, and alternative or, as the internet would describe – an Alt girl. And what plays a significant role in giving you that kinda appearance, you assume? Makeup!
Obviously, other ornaments, hair, and clothes play a role too. But in a world of SNS (Social Networking Sites) where face comes first, makeup is the correct answer. Now what makes Alt makeup different from other makeup styles is- the eyeliner. This eyeliner style is so versatile that it has its own name, Alt Eyeliner, and has this whole article dedicated to how to ace it.
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WHAT IS ALT EYELINER?
Alt eyeliner is an emblem for all who follow Alternative aesthetics or lifestyle. Now you can tell Alt stands for an alternative.
Alt eyeliner is basically a dark black eyeliner all around your eyes in a graphic style. Includes massive and pointy wings, signs like- downward cross, hearts, stars, etc. And, of course, big false lashes.
THINGS YOU NEED TO NAIL ALT EYELINER
- Black Felt Tip Eyeliner
- White Pencil Eyeliner
- Pencil/Gel Eyeliner
- Eyeshadow (Optional)
You might have this question why do we need 3 eyeliners? This is because –
- Felt tip eyeliners, by nature, are matte; as a result, it gets really hard to blend once it’s applied.
- Felt-tip eyeliners are also tough to use on water lines.
However, A pencil eyeliner or a gel eyeliner does the job of blending at the edges and to the tight line pretty efficiently.
HOW TO DO ALT EYELINER (STEP BY STEP GUIDE)
1st STEP – Start extending your lower lash line and going up past your eye crease. You can draw the line longer if you want.
2nd STEP – After drawing that single line, bring it towards your crease, then go diagonally downwards till the line meets with your lash line. Fill in the wing.
3rd STEP – Draw a small wing on your inner corner, too, if you want. Connect both wings; keep the eyeliner thin on your eyelid.
4th STEP – Now, with a white pencil eyeliner, go all over your lower waterline and under the waterline.
5th STEP – Take your pencil eyeliner and smear a little bit on the outer corner of your lower lash line. Draw fake lashes there with felt-tip eyeliner.
6th STEP – Finally, if you want, You can soften the edges with black eyeshadow. This step is entirely optional, though.
A great follow-along tutorial –
WHAT OTHER MAKEUP DO YOU NEED TO COMPLETE YOUR ALT MAKEUP? HOW TO USE THEM?
The preceding steps focus only on the eyeliner part, excluding all the necessary actions before starting Alt eyeliner. Follow these instructions to complete your whole ALT makeup look.
- MOISTURIZER – Before everything, hydrate your skin; otherwise, all this makeup will take a toll on your skin.
- CONCEALER – Use a layer of concealer under your eyes to cover up any darkness or just to brighten up that area. You can use a second layer of concealer after you’re done with the foundation.
- FOUNDATION – Use a matching foundation all over your face for an even skin tone. Blend well with a beauty blender.
- SETTING POWDER – Put a fair amount of setting powder on your T zone with a sponge and press it on your skin. Then take this powder on a big brush to go all over your face to lightly set the makeup.
- CONTOUR – Contouring the nose is more important than contouring the face. Apply straight lines on both sides of your nose to make it sharp. Then apply loose powder right beside those lines. Let the powder sink in while you do your eye makeup.
- BROW PENCIL – Alt makeup aesthetic has a straight brow signature look. So often, people shave half their brows to get that refined pointy brow look. You don’t necessarily have to do that; brush up your brows with brow gel and fill them up with dark brow pencil.
- EYESHADOW – Thick Alt eyeliner covers up most of the eye space anyways. So you don’t have to put much effort into eyeshadow. You can use brown or pink shades for eyeshadow.
- HIGHLIGHTER – Applying a highlighter on the brow bone, the tip of your nose and nose bridge, and the inner corner of the eyes on chicks almost completes the makeup look. You can use a white eyeliner for that extra reflection.
- BLUSH – Blush on Alt makeup isn’t meant for rosy cheeks; it’s intended to give you a dead look but in a good way. Blush placement is usually from under the eyes to the temples. And the standard colors are light brown or burgundy shades.
- FRECKLES – Modern Alt makeup, especially the tutorials on TikTok, includes a lot of freckles. You, too, can add faux freckles to your alt makeup routine even though you may end up looking like an E-girl.
- EYELASHES – Eyelashes are a must in this aesthetic. The bigger the lashes, the better the whole look turns out. You don’t have to cut them in half like everyone does on an everyday makeup routine. But if you still want to dumb down the lashes a bit, here’s what you should do –
EXPERT TIPS ON CUTTING FALSE EYELASHES FOR ALT MAKEUP –
- If you want to shorten the length, always cut from the side with bigger lashes.
- Funky, big lashes have some long spiky lashes and then comparatively small lashes adjacently. Cut off the long spikes separately and wear them. Remember to curl your natural lashes and wear mascara, though. You can glue these lash parts underneath your natural lashes for a natural yet extra look. That way, the lash band won’t show at all.
ALT or ALTERNATIVE APPLICATION GUIDE FOR EVERY EY SHAPE –
One common suggestion for everyone is to not think much before applying eyeliner. Lashes cover up whatever flaws your liner has anyway. Keep that in mind, and be reckless.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ALT EYELINER ON MONOLID-SHAPED EYE
Monolid eye shapes have adequate space between brows and eye creases without any extra fold of skin interfering. So you’re free to draw whatever style or shape you want. However, applying thick, dark eyeliner all around the eye area might make the eyes appear smaller.
To open up the eyes, use white eyeliner on the lower lash line, especially on the outer corner. It’s a widespread makeup technique. Then draw fake thick lashes with felt tip eyeliner right where you applied white eyeliner.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ALT EYELINER ON HOODED-SHAPED & DOWNTURNED SHAPED EYE
People with hooded eyes be doing Alt eyeliner. Still, in point of fact, those are just puppy or bat wing eyeliner. You might have misconceptions like- you always need to wear extravagant eye makeup and big lashes to hide your hooded lid. Here’s a way that makes those invalid –
- USE STRAIGHT LINE TECHNIQUE TO DO ALT EYELINER ON HOODED & DOWNTURNED SHAPED EYES –
The main principle behind this technique, according to Wayne Goss, is the application of eyeshadow on your crease should go straight outwards. Let me elaborate more- when you apply eyeshadow on your eye crease or socket, you go around your eyes and accentuate the shape even more, right?
Wayne labels this as what goes up comes down. This makes your eyes look more hooded and downturned cause your eyes are naturally coming down. We want to lift the eyes. To do that, follow this guide which is divided into two parts for your convenience. And both are based on this Straight line technique.
- PART 1: GUIDE FOR THE EYESHADOW PART –
1st STEP – As we are dealing here with hooded and downturned-shaped eyes, it’s better to start from the lower lash line. Use any eyeshadow of your liking and apply it all over the lower lash line. This way, you’ll get a guideline of how far out to bring the eye shadow.
2nd STEP – Find the highest point of your eye, which is just above your pupil, and point it with a dot of eyeshadow. Now starting from that dot, go straight out.
EXPERT TIPS – Take a tissue paper and place it from the lower eyeshadow toward the outer part of your brows/brow bone. Now extend that eyeshadow straight till it hits the tissue paper. This way, your eyeshadow won’t curve down; if anything, it can curve up, which is okay too.
3rd STEP – Once you get a parallel eyeshadow application, fill the gaps on the outer V. Leave your eyelid.
EXPERT TIPS – Leave some space between the brows and eyeshadow for a natural highlight effect.
4th STEP – Gently blend the edges in. Extend and blend to the tail of the brow. Be very gentle.
5th STEP – Apply a very light eyeshadow on the inner corner of your eyes.
END RESULT: You’ll see the eye has that slight wing to it with a cat eye effect, giving the illusion of lifted eyes.
- PART 2: GUIDE FOR THE EYELINER PART –
Now that you have your eyeshadow work as a guideline, this part already became so much easier.
1st STEP – CHOOSE YOUR PREFERRED EYELINER: Felt-tip eyeliners are great for these types. Gives you a better grip with a matte finish.
2nd STEP – FIGURE OUT THE STARTING POINT: Go a little bit underneath your lower lash line; that should be your starting point.
3rd STEP – DRAW THE ALT EYELINER WING: While drawing the liner, don’t follow your lower lash line and go up; you want to go out. Follow the direction of that parallel eyeshadow work you just did. Once you’re done, start another line from the hood or outer crease and connect with the previously drawn line. It’ll look like an elongated arrow point. Now fill it up.
4th STEP – CONNECT THE WING WITH THE LASH LINE PROPERLY: Connect that line you previously started from your crease to your lash line by simply creating a small straight line with the felt tip. Use a pencil or gel eyeliner to fill the gaps between the wing and your eyes. After you’re done, take black eyeshadow on a small brush to buff out all the rough edges and set gel eyeliner.
5th STEP – TIGHTLINE: This step is totally optional. You can go through both your upper and lower waterline with pencil eyeliner.
6th STEP – WEAR FALSE EYELASHES: This Alt eyeliner look is more on the simple side. So wearing extravagant eyelashes won’t be so wise. What you can do is cut your lashes short a little bit. Always cut from the outside ( the more significant portion). Place the inner part of the falsies right above the starting point of your eye lens. This way of wearing false eyelashes goes well with the look.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ALT EYELINER ON UPTURNED AND ALMOND-SHAPED EYES
This duo can absolutely rock any Alt liner design. Draw as many graphic wings as you want, and your eyes will pull it off just fine. Add black hearts and crosses to spice up the whole look. Just go for it while drawing the wings. Being carefree and reckless gives you the perfect wings, after all.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ALT EYELINER ON ROUND-SHAPED EYES
To elongate round shape eyes, use a pencil eyeliner first to trace the outer and inner corner wings. Smudge the edges and make them smokey. Now draw another line starting from your crease and add that with the outer wing. This makes the eyes extra elongated and kills all the innocence from your eyes. Then apply your eyeliner over it.
If you have a wide set of eyes, the tips mentioned will work fine for you. With close-setted eyes, the look won’t be much flattering. In that case, don’t add anything to your inner corner. Just a highlighter would do the work.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHAT IS A GOOD ALTERNATIVE TO ALT EYELINER?
ANSWER: You can opt for graphic eyeliners. Even though graphic eyeliners are perfectly drawn and are usually colorful. Other than graphic eyeliner, eyeliner styles like-
Emo Eyeliner, scene, and gothic eyeliners can be good alternatives too. As these styles are subgenres of Alt makeup, the makeup styles are pretty much similar yet have the versatility to them.
CAN ALT GIRLS DO THE NO-MAKEUP MAKEUP LOOK TREND?
ANSWER: Definitely!!
But you gotta cut out the eyeliner part and use dark but pretty shades of eyeshadow underneath your eyes. See how Xowie Jones does her Alt no makeup look-
FINAL VERDICT
Alt eyeliner is not about perfection at all. How confidently you can pull it off is all that matters. Not all have the guts to deviate from what is normal. So chin up and own it.
If you are starting off with this makeup look, try not to let yourself become too overwhelmed. The eyeliner style might look very hard and complicated. But you will get the hang of it soon, as this aesthetic becomes almost a lifestyle. Those who make videos of them doing their Alt eyeliner make it look so effortless! You’ll be like them, too; just get started. Don’t sweat about doing a perfect Eyeliner. Wear lashes, and you’ll look fabulous.
