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Applying eyeliner is seldom a straightforward task. There are so many questions to answer before the delicate process even begins: Liquid or pencil? Smudged or smooth? Wing tips or a Kate Middleton waterline job? Black liner or metallic blue?
These are all essential issues, naturally, but there might be an even more important factor to take into consideration when deciding on your eyeliner style. According to new research putting eyeliner inside your lash line (so, on that line between your eyeball and your lashes) can lead to your eyeball’s tear film being inundated with “migrating” eyeliner particles.
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Here’s what inner-rim liner looks like, as modelled by these famous women:
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In other words, your carefully-applied makeup is getting a little too closely-acquainted with your eyes, and potentially playing havoc with your vision.
In the study, which was published in the journal Eye and Contact Lens, researchers had three women apply a glittery pencil liner (Avon’s ‘Glimmerstick’ in Graphite, if you’re details-obsessed) to the inside or outside of their lash line on two different occasions.
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When the makeup sat inside the lash line — a technique often referred to as “waterlining” or “tightlining” — it wore off much faster; to be precise, “maximum contamination of the tear film [was] achieved ficve to 10 minutes post-application”. Moreover, 30 per cent more glitter migrated into the eye than when the eyeliner was applied outside the lash line.