We all want flawless, timeless, big, beautiful eyes! Let’s use simple optical illusions to bring out or open small eyes or play down prominent eyes using the golden rule of makeup, “Anything you wish to look smaller, you make darker and anything you wish to look larger, you make lighter”.

This rule can be applied to every eye, no matter the age or shape. To make your eyes look larger and wider: define lash line with “opened-out” eyelines,  use light colors making eyes look lighter and rim inside eyelines with baby blue pencil to make eyes look whites. To balance to large, prominent use darker shades of color working horizontally, line inner rims with expresso or black eyeliner pencil and line eyes using open line to lengthen.  The reason,  because we are making use of s simple optical illusion relating to the eye area as it relates to the face.

Both of these circles are exactly the same size A appears smaller than B because black is a recessive color, reflecting less light, making the circle appear further away and smaller

This effect becomes more apparent when a white area is placed against a black background and vice versa. In the diagram above the white rectangle in A looks larger and nearer to your eye than the black rectangle in B

This optical illusion is one relating to the length of a given line (think eyeliner). Lines A, B and C are all exactly the same length, but B looks smaller than both A and C because it is contained within closed acute angles. C looks longer than both A and B because it is between open acute angles

Lastly, another illusion is one of division. Here line AC has been divided into two equal parts, AB and BC. BC has been further divided with several transversal lines, which makes AB seem shorter than BC (think eyelashes…makes me want thicker, darker, fuller lashes!)

I can tell a lot about a woman just by looking at her eyes. And with time, eyes only get more beautiful…they truly reflect the wisdom and experience that comes with maturing physically, emotionally and spiritually. It’s worth learning a few tricks to show them off!

Tip & Technique: If you have straight or short lashes, use an eyelash curler. Curling lashes upward is an added “eye-opener”.