Yet, one thing which I think is acceptable for men to wear is the eyeliner (or in here we call it celak). It is considered okay since it's not a vanity thing, but more towards the cultural point of view since lots of men from the Middle East also wear it. In fact eyeliner has dated way back during the Pharoahs era, during which the archeologists found the paintings of the kings and queens of the ancient Egyptian who wears thick eyeliner made of galena that darken their eyelids. It is believed that it'll strengthen the eyes...
For me, I have quite a history with eyeliner since I used to wear it during my childhood years at the age of 11 or 12 - when I found a metal case with the celak inside on my parents' vanity table. It looks so artfully classic, by which I think it's a gift to my mum from someone who just came back from the pilgrimage. The stuff is made of powder and I remembered to always be careful not to let it get into my eyes - coz getting it out is so troublesome!
Apart from the cultural side of it, I like eyeliner coz it made the eyes pop (hence it enters the 'pop' culture). Especially when you made it like this smoky, kohl look with thick black line under the eyelids. Like the models at Gucci during the Autumn/Winter 2008/09 - they looks fantastic and very edgy!
[pix from gq style]
Going back to my childhood days, I wore it to school and my teachers always asked "doesn't your mum mind you wear the eyeliner?". My reply is easy: "No. It's a sunnah, what? And she's a make-up artist herself, so why would she mind?". I know why they asked me coz I'm not using the powder celak, but the one like a paste which is easier to be applied to the undereye lids. I stole it from my mum's make-up bag - a big duffel bag - the one she used to take with her when she goes for the andaman thing. The problem with the paste-like eyeliner, when it comes to the afternoon as the temperature rises, the eyeliner is also 'melting' - making the black thing 'trickle' down with the sweat and made me look more goth than rock'n'roll! Or a panda, if you may. Kinda funny, but those are the days dude...
Anyway. A couple of weeks back, I found my some other family member wears kohl - my 18-year old nephew. It looks awesome since he also got this rock'n'roll attitude to go along with it as well. And that's when I decided to 'revisit' my childhood days again and reapply kohl one more time.
So, what did I do? I went for a search to some nearby store and found this black eyeliner by Cyber Colors. It's a gel version, much like the paste that I previously used. I actually wanna get L'oreal HiP Kohl but it's not in the market here. What I like about this one is how the eyeliner stays without mess. No 'trickling' down with the sweat unlike my previous one. No powder, and it's better since it doesn't get into the eyes especially that I'm wearing contacts. Just perfect. It comes with this tiny applicator so that I can 'draw' the black line on the eyelids easily without buying any separate brush or something.
Cyber Colors eyeliner @ Sasa
I like wearing it with a slight smoky look. So, what I do is first to apply a thick line on the upper eye lids and on the waterline; then using my finger, I smudge it a bit so that I get this shadowy for the whole eyes area. Does it made the whole eyes pop? Absolutely. It made the eyes appear voila! (though the pix is not truly showing..and more to 'black rings'. Erkss!). I think I might wear it next week when I'm hosting a big event again - so that people can go whoa...! Plus it looks good on camera. Ha!
