Social media isn’t just for connecting with your friends or trying out silly filters to see how you look. These days, it’s a driving force behind the evolution of new beauty trends. And leading the pack in trend-setting is TikTok. In the past year alone, the app has popularized countless beauty trends, from the “soft girl” aesthetic to siren eyes—the latter of which has become one of the most pervasive makeup trends of 2022. On TikTok alone, the hashtag #sireneyes has accumulated more than 536 million views. Even if you haven’t heard of the term siren eyes before, we’re willing to bet you’ve seen someone—an influencer, a celebrity, even a friend—rocking the sultry, smokey look. Ahead, we’ll give you all the details on what siren eye makeup is, and more importantly, how to re-create the look for yourself. Keep scrolling for all of the need-to-knows.
What Are Siren Eyes?
Inspired primarily by ‘90s aesthetics—specifically, ‘90s supermodel makeup—siren eyes are a TikTok trend that aims to give the eyes a strong, sultry appearance. Stylistically, it’s sort of a love child between smokey eyes and cat eyes: winged, but also smudged and sultry-looking. It’s most often paired with minimal face makeup, which allows the smokey, dramatic eye makeup to take center stage.
How To Do Siren Eye Makeup
There are a few steps (and products) that are a must when doing siren eye makeup, eyeliner being one of them. Ahead, learn how to create siren eyes and discover the best products from NYX Professional Makeup to help you get the job done.
Prime Your Entire Eye Area
When executed well, siren eyes can look amazing—trust us when we say that you’ll want this look to stay put. That’s why we recommend priming your entire eye area before getting started on your siren eye makeup. Use an eye primer that closely matches your skin—our Ultimate Shadow & Liner Primer comes in four skin-adapting shades for a natural look. In addition to helping extend the wear of your shadow and eyeliner, this primer has a subtle blurring effect and creates the perfect canvas for your eye makeup looks. Choose your shade and apply it to your entire lid using the doe-foot applicator. Blend it out, then let it dry before proceeding.
Line Your Upper Lid
Next, grab a creamy eyeliner; this is what you’ll use to create your wing. We recommend our Epic Smoke: Smokeshow Liner, which boasts an angled tip ideal for creating precise lines. The dual-sided eyeliner stick also has a micro paddle brush on one end for smoking out your lines. Using the shade Black Smoke, draw a thin line from the outer corner of your eye toward your temples, stopping at your lid’s natural crease. Then, starting at the center of your eyelid, trace your upper lash line and waterline. Connect this to the wing you drew earlier, similar to the way you’d create a cat eye. If your lines aren’t super straight or precise, that’s okay: You’re going to be smudging it out in a minute.
Line Your Bottom Lid
Using the same eyeliner you used for your top lid, draw along your bottom lash line to define your eyes further. As you bring this line toward your outer corners, connect it to the wing you already drew—it should be as if you’re extending your bottom lash line up to meet the wing.
Blend, Blend, Blend
Once you’re satisfied with your eyeliner, use the attached paddle brush to smudge and smoke out the lines to give your wing a blurred effect. We recommend starting slow: The goal is to diffuse the line, not erase it entirely.
Add Liquid Liner To Your Inner Corners
Here’s where your siren eye differs a bit from your classic cat eye. Whereas with cat eyes, the focus is all on the wing, siren eyes have the added element of liner in the inner corner of your eyes. Place the tip of a waterproof eyeliner, like our Epic Ink Liner, at the innermost corner of your eye. Then, draw a very thin, short line from your tear duct toward the center of your face to give your eyes a more defined appearance. If your line here isn’t precise, you can clean up any mistakes with a cotton swab dipped in makeup remover.
Trace Your Liner With Eyeshadow
Using a small eyeshadow brush like our Micro Smudging Brush, trace over your upper and lower lash lines with a black or dark brown eyeshadow (we’re big fans of the darkest shade in our Ultimate Queen Ultimate Color Palette). Continue by blending the shadow out along the length of your wing. Tracing your lines with eyeshadow helps enhance the smokey effect that you created earlier and adds a bit of extra dimension to your look, making it pop.
Highlight Your Inner Corners
To pump up your siren eyes further, you can add a touch of highlighter to your inner corner. Because this is such a small area, you’ll want to use a super-precise highlighter. Our Wonder Pencil is ideal for this purpose—you can use the shimmer shade to illuminate your inner corners without disrupting your eyeliner
Finish With Mascara
Last but most certainly not least, pump up your lashes with a volumizing mascara, like our On The Rise Mascara. The hourglass-shaped applicator is specifically designed to help lift your lashes and create a more wide-eyed look. Apply it to your top lashes as usual, then add a second coat just to the lashes at your outer corners to help complete the look.
Next: Don’t feel like spending more than a few minutes on your makeup? No problem. Learn how to get an effortless look fast, in our article This 5 Minute No-Makeup Makeup Look Will Be Your New Go-To
PRODUCTS USED
Ultimate Shadow & Liner Primer
Vitamin E Infused Eye Primer
Epic Smoke Liner
All-In-One Smokey Eyeliner Stick
Ultimate Color Palette
Pro-Level 16 pan Palette
