Coloured eyeliner: purple, gold and blue, and where to put them

Coloured eyeliner has moved from a novelty to a wardrobe. The autumn 2026 shows set stony blue-grey washes on the lid, and the spring 2027 New York shows, held 11 to 16 September 2026, went to lilac and gold lids, amethyst cat-eyes and icy frost (Who What Wear, Who What Wear). Marie Claire's report from those shows wrote that black eyeliner is almost too basic to have real estate in a make-up bag this year (Marie Claire).

Colour on the eye is easy to wear and easy to get wrong, and the difference is placement. One colour, in one place, against a neutral lid reads as intent. The same colour drawn all the way around the eye reads as a costume.

Which eyeliner colour suits your eye colour?

The rule most make-up artists use is complementary colour: the colour opposite your iris on the colour wheel gives the most contrast and makes the iris look more saturated. Jane Iredale's guide and the make-up artist Patrick Ta publish the same pairings: bronze, copper, warm brown and gold for blue eyes; plum, aubergine, burgundy and red-brown for green eyes; purple, pink-brown, olive and bronze for hazel eyes; and almost anything for brown eyes, with blue, navy and purple for contrast and gold and bronze for warmth (Jane Iredale, Patrick Ta).

Skin undertone adjusts the pick. A cool undertone takes navy, icy blue, silver and cool plum with ease; a warm undertone takes gold, bronze, olive and warm purple.

Where do you place coloured eyeliner?

Placement is the second rule. Each position on the eye does a different job, and a colour needs only one of them.

The waterline row comes with a warning. Optometrist Dr Alexa Hecht explains that product on the rim blocks the meibomian glands that make the oily part of the tear film, and recommends lining under the lashes for the same effect (Coveteur).

How do you wear purple eyeliner?

Purple is the colour of the spring 2027 season. Who What Wear named the direction purple haze after Pat McGrath's lilac and gold lids at Anna Sui, Emi Kaneko's mauve under-eyes at Sandy Liang and amethyst cat-eye press-ons at Christian Cowan (Who What Wear). Purple has three depths, each with its own place.

Deep plum is the everyday purple. Drawn thin on the upper lash line and smudged a little, it reads as a warmer black and brings out green and brown eyes. It is the one purple that works on the lower lash line too, on the outer third. India Anaïs Plum Ink, a gel pencil in a plum that reads as black from a distance and violet up close, is one example; the first edition is sold out, and the next edition is planned for spring 2027.

Violet and amethyst are the wing colours. A clean cat-eye in a saturated violet against a bare lid is the runway version, and it needs nothing else on the eye. Lilac is the inner-corner and floating-line colour: too pale to define a lash line, exactly right as a dot at the inner corner or a single stroke above the crease.

How do you wear gold eyeliner?

Gold is an accent, and it works because it reflects light where the eye is darkest. Who What Wear's 2025 round-up listed metallic liner over black as one of the year's looks, and the spring 2027 shows paired gilded inner corners with plum and lilac lids (Who What Wear).

• Inner corner. One dot of metallic gold on the skin at the inner corner, blended with a fingertip into a small V. It opens close-set and small eyes and warms brown and hazel eyes.
• Above the wing. A hair-thin gold line drawn along the top edge of a black or plum wing. The gold catches light and makes the dark line look sharper.
• Lower lash line. A short gold stroke under the outer third of the lower lashes, on the skin. It brightens without the harshness of white or nude pencil.

Choose a liquid gold with pearl pigment bound into the film, not loose glitter. A metallic liquid sets like any liner and does not shed; a glitter flake that reaches the cornea can scratch it. India Anaïs Gold Vein, a fine-tip metallic liquid, is one example of the bound-pigment kind.

How do you wear blue eyeliner?

Blue has the widest range of depths, and the depth decides daily or statement. Navy is the alt-black: a thin navy line on the upper lash line reads as black in daylight and shows its colour in the evening, and it suits every eye colour, including blue. Who What Wear's 2025 list called the mid-blue version sea blue and tied it to the fisherman aesthetic (Who What Wear).

Cobalt and electric blue are wing colours for brown and hazel eyes, where the contrast is strongest. On blue eyes, a bright blue in the same tone as the iris flattens it; choose navy, which is darker than any iris, or go to bronze. Icy blue and frosted silver-blue are the spring 2027 accents, seen at Kim Shui, Luar and Diane von Furstenberg, and they go at the inner corner or as a floating line (Who What Wear).

Cool tones as a whole are the direction. The autumn 2026 runways set stony blue-grey shadow washes at Conner Ives, Richard Quinn and Tolu Coker as the context for navy and grey liners (Who What Wear).

How do you apply coloured eyeliner so it looks intended?

You will need

• Eye primer or a thin coat of concealer
• A matte neutral shadow close to your skin tone
• The coloured liner: a gel pencil for a soft line, a liquid for a wing or a floating line
• A small flat brush and, for pencil, a matching coloured shadow to set it
• Black or brown mascara

1. Prime the lid and press a neutral matte shadow over it. Colour shows truest on a plain, even base.
2. Decide the one placement from the table and leave the others alone. A coloured wing means a bare lower lash line; a coloured inner corner means a neutral upper line.
3. Draw with the eye open and relaxed. For a pencil, use short strokes into the lash base; for a liquid, place a dot at the wing tip first and connect it.
4. Set a pencil line by pressing a shadow in the same colour over it with the flat brush. Coloured pencils are often softer than black ones and move more.
5. Keep the rest of the face quiet: neutral cheek, a bare or nude lip. One colour on the face keeps coloured liner modern.
6. Finish with black mascara for navy, plum and cobalt, and brown mascara for gold, bronze and olive. The mascara depth sets how bold the colour reads.

Which colours are allowed near the eye in the EU?

A liner's colour has to be legal on the eye, and the EU decides that by pigment. Annex IV of the Cosmetics Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 lists which colorants may be used in cosmetics and marks those that may not be used in eye products; the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) keeps the searchable list (ECHA, cosmetic colorants). Some bright reds and oranges, certain azo and xanthene dyes, are lip- or nail-only in the EU.

Purples, blues and golds are built from permitted pigments: ultramarines and manganese violet for purple, ultramarine and iron blue for blue, and mica coated with titanium dioxide and iron oxides for gold. A liner bought in the EU has been through that filter; one bought from a marketplace seller outside the EU may not have, and every pigment appears on the ingredient list as a CI number.