These bad boys are an absolute essential for a cat eye or smokey eye
Few beauty products hold cult status in the same way as the best eyeliner. From Brigitte Bardot and Audrey Hepburn, to Amy Winehouse and Alexa Chung just about every beauty muse from recent history wore eyeliner as part of their signature look.
It's a make-up bag staple all over the world and, combined with the best mascara and best eyeshadow palettes, is essential in creating red carpet-worthy eye make-up looks.
Sometimes it's pretty tricky to nail, which is why tutorials like the below from Lisa Eldridge are so good to use when applying the best eyeliner.
Keep scrolling to shop our edit of the best liquid, pencil, gel and pen choices below.
Best drugstore eyeliner
Bourjois Couture Waterproof Clubbing Eyeliner, £3.74 Fabled
Considering this eyeliner comes in under four quid, it's a total steal for how good it is. The colour is a true, inky black stays put. (Don't worry, you don't have to go clubbing to wear it.)
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Best eyeliner pencil
Chanel Le Crayon Khôl, £20 Harrods
We know it's quite boujie to take a Chanel khôl liner out of your makeup bag, but it is such a brilliantly simple but effective product. The colour payoff is excellent, it smudges enough to create a cooler-than-cool smokey eye, but not enough that it'll end up down your cheeks by lunch. Worth it. It totally deserves a plane on this best eyeliner list.
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Best waterproof eyeliner
NARS Larger Than Life Long-Wear Eyeliner, £18 Fabled
Described as 'budge proof', NARS' Long Wear liner is exactly that. Each of the pencils is richly pigmented for a true colour pay off that lasts a whole working day or night out (none of this watery, transparent business). If you're fed up of reapplying eyeliner to your waterline a few times a day, this one is for you.
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Best eyeliner pen
Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner, £16 Fabled
Smudge proof, sweat proof, heck, we'd go as far as to say that Stila's waterproof liner is actually life proof, and without a doubt one of the best liquid eyeliner formulas ever made. Inky, dense black and with a super sharp felt tip, you'll find no smudging or printing on to your upper lids here.
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Best gel eyeliner
Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner, £17.55 Fabled
Fun fact: Bobbi Brown first decided to create a gel liner when she had none to hand ahead of a photo shoot; instead, she applied waterproof mascara using a cotton bud without the fuzzy head. It did not budge one bit, and so the Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner was born. Today it's still one of the brand's best sellers with a velvety finish, and is available in all sorts of shades as well as classic black.
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Want to shop even more of the best eyeliners? We've charted five more hero buys below.
Happy smokey eye-ing.
Some eyeliner pencils were created to smudge and smoke, but some looks require a liner that stays put. Trust that this gel pencil just will. Not. Budge. It's a go-to for the waterline.
The tip is super precise, making it ideal for tightlining or drawing against the lash line.
Few make-up lines are as iconic as Double Wear, and the liner is a waterproof wearer's dream; choose from black, greige and purple shades to accentuate your peepers.
Probably one of the best budge-proof liners on the market, this gel formula won't slide from even the oiliest of lids.
Eyeko are the experts in eyes. Their eyeliners and mascaras are second to none. Their Eye Do pen eyeliner can apply thin or thick lines and last for ages. This tiny travel sized one is perfect for clutch bags on nights out.
This is one heck of an eyeliner - it's heavily pigmented, super precise and lasts for ages.
If you are crap at creating a wing, then this is about to become your new BFF. The felt tip nib is super easy to use and, as you can see, it comes with this handy wing stencil. You'll never bugger it up again.
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