Lady Gaga: I’m not sure if I find her offensive or ingenious but there is no doubting her fame, wealth, and provocative beauty. Her music is catchy and certainly top forty material, if not a bit monotonous, but she certainly expresses her creativity through her smart marketing techniques and her ever-changing image. Her mystique rivals that of her blond ambition predecessor, Madonna, Originally a brunette by the name of Stefani Germanotta, Gaga changed her name and her looks to make herself stand out in a crowd. Drawing all eyes to herself is Lady Gaga’s best skill and she does it apologetically. Just part of her allure are those amazing eyes, which she dresses with skill, expertise, and lots of makeup.
Although Lady Gaga is constantly tweaking her image and her looks, her eyes maintain a fairly consistent style of makeup, known as the cat eye. Anyone can wear a cat eye style of makeup, and you don’t have to be as extreme as Lady Gaga to pull it off successfully.
The cat eye is a throw back to nineteen-fifties glamour, right along side of full skirts, pin-up girls, and the beginnings of rock and roll. The cat eye is best achieved with black liquid liner, although any type or color of liner will work if you choose. Here’s how.
Start by covering your eye lids with an eye shadow primer, and once it is dry, apply the eye shadow of your choice. For a dark, smokey, and rebellious look, try deep colors in charcoal, and grey, applying the most and darkest colors around your lashes and blending it up and away until the color is barely there. For a more subtle look, try neutral colors such as taupe or soft pink. For a fun and funky look, try an interesting color such as purple, navy blue, or even chartreuse green. Lady Gaga often chooses strong metallic, super shiny colors, but such shadows may look too over the top for every day wear.
For the most true to the fifties looking cat eye, you’ll need black liquid liner, but if you are uncomfortable with using liquid, there are many other choices. Increasingly available is a felt tip pen eyeliner, which gives you the look of liquid but with the control of a Sharpie. Also available are long lasting, smudgeproof gel eyeliners that are applied with a brush, eyeshadow applied wet or dry with an eyeliner brush, and of course, traditional wooden eyeliner. For the cat eye newbie, a super skinny, mechanical pencil in a similar but slightly darker color as the eye shadow is a great choice.
To apply liner to make your cat eye, start with a very thin line. Apply the liner starting at the inner corner of your upper eye lid. Keep the liner at its thinnest towards the inside corner of the eye, getting a little thicker right above the center of your eye, and slightly thinner back towards the outer edge. Extend the liner out past the corner of your eye, flicking it up towards your eyebrow, creating a bit of a winged effect. The bigger the ‘wing’ the more extreme the cat eye effect will be. The smaller, and thinner the wing, the more subtle the cat eye look will be. Start with the thinnest, must subtle line possible, slowly adding additional liner until the desired look is achieved. It appears that Lady Gaga often uses a liquid or gel liner for an extreme looking cat eye.
Finish your cat eye with a great coat of mascara. For a look befitting Lady Gaga, apply a set of false eyelashes first to get that extreme, bold cat eye look. For a more subtle look, curl your lashes, then cover them with two coats of a plumping mascara.
For a day to day work look, keep your cat eye more subtle, and balance it with a soft lip gloss or a nude lipstick. To get a look that more closely resembles Lady Gaga’s extreme beauty, go for shiny eye shadow, thick liner, and LOTS of false lashes and bright red or purple lips. Practice and experiment and you too can achieve a beautiful cat eye look that draws everyone’s attention right to you.
