20 best eyeliner shades for every eye colour

There’s nothing like a stroke of liner in a fun colour for an unexpected beauty moment—and the best eyeliner shades are an easy way to achieve that. But where do you begin with a rainbow spectrum of shades to choose from? While there are no hard-and-fast rules for makeup, referencing the colour wheel is always a good place to start (and perhaps a nostalgic reminder of grade school art class). “Contrasting your eyeliner to enhance your eye colour is an easy trick to bring attention to your eyes,” says Los Angeles-based makeup artist Beau Nelson. Long story short, a complimentary colour creates a strong visual impact.

Once you’ve determined the colour you want, it’s time to choose your actual liner. Professional makeup artist Anastasia Vavina recommends a pencil over a liquid liner when getting playful. “Pencils allow for more application control than liquid eyeliners. You can stay precise or easily achieve a smoked-out look,” Vavina explains, adding that mistakes can also be easily blended and buffed with creamy pencil formulas. Since we’re not the colour theory masters, we tapped four pros to share their tips and tricks for playing up eye colour—and which of the best eyeliner shades to choose to make your gaze pop.

The best eyeliner shades for brown eyes

“Brown eyes are already neutral, so you can really play with colour on brown eyes,” explains Katie Jane Hughes, who gravitates toward jewel-toned eyeliners for brown-eyed clients (and regularly reaches for Glossier’s eyeliner pencil in the shade Rococo). When in doubt Hughes says to think rich berry tones, deep purples, and emerald greens. For a more subtle approach, consider makeup artist Tasha Reiko Brown’s go-to eye-brightening strategy: A gold eyeliner dabbed on the inner corners. “It catches the warm light of brown eyes [for extra sparkle],” she says.

The best eyeliner shades for blue eyes

Thinking back to the trust colour wheel, Nelson reminds us that the contrasting colour to blue is yellow. Rather than taking that as a literal interpretation, he leans towards more flaxen colours. “Golden browns, bronzes, and coppers all set blue eyes off nicely,” he says. Hughes agrees and leans towards warm hues like rusty orange to make all variations of ocean eyes (as Billie Eilish might say) truly stand out.

The best eyeliner shades for hazel eyes

With tones of green, gold, and brown, hazel eyes are inherently dimensional—and there are many different approaches one can take with eyeliners to emphasize their multifaceted irises. “Purples, pinks, burgundies, and cranberries bring out the green tones in hazel eyes,” says Nelson. For Hughes, a rich teal supplies a cool contrast, while for Brown, taking a tone-on-tone approach with an emerald green “really makes the colours [of Hazel eyes] jump.”