Fall 2026 Has Put Bottom Eyeliner Under Pressure

The momentum behind bottom eyeliner reaches beyond backstage experimentation. Trendalytics recorded a 214% rise in searches around the messy makeup aesthetic, a look closely associated with dark kohl pressed into the waterline, pigment smudged beneath the lashes and eyes that carry a deliberately lived-in quality.

That growth fits a wider change in how eye makeup is being constructed. The lower lash line has moved from supporting detail to focal point, with pencils, kajal and shadow creating weight directly underneath the eye. Black remains central, while burgundy, plum, grey and metallic tones are giving the technique a broader colour vocabulary for Fall.

A single stroke underneath the iris can change the apparent width of the eye, a line extending through the corners can stretch its shape horizontally, and kohl packed into the waterline creates immediate depth. The trend therefore relies as much on geometry as pigment.

Fall Runways Moved the Drama Under the Eye

The Fall 2026 runways gave bottom eyeliner several distinct personalities across New York, London, Milan, and Paris.

At Marc Jacobs, heavy black pigment collected beneath the eyes, giving the face a grungy, slightly undone intensity. Ashlyn pushed the concentration toward the lower lash line and inner corners, allowing the underside of the eye to carry much of the look's structure. Christian Cowan worked with softer, lived-in smudging, as though the liner had already travelled through several hours of wear.

Proenza Schouler turned placement into something more conceptual. Thomas de Kluyver used chunky black kajal asymmetrically, placing pigment above one eye and along the lower lash line of the other. The face became a study in interrupted makeup logic, with bottom eyeliner functioning as an independent design decision.

Burberry and Fendi continued the kohl-heavy mood through waterline definition and diffused lower smoke, while Saint Laurent extended smoky colour beneath the eye in grey, violet, and green tones.

Dior supplied one of the season’s most memorable techniques. Peter Philips placed crayon into the waterline and encouraged natural transfer by having models close their eyes tightly, allowing pigment to settle beneath the lashes. A beauty industry built around transfer resistance suddenly found creative value in the transfer itself.

One Line, Three Completely Different Faces

The appeal of bottom eyeliner comes from how easily one placement can create entirely different moods.

The first is the 1960s graphic line. Crisp strokes beneath the lashes, open space between lines, and elongated outer corners create a highly designed eye with clear mod references. The technique works particularly well when the lower line extends slightly past the natural eye shape, turning the lash line into architecture.

Then comes the grunge line, where black or charcoal kohl sits heavily through the waterline and softens into the skin below. This version carries the emotional weight of Fall 2026: smoky, slightly weary, and comfortably imperfect. Pigment can gather near the tear duct, blur beneath the iris, or spread unevenly toward the outer corner.

The third direction is colour underneath. Burgundy, plum, blue-grey and metallic pencils make the lower eye a narrow strip of concentrated colour.

Each version starts from the same basic move. The line simply travels south.

The Makeup Artists Actively Pushing Bottom Eyeliner in 2026

Away from designer runways, independent celebrity MUAs have given bottom eyeliner some of its clearest 2026 red-carpet identities.

Yeika Olivia has made lower-eye geometry an important part of Teyana Taylor’s awards-season beauty language. At the Actor Awards, Taylor wore a sharply sculpted smoky eye built around her natural eye shape, with negative space and strong lower definition extending the gaze outward. Through subsequent appearances, the combination of double wings, waterline detail, and graphic lower placement became increasingly recognizable as part of Taylor’s beauty identity.

Mélanie Inglessis also worked the lower waterline into Jenna Ortega’s 2026 Actor Awards look, using dark kohl to reinforce Ortega’s established gothic beauty language through a compact, highly wearable treatment.

For Charli XCX, makeup artist Ana Takahashi approached the trend through colour. At the Met Gala, plum and maroon pencil concentrated along the lower lash line and waterline gave the eyes a bruised, romantic depth that suited Charli’s darker beauty vocabulary.

Together, these artists show how wide the territory around bottom eyeliner has become. One client receives graphic precision, another gets bruised plum, another gets dense black waterline, and another wears a highly sculpted lower wing. The common thread sits directly underneath the lashes, where Fall 2026 has found a surprisingly expressive place to draw the line.