How to Make Natural Eyeliner at Home: Reduce Cosmetic Waste

In Australia alone, it’s estimated that more than 10,000 tons of cosmetic waste is sent to landfill each year. Makeup products aren’t generally accepted in curbside recycling because they are too small to be sorted at a recycling facility and often contain mixed materials as well as remnants of the product making them tough to recycle alongside glass and plastics.

By making your own eyeliner you can help reduce the unnecessary waste that comes with cosmetic products. Reusing old eyeliner containers to store your homemade eyeliner in is a great way to minimise waste, too. Just ensure you thoroughly clean the jars or containers beforehand and clean any brushes you’ll be using to avoid bacteria growth. The eyes are very sensitive so it’s important to ensure makeup and brushes are clean and free of any harmful bacteria and pathogens.

The Problem with Conventional Cosmetics

Of the 82,000 ingredients used in cosmetic and personal care products, one in eight were found to be industrial chemicals. These ingredients can be pesticides, hormone disruptors, toxins which affect the reproductive system and carcinogens.

Why Choose Natural Ingredients?

The eyeliner I’ll be sharing with you today only contains four ingredients all of which are natural and free from toxins. If you want to change up the colour of your eyeliner, say to brown for instance, use cocoa or cacao powder. This can also be done with other natural coloured powders like spirulina for green or blue, turmeric for yellow and other natural pigments to vary up the colour of your eyeliner.

Please note that unfortunately this eyeliner is not waterproof. I’ve shared a recipe for a natural waterproof eyeliner in the description below. Beeswax is incorporated into that recipe to help the eyeliner sit on skin for longer and allow the water to run right off without causing it to run.

Recipe for Natural Eyeliner

To make this natural eyeliner, add one teaspoon of activated charcoal, one teaspoon of shea butter, one teaspoon of bentonite clay, a quarter of a teaspoon of jojoba oil, and one drop of rosemary oil to a small bowl and mix well to combine. Use a mortar and pestle or the back of a spoon to really work the oils into the fine powder for a smoother paste. There should be no clumps. If the eyeliner is too thick or too dry, add more oil and/or shea butter to create a smoother texture.

Scoop the paste into your clean eyeliner container or tin or jar and smooth it down using the back of a spoon. Using metal with the bentonite clay will deactivate it. As mine is stored in a metal tin it is deactivated and so won’t pull toxins out of my skin. The purpose of the clay is as a binder in this recipe so it doesn’t matter that it has been deactivated.

Application Tips

To use, lightly dip a line brush into the eyeliner mixture and then scrape the brush against the sides of the container to smoothen the paste on the end of the brush. From here, gently draw on your eyeliner. It may take some practice applying and you may get some specks on your face as it is a powder which can be gently wiped away once dry. The eyeliner will take a few minutes to dry, so after applying be sure not to touch it for a few minutes.

This eyeliner will typically last a full day. Clean the brush after each use. A powder may also be needed to set the eyeliner as over long periods of time the liner can smudge. So using a black eyeshadow to set it a little or to smudge it out to create a soft smokey liner look will help the liner to set in place.

Conclusion

And that’s how you make a natural eyeliner at home using only four ingredients. I hope you enjoyed this video tutorial. Let me know if you try this recipe yourself and what you think of the liner. I’d love to know. I hope you have a wonderful day and I’ll see you soon again.