A Passionate Defense of Winged Eyeliner

Here is what you need to know: I’m technically a millennial. I know, I know. I was in denial, too, but according to the Pew Research Center, I’m in the same company as Dua Lipa, Timothée Chalamet, and Phoebe Bridgers, so is it really all that bad? No. In fact, I don’t think being part of any generation is an inherently bad thing or defines you completely, and I’ve never quite understood the fighting between generations. We’re all experiencing life on this great, beautiful planet hurtling through space. I think we can choose peace.

But because I’m a millennial, there are certain things I’ve experienced that I know some of my Gen Z friends just wouldn’t understand. I’m a former American Apparel devotee and a victim of the deep side-part. I can fondly look back on the Obama-era frozen yogurt boom. I worked at Hollister when they still had shirtless male models. I say all this not because I’m trying to suggest my formative years were better than Gen Z’s (again: I had a deep side-part), but because it explains why I am fiercely — no, irrationally — protective of winged eyeliner.

I know you’ve probably seen the discourse online by now — it’s “out of style,” it doesn’t “serve the same” anymore now that millennials are “aging,” Taylor Swift would finally be able to serve if she just dropped the matte red lip and winged eyeliner.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with sticking to a signature look. If anything, a signature look is rare in an era when social media tells you to take inventory of your face and reinvent it accordingly every four to five business days. A wing, either created with a bit of smudgy brown pencil and flicked out with the edge of my fingernail or precisely inked on with black pen, has been one of the defining features of my own makeup routine since I was in high school.

Part of this comes with watching my mom. Her makeup bag in the ’90s — a big round beige case stamped with roses and cherubs — was full of lipsticks and compacts and foam wedge makeup sponges. The item that fascinated me most was her pot of liquid black eyeliner. She’d steady her hand and carefully drag it across her lash line into a precise little wing. As a child, I couldn’t wait to do the same thing.

I recently opened my DMs to millennials worrying if winged eyeliner was outdated and found peers with a similar experience. “I think generally the trend of trying to…shame any personal style choice is kind of a bummer,” author Caitlin Dee said. “Actually, I really wanted to emulate my mom’s style because she looked pretty and cool to me.”

Winged eyeliner is one of the oldest beauty techniques in the world, dating back to ancient Egypt. (Versions of it have also been seen in ancient Asia and the Middle East, dating back to 3000 BC.) It reemerged in the ’20s, possibly as a result of the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, before becoming a staple of Hollywood bombshells, girl groups like the Ronettes, Audrey Hepburn, Diana Ross, Siouxsie Sioux…and the list goes on. My mom was obsessed with the ’90s supermodels — it wouldn’t surprise me if they influenced her look.

So if winged liner is a timeless classic, why is it suddenly “out?” I’ve been sitting on two possible theories. The first is bad application. We’ve all seen the black line hovering just above someone’s lashes or the harsh Sharpie streak shooting straight into the brow bone. I remember when I first started practicing, I’d draw my eyeliner super thick like Amy Winehouse before extending it with a very skinny, sharp point that traveled past my eyebrow. No, you will not be seeing any photos.

But to be fair, sometimes a look just doesn’t work, and that’s okay. “My makeup goal was to have the baddest, sexiest winged eyeliner,” Julia H., an interior designer, told me. “And I could never figure out why I could never achieve it…thanks to TikTok culture, I realized I have hooded eyes, which are almost impossible to wing. If I had had this wealth of knowledge in my youth, I wouldn’t have spent hundreds on gel/pen/pencil eyeliners and brushes when they never worked for my face to begin with.”

Second — and please bear with me — the oldest millennials are 43 years old as of 2025. If you think back to your teenage or young adult years, you know that if someone in their 40s or older does something, no matter how objectively cool they might be, it just doesn’t seem as aspirational. This doesn’t mean women in their 40s or older aren’t trendy or sexy or stylish (Aubrey Plaza, Monica Bellucci, Penélope Cruz, like, hello?). It’s just that our collective obsession with youth and relevance is ruthless.

Yet, despite this recent (alleged) rejection of winged eyeliner, I’d argue that we might be seeing more of it this fall. Dior’s A/W 25 show featured a cool, reversed winged liner look, while Chanel sent models down the runway with heavy wings meant to mimic false lashes. Jenna Ortega’s double-winged liner look proves there’s plenty of room to innovate. If you’re not afraid of winged liner and bright blue eyeshadow, check out The Love Witch (2016) or Buffalo ’66 (1998) for inspiration. Still, if you want to keep it simple, you can always count on a delicate feline flick à la Alexa Chung or Mikey Madison for Vogue Italia. And for those who still need a cheerleader for the classic wing, my friend Xiomy G. slid into my DMs with a message for you: “[WINGED EYELINER] FOUGHT BATTLES THERAPY COULDN’T.”

So to all my fellow winged eyeliner girlies: don’t throw out your NYX Epic Ink Liner pens. Embrace the eye makeup. Commit to the cat eye. Trends may come and go, but the wing will surely outlive us all.