Would you like a subtle, smudged eyeliner effect that looks beautiful and doesn’t wash off? Makeup artist Abbie Gardiner has you covered.
Abbie Gardiner has been a makeup artist for 15 years, winning accolades and awards and travelling the world with her craft. As she’s grown older she’s noticed her makeup needs changing along with many of the women she serves.
“I’m in my mid-forties now and a lot of the women who gravitate toward me to get their makeup done are around the same age,” she says. “With age things change. Among other things, I’m seeing a lot of women having trouble applying their eyeliner.”
Searching for a solution Abbie began researching cosmetic tattooing. “A lot of it’s very harsh looking but the deeper I looked the more I began to discover a lovely natural, smudged effect being used overseas,” she says. “My partner is Brazilian and we were going there on holiday so looking for training in Brazil and European cities like the Czech Republic and Poland made perfect sense.”
Verve reader special $250, upper eyeliner usually $400!
Abbie found some cosmetic tattooing that equated to what she wanted to emulate but the people practising it had limited English. This created a problem for learning. “Then I discovered Barbara in Maringá in Brazil,” says Abbie. “We were in Sao Paulo and Thiago and his mum were worried about me going off on my own but Barbara assured them she’d pick me up from the airport and take me to my hotel, so off I went.”
She admits to being nervous. “I know I’m a good makeup artist, I’ve won awards, I’m a tutor at The Makeup School in Ponsonby and my work has taken me all over the world so when you know you’re good at something it’s humbling to find yourself at the learning stage again.”
Eyeliner by Abbie GardinerAbbie worked on artificial skin for a couple of days to learn the techniques required. “On the last day of training Barbara brought in some ladies for me to work on and it went very well. Using the gun is simply an extension of working with my makeup brush,” she says.
After perfecting her new skill Abbie’s keen to help make life easier for women by creating an upper eyeliner that will last approximately two to three years. “As we grow older our lashes can become sparse and the eyes often become a little droopy so I use a technique to lift the eye and make it look more youthful again,” she says. “My mother Christine is 66 and loves her eyeliner. She says that even using a lighted magnifying mirror wasn’t working for her so this has changed her life in terms of getting ready for the day.
“For some women the thought of a needle around the eyeball is terrifying and I understand that but I’m very careful and am used to doing precision work. There is some preparation involved for best results so I ask you to stop lash growth serum three weeks before treatment and to avoid alcohol for a few days beforehand and good hydration is key. After application, I’ll give you a healing vitamin A/D cream to apply with a cotton bud and most people report being nicely healed within four days.”
Abbie is also working with hairlines and male pattern baldness using a series of tiny dots that create the illusion of density. The price is dependent on the area.
