How to Apply Makeup for Glasses: 14 Tips and Tutorials

Putting on eyeshadow and then putting on glasses can feel like getting a great haircut and then pulling on a beanie. The color you blended so carefully goes blurry behind a lens, your lashes press little mascara dots onto the glass by 10 a.m., and by lunch your frames have slid halfway down your nose on a layer of foundation. According to The Vision Council, 166.5 million American adults wear prescription eyeglasses. That’s nearly two out of three of us dealing with some version of these problems every morning.

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The problem I have found with most all of the other makeup articles is they almost pretend the eyeglasses don’t exist. Heck, even as someone who wears glasses fairly regular, even I forget that the makeup I put on in the morning will look completely different if I wear my glasses vs. my contacts.

So I went searching for what the pros recommend, along with actual video tutorials created by cosmetic artists, people who have worn glasses for years, and reader tips on how they do their makeup when they’re going to be wearing glasses. Since lens types are different from person to person, start with the tip that applies best to you.

And if I can part with the one tip I’ve learned over the years? When in doubt, wear a red lip!!

1. Start With What Your Lenses Do to Your Eyes

Glasses don’t just sit in front of your makeup, they change how it looks to everyone else. Lenses that correct nearsightedness are concave, and they bend light in a way that makes your eyes appear smaller to the person facing you. Lenses that correct farsightedness (readers included) do the reverse and magnify, so your eyes and everything on them look bigger. The optometrists at Total Vision explain that the stronger the prescription, the more pronounced the effect.

So before you change a single product, put your glasses on and study your face the way a stranger would. One commenter summed the whole thing up: “If you are nearsighted, the glasses will make your eyes look smaller and your makeup less bold. Go more dark or dramatic with color.”

2. Nearsighted? Turn Up the Eye Makeup

A minus prescription shrinks everything behind the lens, so an eye look that seems finished in the mirror can disappear once the glasses go on. The fix is more contrast and more light, and longtime wearers back that up. “I wear glasses all the time (near-sighted) and I usually wear shimmery eye colors within the champagne/gold/coral family with a winged eyeliner,” one of our Beauty Empties Experts (BEE’s) wrote. Another goes “a bit heavier on my eye makeup to ensure that it’s seen” behind her frames.

In practice that means one shade deeper on your crease color than you’d normally pick, a brightening shimmer on the center of the lid (champagne if you’re warm-toned, icy pink if you’re cool, and our undertone guide can settle which one you are), and mascara that starts at the root. The @oatmilkmakeup tutorial in the TikTok carousel at the end of this article builds an entire eye look around countering the shrinking effect.

3. Farsighted? Blend Like You’re on Camera

A plus prescription puts your eye makeup under a magnifying glass, which sounds flattering until you remember it magnifies everything: the liner wobble, the concealer that crept into a crease, the speck of glitter fallout on your cheek. Pablo Rodriguez, a makeup artist and the director of artistry at Illamasqua, said. “Less is definitely more. Don’t use too many different eyeshadow colors, keep lashes clean and defined, apply eyeliner outside the lash line, not in the rim of the eye.”

In no other area of makeup is blending as important as it is here. Give each edge at least another thirty seconds, save the glitter for contact-lens days and make your under-eye concealer into a dot’s worth of product, because a magnified crease line shows more than the circles it was covering. The @stephaniedubosego tutorial in the carousel below was created specifically for magnifying lenses.

4. Counter the Shadows Your Frames Cast

Frames cast a physical shadow across your under-eye area, on top of whatever darkness you already had. Rodriguez flagged this as well: “Glasses tend to create shadows in the eye area. So you don’t want to make the eyes look darker.”

Brightening the under-eye is the counter. Beauty expert Tomy Rivero says, “One of the most important things to do if you wear glasses is to double set your nose and use a creamy concealer that doesn’t require much powder under the eyes.” Start with a peach corrector if your circles lean blue, keep the concealer a half shade brighter than your foundation, and set it with the lightest dusting you can manage. (We wrote a whole piece on concealer mistakes if your under-eyes need more help than a corrector.) For a demo, @ericataylor2347 walks through the corrector-first approach in her video near the end of the post.

5. Give Your Brows a Promotion

Your frames draw a horizontal line across your face, and your brows sit right above it, fully visible while the rest of your eye makeup lives behind glass. That makes them the one part of your eye look with no lens in the way, and they can carry more definition than they did in your pre-glasses life. One BEE’s advice to a fellow wearer: “Darker eyebrows would help frame your face so your glasses don’t cover up the shape. Bolder liner and colors are things you can get away with too so have fun and experiment!”

You don’t have to dramatically change the arch of your eyebrows. Simply use a brow pencil or powder one shade deeper than what you used prior to wearing eyeglasses, and follow the shape of your own natural eyebrow line as opposed to along the top edge of your frames. If there’s an extreme angle difference between the two, simply allow your eyebrows to be in charge, because your brow lines will move with all of your facial expressions while the frame line does not.

6. Match Liner Weight to Frame Weight

Delicate wire frames over a thick nineties-style wing send two different messages, and chunky acetate frames swallow a thin pencil line completely. The rule that works across the board is matching your liner to your frames: fine metal frames pair with tightlining or a thin line pressed into the lashes, while bold plastic frames can carry a thicker line and a real wing. (We also have a whole piece on updating eyeliner habits after 50, wing angles included.)

The lower lash line deserves new attention too, since the bottom rim of a frame pulls focus toward it. One BEE explained that wearing glasses makes the lower lash line “more prominent,” so she lines about three-quarters of it with shadow and smudges dark liner halfway in: “This makes me feel like my eyes aren’t disappearing behind my frames.” @glistencosmetics also has a liner demo waiting for you further down this page.

7. Pick Shadows That Show Up Behind a Lens

Celebrity makeup artist Monika Blunder says, “I would stay away from heavy or smoky eyes because the frames are already a bit heavy around your eyes, so I think soft eye makeup is better. I usually do a thin liner on the lash line and a matte taupe shape on the lid or in the crease to create a little dimension.”

Matte shades do the sculpting and one well-placed shimmer does the showing up. “I find complex colorful makeup tends to be covered up with my glasses and it’s no use wasting time on complicated makeup. The shadow adds dimension and the shimmer shines through my glasses to highlight my eyes more,” one BEE wrote. Tricia Cusden, the 70-something founder of the pro-age makeup brand Look Fabulous Forever, filmed a five-minute eye tutorial for glasses wearers over 50 that shows how much shadow it takes to stay visible once the glasses go back on:

8. Curl First, Mascara Second, Glasses Last

Long lashes plus glasses means tapping on the inside of your lenses all day, plus mascara dots you’ll be cleaning off tonight. Makeup artist Daoud says, “I recommend using an eyelash curler, they not only lift your lashes and open your eyes, but also prevent your lashes from hitting your lenses, and that’s key.”

The same advice shows up over and over from people who wear glasses daily. One BEE curls before mascara specifically so her long, straight lashes “won’t touch my lenses,” and another added, “just make sure to let it dry before putting your glasses on or blinking hard.” Reach for lengthening formulas over volumizing ones, since a fat, wet brush leaves more product for the lens to catch. If you love false lashes, shorter styles or a trim at the outer edge keeps them off the glass, and @cherry.antacids shows exactly how to adjust a pair of Ardells so they clear the lens (her video is at the bottom of this page).

9. Solve the Nose-Pad Problem

I don’t know about you, but my bridge (where your glasses sit on the top of your nose) is like a slip-n-slide. Rivero explained the mechanics to Who What Wear recently: “I would avoid using very emollient creamy concealers or foundations. I would also avoid silicone primers. Silicone primers make everything have more slip, making your glasses crease your makeup wherever you have touch points.” He adds that the same slip is what sends frames sliding down your nose all day.

Blunder’s fix takes one step: “Don’t forget to powder the T-zone so your foundation won’t rub off on your frames.” Longtime wearers get even more specific. One keeps a Q-tip in the routine: “I take a Q-tip and wipe away the makeup right where the nose pads sit so my glasses don’t slide around and the makeup doesn’t get goopy.” Another found her answer in Danessa Myricks Blurring Balm Powder: “I use it as a primer under makeup and it is the ONLY thing that has ever kept my glasses from sliding down my nose.”

If you’d rather solve it with hardware, stick-on grips now exist specifically for makeup wearers. PrettyGrips by Pretty-Britty ($19.99 for 120) are thin peel-and-stick pads for the spots where frames touch skin, and the @btaylorbeauty review further down comes from a lifelong glasses wearer who tested them against a full face of foundation.

10. Move Your Blush Out From Under Your Frames

Frames larger than average are typically positioned very close to the area you’re supposed to apply blush, according to most blush instructions. Since this is an issue for people wearing frames in that area, use the lower part of the cheekbone as your guide when placing blush, below the bottom rim. This will help show off the product rather than be covered by it. Use your glasses as a reference point to see exactly which portion of your cheek you’ll need to work with, and soften any harsh lines around the outer edges of the application area because a sharp line under a frame makes it look like another rim running beneath it.

Jodi Mannes, an over-50 creator whose channel covers makeup for glasses wearers, goes through blush and brow placement in her eight glasses tips video, on a face wearing the frames the whole time.

11. Let a Bold Lip Balance Bold Frames

Statement frames with a statement lip sounds like a lot but it’s not, it looks intentional (red lipstick and tortoiseshell frames is a match made in heaven). If your frames are the most defined part of the upper portion of your face, a bright color for your lips will balance the lower half and give you an excuse not to have to mess around with eye makeup on mornings when time is short. Apply a satin or creme finish for the majority of your lip color if you use shiny acetate frames, because the two shines can conflict. A sheer balm or gloss should be used as opposed to a bold red matte finish when using quieter wire frames.

12. Hooded Eyes and Glasses Can Work Together

Hooded eyes and shadow aren’t always friends. And if you add frames on top of that, it can be downright intimidating. But fear not! Use a crease color positioned slightly higher than your hood so it shows when your eyes are open, and transition to waterproof or tubing liner as hooded lids have a habit of smudging any and all eyeshadow by lunchtime. Elaine Park’s tutorial below builds a smudge-proof hooded-eye look designed to stay visible behind frames, and the techniques work for all ages:

13. Learn to Do the Close-Up Parts by Feel

This might sound obvious, but just in case: you have to do your with your glasses off, and for some of us that means working two inches from the mirror. One longtime glasses wearer has a whole system: “As a lifelong glasses wearer, I use a combination of a magnifying mirror and putting my glasses on but holding them away from my eyes to check my progress (mostly with eyeshadow). For liner & mascara, I use the magnifying mirror but primarily apply those by feel.”

Another skips the magnifying mirror, leans close to the bathroom one instead, and uses “the flashlight on my phone to closely check my makeup in the mirror.” A $15 lighted magnifying mirror does the job of both. For proof that the learning curve is real (and short), @monica.raviii filmed her own trial and error in real time, below.

14. Steal a Full Routine From a Longtime Glasses Wearer

Individual tips are helpful, but it’s even better to see the whole routine in action. Jodi Mannes filmed a full tutorial for women over 50 that covers readers, progressives, and bold statement frames:

If you want the long version, Makeup by Nikki La Rose published a 42-minute guide for eyeglass wearers this January, and it earns the runtime with brow work, lash strategy, and product names all the way through. Save it for a Sunday coffee.

One last thing: if you’re due for new frames anyway, try the next pair on while wearing your normal makeup. It’s much easier to pick frames that flatter your face wearing eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick colors you would wear with your new pair on.

What Our BEEs Are Buzzing About

Here’s what the beauty community is saying about makeup for glasses:

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