Mary H.K. Choi is the author of Emergency Contact, Permanent Record, and Yolk. Her fourth novel, Pool House, just released today.
Several weeks ago the unthinkable happened: My eyeliner was finally discontinued. I won’t belabor the complicated relationship between a mono-lidded Asian woman and her eyeliner of choice, but the urgency is palpable. I have executed a thick black line on both lids for the past three decades, and my eyeliner for at least 20 years has been L’Oréal’s Lineur Intense Felt Tip Liquid Liner in 610 Black Mica.
I knew the day was coming. L’Oréal had long stopped even bothering to emboss the name of the liner onto the tubes, suggesting a diverted marketing budget and a rather dispassionate fulfillment of its remaining orders, but now even my bulk-purchased supply has been exhausted.
There’s arguments to be made to migrate toward another eyeliner modality. Anyone with a face — both young and old — on social media decries a fat, black, continuous line running the entire length of the lid as hideously antiquated. In this moment of blurred lips and hazy eyes, even the most ardent liquid-liner devotee might only apply at the wing, a single flick up and out or else a more generous isosceles wedge. And while most of these testimonials arise from the double-lidded, albeit some hood-lidded, even those amongst the mono-lidded community are doing a softened, brown-gray shadow with smudging at the water line, which, sadly, couldn’t be me. Ever.
