But don’t get it twisted — Lavigne may be using at least one of the same products, but her approach to executing her signature makeup look has indeed evolved. When you’ve been doing it yourself for 20 years, it has to. “I just can’t stand people doing my makeup, because I know how I like it. If anything, I do half of it or let them touch me up,” she shares. “No one can do it right. Plus, I can’t sit in a chair for an hour while someone’s doing my makeup. It drives me nuts, especially when I can do my smoky eye in two minutes.”
The process is less of a routine and more of a ritual. On early shoot days, it starts before she even leaves the house. “I literally wake up, I go to my bathroom, and start my makeup,” she says. Once her face is cleansed, moisturized, and primed, she applies her brows, base, and gets to her eyes last. “You don’t want it to be just black,” she explains. “I’ve learned over the years that you want to do some browns in there and some gray in with it, too. Then you use the black. If you just do solid black, it’s really hard to get it a good shape.” She starts by applying her beloved Smolder liner to her lower lash area. “Line the inside, a little bit at the bottom, and then smudge it,” she instructs. Then she gets to work blending and shaping the lids.
That last part is a modern feature of Lavigne’s signature smoky eye. In her teens, she favored an unfussy-but-impactful flat black blended out relatively close to the lash line, carefully hugging the natural shape of her eyes. The 2022 version of the look has far more bells and way shinier whistles. “It’s a little more glamorous, I’ll wing it out with a liquid liner,” Lavigne explains, noting that she’s recently leveled up in mastering her technique. “It took me literally up until a year ago to figure out how to use liquid eyeliner. It was always so hard for me. And now I can just — ha, ha, no pun intended — wing it and do it really fast.” If she’s feeling a little extra, she’ll bring in an element of bling. “If I’m going on on TV, I’ll say, ‘okay, let’s add some sparkles,'” though she’ll try to steer clear of anything too chunky. “I actually hate wearing sparkles because they end up in my eye. I used to wear real sparkles a lot. Now, I’ll reach for a glittery, silvery metallic-y eye shadow to use instead. It gives the same effect but it’s more of a shimmer.”