An eye at the Indo-Arab style

Zorain Khaleeli elaborates on the difference between Indian style and Arab style of eye makeup and shares a glimpse of her signature ‘Indo-Arab eye makeup’ style.

About the author: Zorain Khaleeli, Founder, Zorains Studio and Academy, has been in the beauty industry for over 25 years. After a decade of training in MAC cosmetics as a training manager, she opened her own academy specialising in makeup, hair, nails, aromatherapy and specialised subjects such as lash extension, lash lifting and microblading. She has conducted several bridal workshops and seminars in multiple destinations as well as numerous bridal shows for Professional Beauty India.

Despite the pandemic scenario, weddings have been on the go. However, brides nowadays have shifted their focus from just trying different lip and skin looks, to more variations in eye makeup for different functions – considering the focus on the eye due to the usage of mask. Zorain Khaleeli, Founder, Zorains Studio and Academy, has her signature style – the Indo-Arab Eye Make-up – which fits just perfect and had been gaining popularity among weddings in the new normal. She shares more insights with team PBI about this innovative makeup style. The concept

The concept The concept stems from the fact that the Indian eyes are beautiful, but the traditional eye makeup used in India is slightly different from the Arabic style of make-up. The Indian style of eye make-up predominantly sticks to the length of the eye with no emphasis on extended liners or winged out eye shadows therefore enhancing the eyes in its own beautiful size and shape.

The Arabic style of makeup focuses more on the depth and dimension, restructuring of eye with the basic focus being on elongating the eyes, therefore making it look much larger than it normally is. Use of black and dark shadows and having dramatic liners is the Arabic go-tostyle. When it comes to Kohl, unlike kohl being mandatorily used in Indian eye makeup, the Arabic style of makeup plays with colours or even white pencils to make the eye look bigger.

The inspiration of getting the Arabic trend to blend with both cultures for creating a unique style of eye make-up is what has led to the signature ‘Indo-Arabic eye makeup’ style.

Both patterns

To further elaborate on the main difference between the Indian and the Arabic style of eye makeup, the eye area makeup is broken down into different segments:

Brows: The Indian makeup keeps the brows extremely natural. However, in the Arab makeup style, focusing and structuring the brows is most important. Pencils could be used to give feathered effect. If the eye make-up is elaborate, you can go in for starker and darker brows.

Eye shadow: There is a north and south side to India. The north side is experimental with colours and placements, whereas the south side is more subtle. However, the choice of bright colours is common across the country. In the case of the Arab style, it has a different play and placement of colours. It is a collaboration of predominant and nude colours to create melanges of colours on the eye. The colour themes used are more monochromatic to an analogue placement where colours lying next to each other on the colour wheel are used to create a soft melange of colours.

Another major difference is that in the India style, the eye-shadow ends stark, but in the Arab style, it is embraced with a fade and shadow effect. The Arab style also uses a lot of dark hues of greys, blacks, deep blue, to create depth and dimension, which is the main focus. There is a huge play of light and dark and contrast so that one can bring out the 3D effect of an eye, which is not a style to the Indian make-up.

Liners: Liners in India would either go from thin to thick or even from a slightly thicker to the centre and slightly thinner to the outside creating a rounder effect to the eyes where the liner is not being very winged, maintains the eye shape and keeps it slightly more smaller.

However, in the Arab style, there is always a slight wing and slight elongation that creates length to the eye, emphasising on the eyes’ size to a larger extent. This allows an individual to enhance the size of the eyes by extending shadows over the brow area creating an illusion of length hence elongating the eye beautifully.

Lashes: In the Indian style, lashes are not dramatic and are kept more natural with lashes being shorter in length and not intense in their texture. However, in our Indo-Arabic style, we blend two different lashes style with a lashon-lash technique. But we usually play with the length or intensity based on the bride’s requirement and personality to ensure a well-balanced enhanced look.

Glimpses of Indo Arabic eye make-up

Vibrant Look:

The trend for this season is Ombré. It is a melange of colours, very monochromatic, where one colour blends beautifully into the other. However, there is no stark difference in between the colours. I have used monochrome colours in pink – starting from a light tinge of pink, moving into the tones and shades of pink from lighter to darker colours. Also, rather than with black, the corners are enhanced with purple to create dimensions that are not too deep but well enhanced. Glitters and shimmers always work to great effect, and have been used in dual tone. Lashes have been played with great intensity to create the depth of the Indo-Arabic look. The use of liner gives another twist to this look. We normally use a shimmer liner, which does not give much depth and dimension. So to play with the shine and dimension, the liner has been applied first, which is slightly thicker, and the shimmer is placed in between that liner, which is deep and strong and black towards the lashes line. This gives a great dimension to the lashes.

Flare for Liner:

This is a look for those who loves liners. The usage of shadows have been kept extremely matte keeping in mind the Indo-Arabic style. We have still embraced it from light to dark to ensure the eyes look enlarged and there is bigger wider space in between the eye as the liner tends to push the eyes closer together. So the shadows are muted and more skin toned based but we have added a twist of slight pinkish hue to add brightness. The whole look is more so about the liners and here the liners are a collaboration between matte and shine, and hence the liners are one thing we ensure stands out within the make-up. This is a great cut crease type of liner where one is on the lash line itself but joins the liner that comes from the crease liner. The beauty in this liner lies at the join towards the end that creates a beautiful cat eye finish and give the eye an intense look. For glitters to stand out, glitter liners are placed in between the matte black liner. This enhances the shape of the eyeliner to create a bit of drama and a beautiful look.

Perfect Indian Bride with Arab Twist:

In this look, the eye make-up is subtle and beautiful, with a lot of hues of gold colour, which is predominant in the Indian bridal accessories or bridal clothing. It is again the mild twist to the Arab style, where gold is used in collaboration with a blend of colours, more so in the monochromatic tones of oranges and brunt browns that are added to the corners to give a slightly more depth and dimension. The liner is not winged, and therefore, there is an extension to the eye creating a larger eye but not something that is way beyond the crease. The liner is extended towards the crease and burnt orange shades are used to create soft dimensions to the crease line. This creates a beautiful blend between the Indian and an Arabic eye. Here the brows are slightly more dramatic, emphasising on the Arab style.

Smokey eyes with a twist:

In the traditional Indian style, the smokey eyes are done with black or just one colour to create a single colour smokey eye. But here, it is a blend of colours being monochromatic to create a shadow of the make-up and making it look like a beautifully blended smokey eye. For the new trend, there are a lot of light colours used on the inner corner of the eye, which gives the eye an effect to look larger when compared to the smokey eyes, which reduces the dimension of the eye.

Extended Crease Eye Make-up:

Extended crease eye make-up is about tricking the eye to see a larger lid space than what originally exists. To do this effect, the crease line is drawn slightly higher than the original crease with matte shade to create a slight depth. While creating the crease on the higher tone, we use concealers or an eye base so that the colours on eyelid that we are extending can be shown more. To enhance the eyelid then, lighter and shine-based colours are used right up to the cheek crease line enhancing the eyelid space to make it look larger with the required dimensions and also make it look really beautiful with blend of colours and lid space.