When you open your eyeliner and realize it’s dried out, you may be tempted to toss it in the trash.
Hold onto it, though, as I will show you how to fix the dry eyeliner and bring it back to life. There’s no need to toss it out if a small fix can make it usable again.
Why Did the Eyeliner Dry Out?
Let’s start with what makes eyeliner become dry in the first place. It’s probably down to one of two problems. Either you chose poor quality eyeliner or it wasn’t stored like it should have been.
Some eyeliner kits are just made from shoddy components and won’t last very long before they dry out and need to be revived.
If that’s the case with your eyeliner, you may want to upgrade to something that’s a little more user friendly and convenient so that you can use it when you want to without having to fix it up first.
How do you store your eyeliner properly so that it doesn’t dry out so much? First of all, make sure you’re closing the cap tightly. If air is getting in, it could dry out the eyeliner prematurely.
Secondly, try storing your liquid eyeliner upside down. This helps keep ink on the brush or tip and keeps the liquid from drying completely.
How to Revive Dried Eyeliner
Now that you know what’s wrong with your eyeliner, let’s work on how to make it better.
1. Use Water
One of the quickest, simplest, and cheapest fixes you can do is add a little warm water to the liquid formula. Take your eyeliner bottle and dip it in a cup of warm water or run it under warm water from the faucet.
This can take a few minutes, so don’t expect instant results. It will usually take dry eyeliner about four minutes to liquefy again and become usable.
When you’re done warming up the bottle of eyeliner, be sure to dry it off completely.
If you’re hesitant to put the eyeliner in warm water or put it near water at all, you can use a warm towel and wrap that around the bottle. It works just as well, but it may take a little bit longer. Remember to use a warm towel and not a hot one because you don’t want to damage the bottle or burn yourself.
You don’t want to heat up the liquid too much either. If you do, you can actually damage the eyeliner and make it completely unusable.
2. Use a Hair Dryer
Here is another method that uses the same principle as the one we just gave you. You can use this method when your eyeliner pencil has clumps on it or it starts to take on a dull shade.
Maybe you tried drawing with the eyeliner pencil and it doesn’t do anything unless you put heavy pressure on it.
You can place your eyeliner on a towel and then use a blow dryer to warm it up. This will take around 7 minutes or so, and you want to keep a little distance between the blow dryer and the eyeliner- about half a foot.
A pro tip here that I want to share is that after you heat up the eyeliner, sharpen the tip of the pencil and it should work very nicely afterwards.
3. Change the Storage Temperature
An even more straightforward method for how to revive dry eyeliner is to put it in a different location where the temperature is suitable for your makeup. If it’s too cold or too hot, it could dry up or harden.
Make sure it’s stored at room temperature where there’s no extreme temperatures to deal with.
During very hot or very cold times of the year, you may want to provide special storage for your eyeliner and other makeup items.
4. Add Some Liquid
A slightly more difficult method for how to fix dried eyeliner is to rehydrate it. You can do this a few different ways, depending on the kind of eyeliner you have.
Gel eyeliner can be rehydrated with jojoba oil or coconut oil. You only want to add a little bit at a time, because if you’re putting too much oil in there, you’re going to create an eyeliner that smudges easily. About one drop at a time is all you really need, and then you can mix it around to see if that does the trick.
If not, add another drop and try mixing again, and then repeat the process until the eyeliner is the right consistency again and it’s not dried out anymore.
To help the oil permeate the eyeliner better, you can prick holes into the dry eyeliner after you drop oil in there. Try letting the oil sit in the container overnight with the capsule and see if that does the trick.
The other rehydration method I want to share with you is to moisten the rod. If you have a felt tip eyeliner, you can take the felt rod out and attempt to rehydrate that part.
You can unscrew it and then pull it out with tweezers, and from there the rod can be soaked in warm water for about one or two minutes. Remove the rod from the water and lightly dry it.
Then, can be put back in the pen. If you’re looking for how to revive a liquid eyeliner pen, that’s probably one of the more effective methods.
5. Check the Seal
Are you closing the cap tightly enough on your eyeliner container? Maybe the screw top is not threading properly, and it may be sealing crooked.
Check to make sure that the cap is lined up with the rest of the container when it’s closed all the way. If it’s at an angle, you need to take it back off then try again.
Also give the cap for the eyeliner a turn to tighten it once it’s closed to see if it can tighten anymore. It may look closed but not be airtight, and if air gets in, it can affect the consistency of your eyeliner.
6. Sharpen the Pencil
There’s another revitalizing method you can use, and this is perfect for how to fix dry liquid eyeliner pencil.
Pencil eyeliners should be sharpened regularly. If you haven’t been sharpening yours before you use it, the tip can dry out. Keeping it sharp keeps it moist.
The way to sharpen your eyeliner pencil is to take a paper towel and use the pencil to draw on that. That should remove the top layer so that it’s moist again and ready to be used.
Closing Thoughts
Some of these ideas may seem a little obvious, while others may seem like they would completely destroy your eyeliner. Each one of them has their uses, though, and you want to use the right kind of revitalizing or rehydrating method for the type of eyeliner kit you have.
You could damage your eyeliner if you’re not careful with how you try to bring it back to life, but you will be no worse off than if it was dried out and unusable. So, it’s worth giving one or more of these methods a try.
As I mentioned earlier, how you store your eyeliner plays a big part in how long it stays liquid and ready to be used. Consider different storage methods to help preserve your eyeliner.
I’m Jennifer a beauty and wellness expert. I believe in promoting a sustainable and healthy lifestyle from within. Helping people feel good is my passion; whether it’s teaching yoga or offering skincare advice.
