Having an eyeliner sharpener is necessary if you regularly use pencil eyeliners in your makeup routine. By sharpening an eyeliner pencil, you can control how thin and sharp the line of eyeliner appears on your eyelid, which helps you avoid a smudged "raccoon eye" look. Also, many wooden eyeliner pencils tend to be very sharp against the eyelids when the makeup gets worn down, and require sharpening before further use is comfortable or practical. Purchasing an eyeliner sharpener in the right size, both for portability reasons and because eyeliner pencils come in varying sizes, is very important.
Generally, most women prefer an eyeliner sharpener that is small and compact enough to easily fit into a purse pocket or a makeup bag. This makes it possible to do multiple makeup touch-ups anywhere needed without having to worry about breaking an eyeliner tip or running an eyeliner pencil down to the wooden edges. Typically, a small eyeliner sharpener that is conveniently portable looks nearly like a regular pencil sharpener, with a small, simple plastic frame, an opening to stick the eyeliner pencil into, and a blade to sharpen the eyeliner pencil when it is twisted. A common problem with this type of eyeliner sharpener, however, is that, as the pencil is sharpened, bits of eyeliner get smeared onto the blade and can then be transferred to the inside of the pocket or purse the sharpener is stored in since there is no outer casing to catch the shavings.
Some kinds of eyeliner sharpener include multiple blade and opening sizes. This is very useful if you have a variety of eyeliner pencil sizes. If, for instance, you have a few regular sized eyeliner pencils and a few thick eyeliner crayon pencils, you would only need the one eyeliner sharpener to sharpen both kinds. This can save you the hassle and the money of having to find, purchase, and store two separate sharpeners in the right size.
Do not attempt to use a regular pencil sharpener for your eyeliner pencils. An eyeliner sharpener is much more suited to the task because the blade is shorter and at more of an angle, causing the distance from the beginning of the wood sides to the tip of the eyeliner to be much shorter with a finer point. This not only makes application much more controllable, but it also makes the soft eyeliner makeup less prone to breakage.