Aegyo-sal makeup brightens the small raised strip immediately beneath the lower lashes, then adds a faint shadow beneath that strip. The easiest starting point is to smile gently into a mirror and follow the shape that appears on your own face. The light goes on the raised area; the shadow goes just below it. Drawing a second, darker crescent much further down is a different effect.
If you have seen Korean eye makeup and wondered why someone is deliberately emphasising the under-eye area, that placement explains a lot. The aim is to suggest the little cushion visible around a smiling eye. My preference for an everyday version is a soft highlight with barely noticeable shading. I would get those two areas right before reaching for glitter.
What the Korean term is pointing to
Aegyo is associated with cuteness or charm, and sal means flesh. In makeup, aegyo-sal refers to that small under-eye fullness, rather than the whole area between the eye and the cheek. You will also see the spelling aegyosal in English tutorials.
This is an established part of Korean makeup vocabulary. A Korean beauty trend analysis by Powderroom and Sometrend traced related tutorials back to 2012, with idol makeup attracting attention in the following year. Its later analysis covered 2019 to July 2022. That history is useful because it explains why dedicated under-eye pencils and shadow liners exist; this is more than a new name for an ordinary eyeliner.
What interests me is the different job assigned to the lower lid. Concealer often aims to make the under-eye area recede. Aegyo-sal makeup deliberately gives a small part of it light and dimension. You can conceal discolouration and still use that technique, but painting everything below the eye the same pale colour loses the distinction.
Find the area before drawing anything
Look at your face in even light, smile gently, then relax. Notice the narrow area directly under the lashes and the shallow boundary underneath it. That is a more useful guide than copying a fixed distance from somebody else's tutorial.
For a first attempt, I would place a little light eyeshadow on that narrow raised area and leave the shadow out. It lets you see whether you like the emphasis before adding a contour line. If the highlight alone gives the effect you wanted, the job is done.
When adding shadow, work immediately below the area you brightened. Start with a short, faint section rather than tracing a complete crescent from corner to corner. Soften it, relax your expression, and look again from a normal conversational distance. A line that looks perfectly neat in a magnifying mirror can be much more obvious on the whole face.
The practical distinction from an eye-bag shadow is location. This makeup technique focuses on the small area close to the lashes; it does not require shading the broader hollow further down. If your eye already has a clear lower-lid contour, I would work with it rather than invent a second one.
Matte, pearl or glitter?
These finishes change the mood of the look, so I would choose them as deliberately as a lipstick finish.
A matte beige or softly peach-toned eyeshadow is my starting point for a subtle daytime attempt. Choose a colour that is slightly lighter than the surrounding skin, rather than automatically using white. On deeper skin, a pale shade chosen from somebody else's swatch can look chalky; a closer colour makes the brightness easier to blend into the rest of the face.
Fine pearl gives a more visible catch of light. I would concentrate a small amount towards the middle of the raised area instead of making an uninterrupted shining stripe. This is the option I would try when I wanted the eye makeup to look more playful while keeping the shape soft.
Glitter is a styling choice. It can make sense in a deliberately sparkly look, but it is not the ingredient that creates aegyo-sal. I would establish the placement with a quieter finish first, then decide whether a little sparkle improves that particular makeup. Use products intended for the eye area and follow their directions; craft glitter has no place in this experiment.
Do you need a dedicated pencil?
You can begin with an eye-safe light eyeshadow, a subtle shadow colour and a small brush already in your makeup bag. A product called an aegyo-sal pencil is useful for precision or convenience, rather than proof that ordinary eyeshadow cannot do the job.
The format has become quite specific in Korean makeup ranges. ETUDE, a Korean makeup brand, has a Reborn Maker dual liner with a brightening pencil at one end and a shadow liner at the other. Its official directions pair brightening the raised area with lightly shading below it. The range includes a matte option as well as shimmer finishes. That is a useful detail: even a dedicated Korean product does not make glitter compulsory.
For the lashes above it, the mascara-fixer guide explains a separate choice: whether a supporting base is worth adding to the mascara you already like.
I would consider that kind of dual format if I regularly liked the look and wanted the two colours together. For an occasional experiment, I would use the shadows I owned first. There is little reason to buy a specialised tool before discovering whether this is a detail you enjoy on your face.
When the extra detail is worth it
The fiddly part is the shadow. It asks for a light hand and a check with your expression relaxed, so I would not add it automatically to a rushed morning routine. A touch of highlight can be a perfectly complete version.
If the result looks drawn on, I would remove or soften the shading before adding more concealer or shimmer. More brightness will not necessarily make a misplaced dark line less noticeable. If the area already looks defined, or extra makeup makes its texture more conspicuous than you like, leave the contour out.
For me, the appeal is a small change to the expression of an eye, not the idea that everybody needs another feature corrected. Start with your own smiling shape, brighten it lightly, and add only as much shadow as the look actually needs. The best everyday version is the one you still like when the mirror is no longer two inches from your face.
The product example
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If you want to explore a dedicated dual format, ETUDE Reborn Maker Under-Eye 0.9g at Olive Young Global opens a colour-selection listing. Choose an option deliberately; the link does not preselect a shade.