The Makeup Box

Color Overload: Jewel-toned Dramatic Eyes

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This is a dark and dramatic look that’s at the same time very bright and punchy. You have the option of wearing it 2 ways; one more of a traditional colored smoky look, and the other an all-out color-fest.

You’ll need:

A black base or eye liner

• A shimmery purple shadow or pigment (I used MAC Cornflower)
• A shimmery golden green (I used MAC Golden Olive)
• [Optional] Gold liquid liner (I used Lime Crime’s Rhyme)
• [Optional] Bright fuchsia lipstick (I used Barry M Punky Pink)

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Step 1: First smear the black pencil or base all over your lid, along the lower lash lines, and also the inner rims of your lids.

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Step 2: With a flat brush, gently smudge out the edges of the liner so you get a softer smoky look and look less like you walked out of Kungfu Panda.

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Step 3: The fun part is always applying shimmer on top of the black. I chose a violet-blue and packed it gently over the black. Do not rub back and forth as you might smear your liner. You can use any colors you want but remember the shades will tend to appear deeper and richer than usual, so choose brighter, more vibrant ones.

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Step 3: On the inner portion of the lids, pack the bright golden-green shimmer and let it fade slightly into the violet earlier.

Remember to run your brush along your lower lash line as well, so the color is there.

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Step 4: This is where it’s optional. Use the black liner from earlier and draw just the tail-end of a flick from the outer corner of your eye outwards. 

Then follow by running bright gold liquid liner along the entire upper lash line, meeting and stacking right on top of the black at the outer ends. Then add a bit to the inner corners of the lower lash line as well.

Finish with mascara and that’s all there is to it.

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Step 5: For the lips, you can choose either to go with a nude lip so the look stays focused on the eyes, or you can opt to just go crazy with a brighter lip like I did.

Fantasy Isle: Cat Eye with a Splash of Aqua

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I was inspired by the recent Top Shop campaign visuals, where this girl was wearing BRIGHT aqua shadow all around the inner corners of her eyes, but since a big sphere of turquoise around your eyes doesn’t really work in most real life scenarios, I toned it down a notch, stacked 2 liners along the lower lash line, and added a sultry cat eye flick into the look.

You’ll need:

• Black liner (any black kajal or pencil)
• Aqua liner (I used Milani Liquif’Eye in Aqua but most brands have a bright turquoise)
• A bright aqua shadow (I used Coastal Scents Hot Pot in Fantasy Isle; MAC Aquadisiac might work if you are extremely pale)
• False lashes (or black mascara)
• Black liquid liner (optional)

Step 1: First line your entire lower lid with the aqua pencil. You don’t need to go all over the waterline. Just run it right below your lash line and then up to your upper lid, where you fill in just the inner corners.

Smoke out upper lid a little, so the blue fades into your skin.

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Step 2: Use a fine brush to pack the aqua shadow over the lower lash line. This not only sets the blue, but also brightens it and intensifies the color.

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Step 3: Switch to a softer blending brush for the upper lid and coat the inner 1/3 of your lids with the aqua shadow. Unlike the lower lash line, you are going to blend the shadow upwards, past the socket line and almost to the brow. 

Make sure there are no harsh edges. The aqua should fade into the rest of your lid.

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Step 4: Use kajal or black pencil to line the inner rims of your eyes, inside the base of the lashes. 

Then run it above the upper lash line as well.

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Step 5: Flick time! Run a Q-tip gently along the pencil above your upper lashes, and at the end, pull it up gently into a slight flick. If you smudged too much off, you can always go back and apply a little more black pencil JUST at the base of your lashes.

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Step 6: Apply your mascara or false lashes. I used  Ardell 120 Demis here for a wispy, longer-at-the-outer-corners cat-eye look.

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Step 7: (Optional) The shadow that we applied along the lower lash line earlier would have coated your lower lashes and made them blue and powdery. To get them inky and more visible, you can use mascara, but I find that tends to be clumpy, and if you’re not careful, you can deposit globs of black all along your lower lash line from the brush.

I like using a liquid liner, holding it sideways like a mascara brush, and then lightly stroking it downwards to coat my lashes with inky black. Do it just like you apply mascara, moving from top to bottom, and be VERY careful not to touch your skin with the brush or felt tip.

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And that’s it!

Cloudy Pink-and-Mauve Eye (using MAC Shadows)

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I haven’t done a girly, soft, easy-to-apply eye for quite awhile, and this is a slight variation of a previous look (Napolitan Ice-Cream look), with shimmery shades replacing the matte ones, and an overall plummy tone.

The colors are flattering for most skins, but you might want to adjust the shades and make them stronger and deeper if you have a very deep skin tone.

The 3 shades I used were from MAC:

• MAC Vex - a soft grey-beige with a pink sheen; I don’t really know of a dupe for this as it’s a very unique color. If you need, just look for a soft beige shade.
• MAC Da Bling - Pearly Barbie-esque pastel pink; a similar but cheaper shade would be NYX’s Pink Oleander.
• MAC Shale - Deep smoky brownish plum that’s actually neutral enough as a soft smoky lid shade for school and work. Try NYX Eggplant but use a light hand as that’s a more intense shade than Shale.

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Step 1: This step is actually optional. If you want the overall look to be softer and subtler, you don’t need to use a plum base. I just like the intensity for a tutorial. I filled in my entire lid with a plum colored pencil from Rimmel called 220 Perfect Plum. You don’t have to use a pencil if you’ve got a cream shadow in a similar shade.

I applied it to the lower lash line as well. Make sure you smudge out the edges with your fingers after you’re done, so there are no harsh lines.

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Step 2: Take the soft pearly grey-beige and apply that to the inner half of the lids. Then on the outer half, apply the smoky plum.

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Step 3: To add the finishing touch, apply a soft pearl-pink down the center of the lids. (As you can tell this is my favorite trick for adding definition to the eye and also more dimension to your eye shadow shades.)

Just make sure not to blend it out too much as you want to keep most of the color in the center.

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Step 4: Finish with black mascara or false lashes!

Winter Starburst (Wearing Glitter Without Sealing Liquid or Lash Glue!)

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Most of the time when we want to wear glitter on the lids WITH eye shadow, we need to fiddle with:

1. Eyelash glue - too gloopy and doesn’t allow a light dusting of glitter
2. Liner sealant - Hard to apply over the entire lid without shifting the shadow underneath
3. No setting medium - Glitter just falls right off when you try to apply them over shadow

Here’s an easy way to apply glitter without having to run out to buy glitter glue, brow gel, sealant, etc: Apply it right over your base or primer BEFORE your shadow. If you’re careful, you won’t dust off too much of it when you apply powder shadow over it, and the glitter will stay on a lot better than if you applied the glitter last, over your powder shadow.

The effect I chose was a bright shadow in the center, fading into a glittery wing, like a trail of stardust. Fantastic for a party because it almost looks like regular shadow from the front, but as you turn your head, the light will catch the flecks of glitter and produce a rather dramatic sparkling effect at the outer corners of your eyes.

Tip: You can be as subtle (green-on-green) or as dramatic (gold-on-violet) as you want when it comes to colors! Experiment with whatever you have.

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Step 1: I applied a generous coat of black pencil to the lids. Don’t worry about it being messy looking.

I don’t recommend using gel shadow or any fast-setting primer because you need a slightly tacky surface.

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Step 2: Using a flat brush or synthetic brush, gently smoke out the edges of the pencil, moving outwards always. Follow the hollow of your eye socket. (If you move your brush back and forth, you are likely to mess up the inner corners where it should be clean.)

On the outer ends, extend into a soft wing.

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Step 3: Now for the glitter. Just use the same flat brush to pick up a little glitter, and then PACK/PAT gently onto the outer portion of the lids. I angled it diagonally (see dotted line above) but you don’t need to.

Go over twice or more times, just to really pack on more glitter, since some will dust off later. 

Try a translucent, fine-grained glitter like MAC Reflects Transparent Teal or Blue.

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Step 4: Now is the time you apply the shadow. I’ve reversed the order of application as you can see. Begin with the inner 1/3 of the lids and you can just buff/rub your brush over this area to get intense color. I used MAC Tilt shadow. Coastal Scents Hot Pot in Niagara is a similar duochrome marine shade but with a more intense gold sheen instead of aqua. 

On the center portion of the eye, your shadow is going to overlap the glitter. This is where you want to be gentle and just pat-pat-pat the shadow on with your brush, rather than sweep it back and forth. This makes sure most of the glitter doesn’t get dusted off, but is pressed into the base. 

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As a final step, simply run the black pencil along the inner rims of your upper lids and apply plenty of black mascara. That’s it! It’s quite dramatic but isn’t hard to do at all. What’s fun is the combination of a black base, which transforms and really brings out the color in translucent blue glitter and duochrome blue-gold shadow. 

Warm Santal Blush Eye with Full Lashes

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Pink can make you look like you have swollen eyes, but a quick trick for reining in the color so it just gives a subtle warm glow rather than being a full-on pink is “layering”.

What you want to apply under that should be a deeper shade with a hint of pink in it, such as plum or violet. You can also use charcoal or black but you’d lose that warm blush effect. 

I used Benefit’s Creaseless Cream shadow in Stiletto for the base, and then 2 pinks from BH Cosmetics pans WM20 (neon matte pink) and WM04 (pastel matte pink). Go for shadows that are quite bright, because they will blend into a much softer shade.

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Step 1: First apply the plum cream shadow all over your lids, up past the hollow of the socket line. Make sure you blend out the edges and run it along the lower lash line as well.

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Step 2: Layer on the pink shadows. I applied a soft pastel pink to the inner halves and down around the inner corners as well. The on the outer half, I applied a neon pink. As you can see, only a faint hint of pink goes on, so it’s not going to look too crazy. 

I did not bring the pink shadows up past the socket line, because I want the pink to be surrounded by plum at the outer edges. This helps to define your eye contours.

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Step 3: Run a black pencil along the inner rims of your eyes, and then once more above the upper lashes.

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Step 4: Using your finger, smudge out the black liner above your upper lashes, so that you get a nice smoky gradient instead of a harsh black line. 

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Step 5: Apply dramatic false lashes. I used Eylure Miss Eylure lashlets in “Alice”. I can’t exactly remember what the equivalent style is from Ardell, but most brands DEFINITELY have a similar version. Look for rather full but spiky strips that are longer at the outer corners. 

That, or you can just wear mascara and skip all this!

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Nail polish shown: Essie Splash of Grenadine

Driftwood: Seafoam Green and Rich Bronze Look for Day (88 Warm Palette)

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Straightforward does not need to be boring. Here’s a look that you can easily wear for day because I matched a soft seafoam green with a rich brown and soft champagne. The green is almost “faded” in tone so it’s definitely a bit more fun, but not too loud for work or school.

The first shade is located near the bottom left corner of the 88 Warm palette. (You can get this from both Coastalscents.com as well as BHcosmetics.com. I don’t detect any difference in the quality and they’re likely to come from the same manufacturers.)

The Neutrals are near the central column. The first is a deeper cocoa bronze right at the bottom, right of the middle. The champagne comes higher up to the left of the center, a little above the maroon shade near the center of the palette. Both of the neutrals are shimmery, so if you prefer mattes, you can always replace the ones I used with similar shades on the palette.

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Step 1: Start by buffing the seafoam green onto the inner half of the lids.

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Step 2: Now, buff the rich bronze-brown onto the outer half of the lids. (This shade looks quite similar to MAC Bronze shadow, but is slightly lighter.)

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Step 3: Now, pack some pale champagne gold onto your brush and then spritz it with a little water, eye drops or Fix+. THEN pat it gently down the center of your lid, going over and building up as needed, until you get a nice gold sheen.

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Step 4: For definition, I ran a bronze pencil along the inner corner of the lower lid (Sephora Flashy Liner in Flashy Copper) and a dark navy blue to the outer half of the upper lid. I used a discontinued MAC pencil called Blooz, but as with all pencils, you can use ANY similar shade from any brand you choose. As long as the pencil has good color payoff, the brand doesn’t matter.

Then just finish by curling lashes and applying mascara or falsies as needed!