The Makeup Box

Ocean Dawn Dramatic Eye

It’s the middle of the week. So of course, I had to perk myself up with a dramatic eye. I wanted to do something a little startling, but very interesting to look at.

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Step 1:  Apply a black cream shadow base to the outer half of lids and a little along the sockets. I used MAC Blackground Paintpot.

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Step 2: Coat lids and bottom lash line with bright royal blue. Mine was some cheap $2 shadow from a clearance sale, mashed up into a jar with some gold glitter. You can use any strong azure-blue.

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Step 3: Apply matte black along the outer corners in a V, winging outward just slightly.

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Step 4: [Optional] Take a very fine pale gold glitter (cosmetic grade - please don’t use chunky art store glitter as that can hurt your eyes), and dab it in the inner corners and center of your eye lids. (Mine is mixed with a little silicone and applied like a cream/gel shadow so it will not fall off through the day.) From some distance away, the glitter should look like a wet gold sheen rather than disco particles.

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Step 5: Apply a thin navy line along the upper lashes for definition (e.g. MAC Blooz was used here, but you can use liquid as well) and white pencil along the waterline. Then sweep on a lot of black mascara.

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And The Final Look Again:

Current: Purple Nails and Eyes

Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t find most purples to be that easy to wear on a day-to-day basis.

It has always been one of my favorite colors growing up, so you can bet I will have way more purple items lying around than I actually would wear.

One of these is Sally Hansen’s Grape Fizz polish. I loved how it looked in the bottle, but was terribly disappointed when I got home, applied it, and found it to be a really sheer purple “stain” rather than the rich metallic hue I had hoped it would be.

So it sat on my shelf for months.

Until I suddenly thought about layering it with a deeper creme color.

Enter my trusty chocolate milk polish, O.P.I.’S Over the Taupe. This sassy sister’s apparently also a team-player. Worn under Grape Fizz (below), it was sufficient to bring out all the rich wine-grape tones without actually turning everything brown.

It’s now just a lovely plum/grape color.

Of course, now that I found a way to make my Grape Fizz work, I had to get some sort of theme going on my face. I’m not crazy about matching, so much as complementing. So I reached for one of the very few items in my stash which I consider to be fool-proof.

The dark prune metallic pencil (#79 Violet miroitant) from the Bourjois Regard Metallise line. The brown, blue, green and black liners in this collection get a lot of press, and honest to goodness, I love and own them all.

But I find the true MVP for the collection; the one that I can reach for when I’m feeling totally lazy (like today), need to look work-appropriate, but want a little more zing than the usual blacks, navies and browns can give, is the purple.

In real life, it appears a lot more brown/gray, but I like how it’s dark enough to define or create a smoky look, while having enough color to still be interesting.

Other products worn in the photo above:

• Rimmel Sexy Curves mascara
• Revlon Colorstay #310 mixed with L’oreal UV Perfect SPF30

Do you have any go-to purple products that I should know about?