For the last feature on this month’s eye makeup special, I wanted to bring the rest of the face along. 🙂 You can wear the most elaborate, exciting eye look but a not-so suitable cheek and lip match may dull the impact of your eye makeup either by being too subtle or too bold.
Just a disclaimer: there are really no rules you have to follow when it comes to makeup. Wear whatever you want, but here are some tips to consider if you want a more ‘put together’ look. 🙂 I’ve gathered some of the things that I felt work well, and attempted to explain why they worked well!
As a general rule, it helps if you pick one feature to highlight. If you want to wear a bold lip, go easy on the eye and cheek makeup and go for a more natural, defined look. You can do that by eyeliner + mascara combination, and a strong contour instead of going for a bright blush, or going for a neutral, understated eye.
Similarly, smokey eyes go well with nudes or pale lip colors.
You can also try to match by going by undertones, either picking the complementary (opposite) color or something that is near in tone/hue/color. For example, I like pairing a navy eye with a light, bright coral.
A smokey, well-defined, cool-toned eye also goes well with an MLBB, and natural colors:
Sometimes, going the matchy-matchy route pays off also. I’ve used warm, earthy tones in this look, and it is surprisingly pretty.
For this next look, the colors I used are pretty rosy, but the eye is warm while the lip color is cool.
A strong gradient also calls for an understated lip color, such as an MLBB or something that adds color to your face but doesn’t take away from the impact of the eye look.
The same principle applies for colored eyeshadow! This cool-toned eye look goes on pretty well with this warm, midtone lip.
And, light pastels together can be fun, too! 🙂
Like I said earlier, ultimately, you can pretty much wear what you want, but if you want some semblance of “put togetherness,” consider doing a little bit of matching. I hope this helps!
For a more in-depth “lesson,” go on over to Makeup Geek.
Softly Sometimes 
Great post! I definitely can use your tips to finally put my eyeshadow palettes to use. Thank you for sharing.
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No problem; glad it was helpful!
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Fab series! Just beautiful to look at/read and inspiring too. Sad that it’s ending as it nears end of month. Thanku
Thank you, anon! It’s okay, we’ll have lots of other things to talk about, too. Glad you stuck around! 🙂
I love that bright bold lip shade in the beginning of the post! And the light coral & the warm… Who am I kidding? I love them all… LOL. I’m just a mess, I don’t plan out my makeup routine, most of the time I just go with what I think will work together. Most of the time I don’t want to neglect any particular product so I’ll focus on that product/color when putting together a look.
Thanks! 🙂 In case you were wondering about the lip colors: bright bold lip shade (Guerlain Rouge G L’Extrait in Gourmandise), the coral (MAC Betty Bright) and the warm, I believe, is Chanel Rouge Allure in Captivante. 😀
I don’t really plan either. Like you, I have the huge urge to use a particular lip or eye color and I just take a few seconds to try and match it. It doesn’t go as planned sometimes, though, but I suppose you can’t avoid mistakes when you’re a rookie like me!