All posts filed under: Tips & Tricks

Shopping for an End-All, Be-All Eye Palette: What to Look For

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If you’re on a tight budget and looking for an eye palette to meet most, if not all, of your needs, here are a few tips I can share with you. I’ll be basing it off of my Basic Eye Diagram & Go-To Eyeshadow Technique, and the premise that you are looking for a palette to use for everyday. I’ll be demonstrating this using the Urban Decay Naked 2 ($50), NARS And God Created the Woman ($65 for a set), Laura Mercier’s Artist Palette for Eyes (LE), and theBalm’s Nude ‘Tude ($36), under the assumption that you want a more or less neutral palette. I chose all of these palettes because they are either still available/permanent, or they’re LE palettes that have shades that are mostly permanent. BASE COLOR The base color is what you would put all over your mobile eye lid (area under the crease). Usually it’s a light to midtone color, but obviously you can go darker for night/smokier/sultrier looks. I split the swatches into three photos since they wouldn’t fit on …

How to Elongate Your Eyes with Makeup

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This is perhaps my favorite way to do my eyes. 🙂 I like making them appear squintier and longer, because I feel like they make me look more feminine and girl-like. LOL. I just like how this technique makes me eye look! Sineady from The Makeup Chair actually already posted a helpful tutorial, which I mostly followed, resulting into this eye look: The trick is to make a gradation from a super light, shimmery shade on the inner corner, into a deep, dark color on the outer corner. The idea is to put the lighter shade in the inner area, to pull your eyes apart. Concentrating the dark shade or the shadow on your outer area will make it look like your eye is receding, thus elongating them. Easy enough to remember, right? 🙂 I used the Le Métier de Beauté Mélange Palette (reviewed here) for this look, but you can obviously use any shades that you may already have. 1. Take a shimmery cream or off-white color (Nylon Stocking) and apply that on the …

One-Shadow Eye Looks

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For the lazy bones in you! Each look featured here was made using just one eyeshadow. I was going to make a tutorial… but that would be pointless. Just follow the one-step directions and you’ll be fine! SMOKY EYE — I used Le Métier de Beauté’s Alexandrite, and you can see the tutorial here. WASH & WEAR — Here’s a look that’s pretty similar as well, but you kind of just pat down a shade all over the mobile lid and hope for the best. Using shu uemura’s ME medium brown 885, aka my favorite eyeshadow: Using OCC’s Loose Colour Concentrate in Hum: Using MAC Paint Pot in Rubenesque, a rose gold cream shadow: Using Rouge Bunny Rouge Eyeshadow in Solstice Halcyon, a light almost imperceptible neutral taupe: QUICK LICKS — a lick of shadow, a lick of eyeliner, a lick of mascara, and you’re done. This is great for pairing with a bold red lip. Using Bootycall from the Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette + liquid eyeliner + mascara on top and bottom lashes. …

1 Quad, 6 Looks: bareMinerals’ The Happy Place

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A duo’s a challenge to play around with, but a quad is a riot. One of my favorite ones is bareMinerals’ The Happy Place, which came out as part of their Supernatural Collection (I think). I saw the coral, the aubergine, the mushroom grey, and I thought, “I have to have that.” Nearly a year later, and I have no regrets! I chose this palette because it seems a bit hard to use. I know that people have been warned against pinky shades for the eyes, to avoid the inevitable pink-eye effect. However, this pink, I think, is quite special, and it comes with pretty colors that go well with it. Watch the video for the looks, and a small tutorial at the end! Let me know if this is something you are keen on seeing more of. I kind of really enjoy it, though filming is a little harder because I don’t like wasting makeup and these looks were mostly worn out of the house (the first three were taken on two separate vacations). …

Eye Basics: Get to know your eye brushes

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Getting into eye makeup past eyeliner and mascara can be a little daunting, especially when picking out the brushes. There are so many brushes out in the market, so here’s a rough guide I cobbled up for you, to help you out. Remember, I’m just going by my meager brush stash, and show you how I use some of the brushes I have. Obviously, you can always use these brushes outside their specific intended function. Let’s hop to it! FLAT SHADER BRUSH — for basic eyeshadow application! Use these brushes to pat on eyeshadow to minimize fallout and get maximum pigmentation. From left to right: MAC 239, Urban Decay Double-Ended Good Karma Shadow/Crease Brush (comes with Naked 2 Palette), NARS No. 3 (from the And God Created the Woman Set), Charm Wet/Dry Shadow Brush (from Sonia Travel Pro Set) My favorite of the three is the MAC 239, followed by NARS (which provides a good wash of color instead). Both the UD and Charm brushes work in a pinch, though. The density—or the fullness of …

Basic Eye Diagram & My Go-To Eyeshadow Technique

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I used to teach part-time, and I find that it makes more sense to talk about history first. However, I haven’t exactly finished writing that post. Heh. So, for this day of this September Special, I wanted to share a basic “eye diagram” to sort of help you follow tutorials if you find them a little hard to do. I’m also going to post about my go-to technique for eyeshadow application, which was what I basically used when I was still exploring eye makeup. I just used to interchange the colors. 🙂 BASIC EYE DIAGRAM Obviously, there may be some differences with how each person refers to these “parts” of the eye, but this is how I usually follow tutorials and explain eye makeup to people. — Brow bone: protrusion just under your eyebrow. Usually enhanced by a light eyeshadow. — Mobile lid: part of the eyelid that “moves” when you blink. The part under your crease. — Crease: the fold of the eye. — Upper lash line: where your eyelashes grow on the upper …

Make That Face Monday: One-Shadow Smoky Eye Using LMdB Alexandrite

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Alexandrite is the first and only eyeshadow single from Le Métier de Beauté that I ever bought, and for the longest time, I wished that I had gotten a more sensible color, like the often celebrated Corinthian. I bought it during my “purple shadow phase,” which I am not completely out of but am moving slowly away from. Recently, however, I realized that I can actually use Alexandrite, a pretty red-toned violet with a bit of a golden sheen (as far as I can tell), for a one-shadow smoky eye. But more on that later. As for Alexandrite, it has a wonderful, smooth texture that is also apparent upon application. It’s not incredibly pigmented on the first layer, but it’s very easy to work with and it’s a dream to layer and blend. The Le Métier de Beauté single eyeshadows come housed in a rubberized circular compact, with a texture that’s more similar to the NARS compacts than the LMdB Kaleidoscopes that I’m more used to. Each shadow has a mirror on the lid, and …