All posts tagged: eyeshadow

Ace of Base: Making Eyeshadow Stay Put on your Oily Lids

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One of my greatest frustrations when I was starting out with makeup was eyeshadow. I think that’s why I was so ecstatic to find out about primers. They made crappy eyeshadow look good and stay put. I eventually found some awesome eyeshadows that work well, even without a primer, but I couldn’t not wear primer once I started. Eye primers are basically the magic glue that bonds your eyeshadow to your eyelids. If your eyelids are prone to oiling up, a good primer or base will prevent your eyeshadow from ‘creasing’—or bunching up in unattractive lines, around your eye folds—and will get you through the day with pretty flawless makeup. There are a lot of good ones out in the market today, and I’ll share with you a few of my favorites. For your standard, dries-down-translucent eyeshadow primer, my top picks are Urban Decay Primer Potion and NARS Pro-Prime Smudgeproof Eyeshadow Base. These have worked the best on my eyes so far. Other alternatives are the e.l.f. Mineral Eyeshadow Primer (though it didn’t agree with …

Day to Night with Urban Decay Naked Basics & a Palette Comparison

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The Urban Decay Naked Basics has been treated as though it was a savior of the eyeshadow world. It’s a 5-matte-1-satin neutral palette that works as a standalone palette or the perfect companion to either of the two über shimmery Naked palettes. The pigmentation is of excellent quality, as to be expected from Urban Decay. The colors are just a bit too light for my skin tone. I feel like it’s a bit uninspired, but that’s from someone who likes playing with makeup. If you’re looking for something that will give you a great neutral eye day after day, then this might be your best bet. Swatched, top: Crave. Swatched, L-R: Venus (satin), Foxy, W.O.S. or Walk of Shame, Naked 2, Faint The colors are gradations of a standard brown, and while this is completely usable, I’d love to have seen something more “exciting,” like the purple-toned Tease from the Naked 2 Palette. The other awesome thing about this palette is the overall portability of it. This is freaking small and handy, great for traveling, …

GRWM: Brow Routine + LMdB Couches de Couleur

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No one really asked for this, LOL, but I figured I’d show you anyway. Here’s a Get Ready With Me Video, in which I show you how I do my brows. I have fairly thick brows that don’t actually need much help, but they’re less substantial than I’d like them to be. I posted my brow products here, but for this post, I’ll be using my most-used item—The Body Shop Brow & Liner Kit in 02. I’ve also demonstrated Le Métier de Beauté’s Couches de Couleur method, which essentially requires you to layer on each tier of a Kaleidoscope Eye Kit (from top to bottom), in this case Northern Lights, on your eye. This creates optimal balance and contrast, due to each color’s “temperature,” and the idea is to bring attention to your actual eye and eye color, rather than the makeup. The Le Métier de Beauté signature application technique is comprised of four hues that are able to give maximum contrast to the wearer’s eye. Known as the “Couches de Couleur” (layering of color), …

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 …

My MAC Eyeshadow Palette (Swatches, Looks & Video)

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I know I’ve shown these before, but I have this feeling that it shouldn’t be left out of any eye month. Someone is bound to ask for these, so here: My MAC Eyeshadows. MAC eyeshadows seem to be the gateway to makeup madness. It’s a phenomenon quite unlike anything I’ve seen—anyone who’s at least knee-deep in the business of beauty knows what Satin Taupe, Woodwinked, and All That Glitters all mean. I don’t have a lot of MAC shadows and I don’t have a special relationship with them. I bought my first two eyeshadows in October 2012, and bought the rest in one go. Today, I’ll show you my MAC eyeshadow palette (plus, 2 that don’t fit), and give you a rundown of what they look like and how I use them. Here’s a pretty short video, if you want to see the swatches in action (different angles, etc): Here are the two out-of-palette stragglers. The Runaways: Amber Lights, and Trax — Amber Lights is a “peachy brown with shimmer” and has a frost finish. …

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. …

Drugstore Finds: Flower Beauty Color Play Crème Shadows in Orchid-ing Around and Vine of the Times

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I’ve been eyeing the Flower Beauty line (yes, Drew Barrymore’s makeup collection!) for the longest time, but I finally decided to bite the bullet a couple of weeks ago when I saw some lipstick swatches that looked remarkably like MAC’s Betty Bright. That turned out to be a dud dupe, but a great lipstick by itself. The Color Play Crème Shadows were always high up on my list of things to try, so I bought two of them as well: Orchid-ing Around, a blackened orchid shade, and Vine of the Times, a pretty light green. Both have shimmer in them, though the green looks like a cream. Swatches, L-R: Orchid-ing Around and Vine of the Times First up is Orchid-ing Around. Although it probably looks scarier, it’s actually the “safer choice,” since it’s close to being a black. As mentioned, it is a blackened orchid with quite a bit of glitter/shimmer, though it’s not anything chunky. I thought this would be an interesting base color to layer some lighter shades on top of. These cream …