These are five of my favorite really smoky, dramatic eye looks I’ve done! 🙂
We're here to help you make better beauty purchases that you'll enjoy and love! We recommend signing up to take advantage of personalized features like tracking products you own, viewing dupes that you already have, and more!
Here are some useful resources for you:
Curious how two shades compare to each other? Type in the shades below to get instant side-by-side swatches!
Comments that do not adhere to our comment policy may be removed. Discussion and debate are highly encouraged but we expect community members to participate respectfully. Please keep discussion on-topic, and if you have general feedback, a product review request, an off-topic question, or need technical support, please contact us!
Please help us streamline the comments' section and be more efficient: double-check the post above for more basic information like pricing, availability, and so on to make sure your question wasn't answered already. Comments alerting us to typos or small errors in the post are appreciated (!) but will typically be removed after errors are fixed (unless a response is needed).
We appreciate enthusiasm for new releases but ask readers to please hold questions regarding if/when a review will be posted as we can't commit to or guarantee product reviews. We don't want to set expectations and then disappoint readers as even products that are swatched don't always end up being reviewed due to time constraints and changes in priorities! Thank you for understanding!
We try to approve comments within 24 hours (and reply to them within 72 hours) but can sometimes get behind and appreciate your patience! 🙂 If you have general feedback, product review requests, off-topic questions, or need technical support, please contact us directly. Thank you for your patience!
yes to the first and last one (although i love all of them)
I’m such a rank amateur – if I’m doing a smokey eye, it’s just on dark colour on the lid and then “smoked upward” til it sort of disappears. The last one I did – which I really liked – was MAC’s Moonlight Night pigment applied on my lid, darkest at the lashes and then blended up til it sort of faded away above my crease. Black pencil liner at my upper lashes and an emerald green under my lower lashes/on lower waterline.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE smoky eye looks! Especially darker ones. The Maleficent one looks amazing!!! For my favorite smoky eye look, I use a combination of Print, Electra, Black Tied, and Platinum pigment. Gives me that perfect silver and black smoky eye!
i really like the silver/gray and the ultra black one..they look so sexy (-; great job! lots of love from germany xoxo Désirée
Some days visiting Temptalia makes me really sad.
I can’t believe with the huge selection of makeup I own that I can view so many pretty looks and not see ONE single item I own, especially when most of my makeup consists of popular shades from very mainstream brands. Five looks, probably 12-18 items per look, and not a single brand/shade match– even the UD liner was something like Graffiti that’s not a very common shade.
I must be like the opposite of the target reader or something. 🙁
I’m sure you’re not alone – I only own 2 shadows from everything featured here (MAC’s She Who Dares – a complete impulse buy – and Vex). And like you, I own a pretty decent collection of stuff – certainly more than I need. Probably most women don’t have this much stuff but Christine is running a makeup review site so it’s not likely that most of us have the collection she has).
I don’t expect readers to own everything (especially since often looks are specifically using new products to test them out) and I only use recently launched/permanent products, but it is my hope that you are able to see the look, the colors used, perhaps the pairing of lip color to eyes, or see how a new product works – but generally use what you own 🙂 I wouldn’t want someone to buy every product I used. I have no idea what products each person has so it is just impossible for me to create a look that uses products each person has 🙁
I’m sure most of us realize that and appreciate all the ideas we can get from the looks you do. And I’m sure I’m not alone in appreciating all the dupes you give when you detail the looks you’ve done.
Thanks, Mariella! 🙂 I really needed to hear that!
The idea is getting inspired.I often save the pictures of the looks that i like and apply them with little changes mostly.Or I do a research about a product I own but not sure how to use it.just like I adored the 4th pic but since blue looks not great on me,I am going to do it with a purple,as soon as I get rid of my tracksuit wearing-hard working-homework/projects struggling week 🙂
MAC Lucky Green all over the lid, a white gold colour in the inner corner, a matte black to softly cut the crease, blend into a matte skin toned highlight.
I also like it with most bright shimmery blues and greens because it really stands out against the matte crease (but lucky green is my favourite)
Love 2,3 & 4. Great job Christine (n_n)
Christine, do you wear these looks out after you’ve applied them?
I don’t always (just depends on when or why I do a look), but I certainly would and have worn some of these out!
of course it consists on black and grey eye shadows
And blue and purple and green and gold! 🙂
Matte dark brown on movable lid, shimmery coral in the crease and vanilla as a highlight.
Christine, stupid question re the Silver & Grey Smoky Eye. When I go to the details, I was looking at the dupes you have listed and you’ve listed colours that don’t seem to be in the look (Femme Fi/Shroom and Brave New Bronze/Velvet Teddy). Am I misunderstanding or is it a mix-up with the listings?
No dupes, they’re all perm!
Wow, these are GORGEOUS!!!! I adoooreeee a sexy dramatic smokey eye~ I dunno why I’ve never seen these before, I’ve been missing out!!!
My usual smokey eye is pretty standard. Any light vanilla-ish shade on my browbone/inner corners; then I lay down any sticky black color I have on hand as a base (pencil eyeliner, cream eyeshadow, whatever). I pat on/blend in a dark purple shadow (my favorite is Urban Decay in Romp) on top of the black, up to a little past my crease. Repeat the black base/purple shadow step one more time, line my eyes with Urban Decay 24/7 liner in Zero, and pop on some mascara and falsies. Easy and awesome results every time. 🙂
I have two smokey eye looks that I wear: one is bronze/copper and the other one is purple. The copper consists of a copper shadow on my lids, dark brown shadow in my creases, and either black or brown liner. The purple consists of a purple shadow on my lids (not too purple-ish- something like NYX Red Bean Pie), dark brown shadow in my creases, and purple or black liner. Of course, I do mascara, eyebrows, foundation, and stuff like that. Both of these looks bring out the green in anyone’s eyes 🙂
I love your first two smoky eye looks Christine. Obviously you’ve seen my face all the way here in London! LOL I’m wearing what has to be my favorite, deepest, blackest, and most handy and easiest (when you make the time LOL) smoky eye look ever and I got the tips from ‘Email An Artist’ on the MAC website which I love to use sometimes because most of their tips and suggestions are really good.
I put down Nars Pro-Prime Smudgeproof Eyeshadow Base first because my eyelids are all too oily, then use the MAC Feline Kohl Power pencil near the top lashes, smudge them out and upwards with the MAC 219 pencil brush, then use the MAC blacktrack fluidline near the bottom lashes and quickly smudge it out with the same 219 brush, and then put the Feline pencil inside on the waterline. Then you put on mascara. This has been the quickest, easist, long-lasting, deepest of black smoky, smudgey eye looks I have EVER had the pleasure of creating on myself! I’ve been doing this for at least a couple of months now for probably 2 – 3 times a month(?) LOL
Plus with this look today I’m wearing Bobbi Brown Bronzing Powder and MAC Saffron eyeshadow as blush on my cheeks (BOTH of which I went too far with today, how silly of me! LOL), and MAC Soothing Beige lip conditioner which I use everyday, MAC Half-Red lip pencil with MAC Snob lipstick. I’m an NC45.
By the way if you are or are around NC45, the Half-Red lip pencil makes the Snob lipstick VERY easy to wear especially with a smoky eye look on.
By the way I love doing smoky eyes with MAC Contrast, Unflappable, or Centre Stage shadows too. Contrast is one of my fave shadows of all time.
What makes a smokey eye a “smokey eye”? What makes it different than a regular eye look besides that it’s dark? I hope this doesn’t make me sound stupid, I’m just curious lol
For me, I’ve always taken it darker eyeshadow on the outer crease/lash line – I think the traditional smoky eye is a smoked out lower lash line with a darker crease (usually in silver/gray/black).
I really like these little posts of fave favorites! It re-inspires me to pull out the colors and palettes I was so desperate to purchase that have now fallen to the back of the train case since the initial excitement has passed. Did the colorful smoky eye for my day out today at the flea market. Thanks for the inspiration!
my smokey eye looks are either black to soft grey..and dark browns and my favorite purple to dark shades of plum. i also mix my brands of shadow i don’t think price matters for a perfect eye makeup ..i find that some of my over the counter shadows work way better than my namebrand high priced ones,,i guess it all matters on one’s skin and how it takes it.
My smoky eye consists of several different products but not all together haha 🙂 I like using Benefit Cream Shadow in Strut, UD Barracuda from the Black Palette, UD S&M, and a Matte Black 🙂