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What's your favorite way to apply your eyeshadow?
I think I like the effect of a halo eye the most (a lighter, more shimmery shade on the center of lid, flanked by more contrasting shades).
— Christine
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Classic cat eye shape with darkest shade on outer third and lifted at corners. In lieu of liquid liner, I use Mac Typographic in a short tailed moderately thick ‘wing’ with tiny tiny pencil brush.. much softer/kinder/smokier for my mature eyes. I like a grungier and heavier lower lashline carrying my midtones from crease around outer vee and onto bottom. I always line inner third to half with a brightening pencil creating a cat like point on inner corner.
Halo would be my second choice and I aim for a more rounded eye look.
I love an iridescent shadow like MUFE I544 Pink Granite or Armani Eyes-to-Kill Intense Eyeshadow 27 Oxidized Silver packed on the lid over a cream eyeshadow base, w/neutral, matte transition and brow-bone shades. Tightline through the upper lashes, a soft matte transition-shade eyeshadow below the lower lashes, deepen the outer V just a bit, and finish w/mascara on both upper and lower lashes. Maybe a matte highlight in the inner corners for day, or a satin for night.
I have severely hooded almond shaped upward tilted eyes just as a reference. And my favorite is to do almost a wing effect with eye shadow/my crease. It really accentuates my eye shape, and makes me look almost feline!!!
It’s a tie between sunset (light shade on the lid, transition and crease, outer v) and reverse sunset (medium to dark shade on lid, crease, then transition color). I am just too heavy handed for a smoky – I look like a ghoul. I like a halo eye but if I do that, I have to skip the dark inner corner because it’s too hard to nestle the dark color in there. I skip mascara on the bottom lower line, just do light smudging of a medium color and lately I have been skipping the outer v on all my eyeshadow looks – I am preferring the less intense and softer look these days.
I have Asian hooded eyes, so I feel like I basically do a smokey eye with different intensities and colors. Lighter matte shade over the whole lid, medium matte shade over two-thirds. Then the darkest / brightest shade along the lash line, blending up and inward. The some dark shadow under the outer corners. I might add some shimmer on the inner corners. (Then medium-thick eyeliner and LOTS of lashes.)
I’ve experimented with the halo eye look, but my eyes are so hooded that it doesn’t show up very well.
I have close-set hooded eyes, so I tend to go with a gradient moving from lighter on the inner corners, mid tone on the center of the lid, and darker on the outer corner/crease with a blown out crease.
One of 2: either a soft, smokey cut crease w/ a shimmery lighter mobile lid, or better yet, a halo eye! Those both give my eyes dimension and make them appear larger and less flat.
I love the look of halo eyes on other people but so far, I haven’t been able to pull it off. I think in theory it is suppose to work for people with hooded eyes but it might be that I have so much space between my hood and my eye brows that it looks funny. I tend to do a cat eye placement with three deepening tones across the mobile lid and blown out crease. I also like a darker shade on the mobile lid up to a transition and then a pop of a brighter shade blown out above the crease. I am always playing with makeup so I like experimenting with placement.
Most of the time, I like a light, brightening shade on my lids (either satin or with a sheen, like Stila Starlight or Wheat) with a shade like MAC Cork or Soba in the crease and upward (to push back my drooping upper lid); often, I darken the crease darkened further and also apply that darker shade on the outer third of my mobile lid and upward into the lighter crease shade and outward to “elongate” my eyes a bit. Once in a while, I’ll wear simple smokey eye, using something like MUFE Olive Grey or Reptile all over the lid and blended away. When I wear a look like that, I don’t bother worrying about trying to minimize or “lift” my drooping lid….I just enjoy the simple smokey look.
I have hooded, down-turned eyes. I always start with a primer, then I use MAC Blanc Type or similar shade as a base from lash line to brow. Then I blend a mid-tone neutral into my crease to create the illusion of depth, and a slightly darker neutral on the outer lid blended into the crease over the mid-tone toward the center. I use a pale satin or shimmer on the inner to the center lid, blended into the outer lid shade. For a nighttime look, I’ll do the same basic thing, but use more dramatic shades and maybe a pop of color on my lids, plus I tightline my upper lash line with ABH Creme Color.
Lightest shade applied all over lid from lashline to eyebrow to set primer. Next transition shade like MAC Bamboo or Wedge. Darkest shade on outer corner blended into crease. Lid color. Usually a shimmer.
As I have hooded eyes and wear glasses, I am, perhaps, more limited in what I can do with my eye shadow.
I wear the darkened shadow on the lids and lighter layers from then upwards. I have tried to apply my eyeshadows in thirds across, with the darker shadow in the crease, but it tends to make my eyes look smaller.
Because I have slightly close-set eyes I like to do a classic cat eye/feline shape with darkest shade on outer third and lifted at corners. For everyday I’ve been wearing a smoky wing using MUG’s Corrupt over thr gradient shadow application. For evenings out I wear heavy traditional Arabian liner over a sheer wash of a light shimmer from lash line to brow. Always, always, always highlight my inner corner with MAC Nylon.
I love to pull my eyeshadow past my natural eye and slightly upward to make my eyes look larger. I tend to love a shimmer on the mobile lidthen add my transition and sometimes a crease color depending on my mood. I love an inner corner hightlight and go through seasons of upper lash liner in the cat eye shape to follow the shadow. I love a smoked out lower lash line mimicking the colors of the day that I also pull past the natural eye.
My look doesn’t change much when I wear my glasses i just intensify the lower lid color and the lower lash line to make sure my eyes do not get lost behind my glasses.
I guess it’s called sunset? From lightest to darkest… inner corner, transition, lid, crease, outer corner.
I like a strong crease and a shimmery or sparkly lid best. But I vary. I do like a halo eye as well, and sometimes, I just want a very clean, neutral or warm pastel eye look with thick black or brown liner.
At the moment, because I’m concentrating on working through my lipsticks for the purposes of classifying the colors, taking notes on my impressions, etc., I’m sticking to a single-color eye, applied completely around my eye — upper lid, lower lid, crease. I’ll also apply a skin-color eyeliner to my lower wetline.
When I was doing more complicated looks (I’ll get back there, eventually), I preferred darker colors close to my lash line, blended out to successively lighter shades, to just above the crease where I ended with something near-skin-color. My lower lid would be the same thing, flipped. My lower wetline liner would usually be something close to my darkest shadow color from midpoint to outer corner, with either a contrasting or complimentary BRIGHT liner from midpoint to inner eye. So, basically a more involved, multi-tonal version of the same thing I’m doing now.
I’ve only very rarely done eye looks where I use eyeshadow to exaggerate the natural shapes and contours of my eyes (putting a lighter color on the most protruding part of my lid, darker color in the crease, darkest in the V, etc.), as I tend to like more … graphic? … looks. I don’t think that’s quite the right word, but my point, is I’m less likely to treat my eye shape like a map, and more likely to create some variation on an ombre full halo.