What color do you love but find hard to wear on your eyes?

Maybe mustard-like yellows? I find they are getting easier to incorporate/use with other products as we have seen more of them in the last few years!

— Christine

40 Comments

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Erica Avatar

With brown eyes I can pretty much wear any color and I have a wide variety of peaches, golds, greens, mustards etc . However, I have a very difficult time pulling off those mushroomy taupes like MAC’s Satin Taupe. It pulls too purple and I look like I was punched in the face. Also I have a hard time pulling off cool or more true purples. I just don’t like how they look. If I wear purple, it needs to be of the burgandy (with a bit of red to it) or fuschia variety (with a bit of pink to it). If it pulls too gray or has blue to it, I look like a corpse or deadly

Raeanne Avatar

I have a strong olive skintone with neutral undertones, so anything royal blue or blue undertoned does not look good on me, including blue-tones reds, purples, and pinks. Luckily, teal and turquoise look great against my skin, so that gives me plenty of options for blue hues.

Anne Avatar

Blue: There are several blue shades that I wear as clothing, but regardless of shade or application, blue eyeshadows absolutely don’t work with my green eyes. The resulting look is garish, imo. ? I gave up years ago.

Linda L Avatar

I have some sensitivity too red dye used in eyeshadows, so many rose and purple shades truly create issues for me. I am finding that Bobbi Brown eyeshadows in this color range do not create allergic reactions as some others do.

kjh Avatar

Exactly. There’s quite a few gorgeous ones out, but I usually do not favor the balance of the palette. I like the mustardy green color, as well. Iirc, Melt Gemini is back, with both those shades. Personally, it’s black-based colors, like the Nars night series, and all the ‘blackened X.’ I think because my eyes are deep set, the black shows and not the color. Have learned to avoid them. Why get/use them, when they all look the same?

Nicole D Avatar

My eyes are something between hazel and chestnut colour (with hints of green & red) so I cab get away with many shades. However, there are some blues, true purples, strong orangey-reds, strong true yellow, neon pink that do not look good on me.

Jane Avatar

Pinks and reds. But I’m on the verge of buying the Ruby palette from the Huda Obssessions Gemstone series because I just received the Sapphire one today and it was VERY nice (and yes, slapped that bad boy on over lunch so my coworkers must have thought I’d gone and had my face done LOL!) True it’s about a B-B+ palette, but with -25% I figured I could treat myself until Natasha Denona breaks out Cranberry! And who knows, once I have Ruby, I think I may not even purchase Cranberry because I’m hearing LOTS of mixed reviews.

Eileen Avatar

I’m fair with subtle peach undertones. I have warm, mossy green eyes and black lashes and brows. Although I can wear many purple shades, I can’t wear reddened purples or wine toned shades. Those beautiful in the pan burgundies, merlots, etc. make me look like I’ve been in a brawl! Looking battered and bruised around the eyes is definitely not the look I go for.

Lea Avatar

Blues and teals. I have pale skin with yellow undertones and purple hair and I wear all variety of colors- yellow, red, pink, and purple as eyeshadow, but saturated blues and teals stand out and look kind of garish.

Amy Avatar

Blues, teals, some greens. I have pale blue eyes so I know it’s just not good news, but they’re some of my favourite colours in clothing and work so well with my dark brown hair and fair cool-neutral skin.

Joanna Avatar

Most greens are unflattering. Rusty clay red also makes me look I’ll. Anything on the other side of the color wheel, anything with even the least bit of blue, is wearable. I am so disappointed by brown shades that separate into olive and rust pigments and by products with redish pink glitter.

Blue Avatar

Black and dark grey as lid colors rather than just eyeliner. The shape of my eyes doesn’t carry them off well and super dark colors don’t do anything to bring out my light-but-not-piercingly-so hazel green eyes. Dark crease colors in general don’t do me any favors either. I definitely carry off looks where the color is darkest at the lashline and medium to light by the time it hits the crease much better.

Nancy T Avatar

Silver and periwinkle blue! They both look AMAZING on either dark eyed peeps or those whose eyes are true blue. Mine are neither. Nope, mine are a bluish green and have gold flecks around my pupils, with a very dark teal blue outer band. As a result, very cool toned shades like these can make my eye color look funky and not in a pretty way! Same goes for cobalt blue, but I can at least make that work as an eye liner or outer V shade.

Rachel R. Avatar

1) Matte grays. Unless they have some shimmer or are more silvery, they don’t look very good on me. If I go matte, then the grays have at least a hint of lavender, purple, or blue to them ( e.g. NARS Lhasa, SauceBox Moth, the shades in UD Naked Smoky).

2) Light matte blues are pretty much unwearable. If they are a shimmer or duochrome, I can get away with them as an inner corner or brow bone highlight, or on the lower lashline. The outer part of my iris has lots of gray and light blues, so I think the matching shades just don’t enhance them.

3) Cool, medium browns. They tend to go muddy on my fair skin. I usually have to pull in other colors or warmer toned browns to wear with them.

4) Brown-leaning burgundies. They look good on me, but they pull much more brown on me than most people. Shades such as NARS Subra and UD Ashes usually end up looking almost pure brown on me, much to my disappointment.

Amanda Avatar

For me its green. I’m super duper pale with pink undertones and every time I wear green eyeshadow I feel like it makes my eyes look red and I look stoned/drunk/sick. It’s probably in my head because I wear green shirts and dresses ALL THE TIME but for some reason as soon as it goes on my face I’m self conscious lol.

Mariella Avatar

Probably bright greens – some of them seem to make me look tired. And I have to be careful with purple too – it can look like a bruise if I overdo it or don’t pair it carefully with other shades (MAC Shale is a perfect example – looks like a bruise but paired with Vex, it looks nice)

Gilad Avatar

I have light warm skin tone, blue/green eyes, lt. coppery hair. I don’t especially like these colors (so I’m cheating), and conveniently, they’re hideous on me, so no sacrifice to avoid: anything w/ cool silvery shine, cool pastels, bright or dark cool colors like cobalt, cool purples, pinks/reds w/ cool undertones. Dark anything except as liner.

CeeBee Avatar

Blues, teals and cool greens – they’re usually gorgeous in the pan but I struggle to use them on my eyes. I can work them in as a liner but not as an actual eyeshadow blended with other colours. I never use black either.

miska Avatar

Blacks and darker greys really accentuate my dark circles and can actually draw unwanted attention to the problem. If it’s really bad, it look like I’ve been on the loosing end of a fight! The only perk is I can rock some awesome undead looks for Halloween quite easily. For reference, I have pale skin, dark hair and brown eyes.

Phoebe Avatar

I have dark cool brown eyes and very fair neutral skin and I feel like I can’t really wear yellows or oranges, peachy colours can work but anything with lots of yellow is difficult. Same with reds, they need to be pinky reds and not orangey reds. I can wear blue as long as it’s cool/purple enough, it looks weird on me when they lean green. Green is too much yellow for my eyes!

Alecto Avatar

Both true (not cool, not warm) and warm greens and blue-ish purples are tough for me. Lovely, but difficult.

Also, black and neutral-to-cool greys (especially if they’re matte). I soooooooo want to make black work for me, but it always looks haphazard, or worse … like I’m **trying** to be “hard.” I know the messy “just slept in” black halo eye is de rigueur for some music scenes (which I count myself part of), but it feels fake when I try it — the clothes and jewelry feel very natural to me, but the makeup leaves me feeling like a fraud. No idea where that comes from (and not sure how Temptalia just became my therapy couch). :-/

Pastels also don’t work for me, but since I despise them, it’s not relevant to the question.

Silvia Avatar

Mainly blue for me although is my farthest favorite. I think it shows too harsh so enemy though I have them I usually avoid it. I feel as if I’m going to look clownish like Mimi from that Cleveland show. Lol! I do own a beautiful bright one with some glitter specks that I live but wear rarely.

Mariella Avatar

Oh gee – when I answered this, I wasn’t even thinking of BLUES!!! I have so many gorgeous blue eyeshadows but most of the women I work with wear very little makeup and those that do tend to stick to neutrals (as do I), so I would feel self-conscious wearing vibrant blues or teals. I have an old MAC shadow I love – Birds&Berries from the Liberty of London collection – and I love the colour but if I wear it, it’s usually under my lower lashes. I do bust it out on the weekends, if I’m going out with my gal pals for coffee or brunch and I wish I had the chutzpah to wear it and all the other fabulous blues and teals in my collection more boldly.

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