Our Favorite Taupe Eyeshadows + Reader Favorites!

Taupe eyeshadow is truly glorious, and it’s a real chameleon!  Taupe is that color that is hard to describe, that looks a little different to each person, but no matter your definition, I think we have a taupe you can fall in love with!  You’ll find a list of editor’s top rated taupe eyeshadows (broken out by budget-friendly and luxury price points), plus readers’ favorites by skin tone.

How to Wear Taupe Eyeshadow

In makeup, “taupe” often leans cool when it’s more of a purplish-gray and warmer when it’s more of a silvery bronze.  Per Merriam-Webster, taupe is defined as a “brownish gray.”  If you search through Pantone’s colors for taupes, there are 36 color swatches of taupe!  They run the spectrum from almost a muted olive-beige to soft gray to greenish-gray to rosy beige to darker, muted mauve and warm grays.  What they have in common is that they’re neutral, often a little more muted, and can look warmer/cooler, grayer/browner/purpler depending on what else it is paired with.

To bring out the cooler undertones in your taupe eyeshadow, pair it with other cool-toned hues like icy pink, silvers, sooty grays, lavenders, and violets.  Shades of pink, rose, and mauve work well with purple-leaning taupes to enhance the rosiness in them.  To bring out the warmer undertones in your taupe eyeshadow, pair with richer coppers, golds, bronzes, and warm beiges.  To bring out the olive undertones in your taupe eyeshadow, pair with shades of pewter, patina, yellowy greens, deep golds, and rich, golden bronzes.

You can use taupe eyeshadows to smudge and smoke out eyeliner on the lower or upper lash line by applying it over your eyeliner with a pencil brush (or for a softer look, skip the eyeliner and use a taupe shade as eyeliner–pick one that isn’t quite so metallic in that instance).

Best Taupe Eyeshadows Under $15 – Editor’s Top-Rated

Best Taupe Eyeshadows Over $15 – Editor’s Top Rated

You can view all recommendations here, where you can also refine recommendations by things like price, skin type, skin tone, etc. and share your own recommendations. If you think you might be making recommendations often, consider registering and filling out your profile as the form will pre-fill with your profile information for you each time! Thank you for taking the time to add your recommendations to our database! 🙂

Best Taupe Eyeshadows for Cool Skin Tones

Best Taupe Eyeshadows for Warm Skin Tones

5 Comments

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kjh Avatar

Old MUFE crystalline gray beige. I see lots of faves, and prefer taupes with a gray lean, though CGB has a lot of gold….To my eye, buon fresco and cp bill are more mauve than taupe. Probably laced, too. Great shades picked, everyone. The big plus to Taupe is it’s so easy to wear for everyone.

Seraphine Avatar

Taupe is my favorite eyeshadow color range! My favorites are MAC Omega and MAC Satin Taupe. ABH Buon Fresco is at the top of the matte-to-satin list (as of this writing), and while it’s a shade I love and use often, it seems more mauve than taupe to me. I see several other shades here that have piqued my interest. I’ll be keeping my eye on this list.

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