Don’t apply only one colour everywhere.
Don’t wear shimmer over fine lines.
Don’t draw attention to the eye make-up, rather the eye.
Do blend the edges so that nobody can see exactly where the shadow ends.
Do spend some time experimenting at your dressing table and practising.
Different shades of eye-shadows assist in creating various illusions around the eye such as making eyes appear younger, longer, wider, less droopy and less tired. Think about how you are able to create illusions when you dress by choosing black trousers to look slimmer, instead of white. In the same way, we can apply darker shades to areas around the eye that are prominent or puffy and reduce prominence or puffiness (fantastic news), while light eye-shadows would have the opposite effect (use with caution).
To help you understand the placement of your eye-shadow, we’ve divided the eye area into sections and we refer to these sections in the explanations below.
Step 1: Highlighter
Highlighters are very light eye-shadows such as white or cream, or soft pastel or icy eye-shadows such as pale blue, light lilac and soft pink.
We call these eye-shadows ‘highlighters’ because they ‘highlight’ specific areas and make the area appear larger and more prominent. Highlighters are almost always applied to the brow bone area to accentuate and enhance the natural bone structure around the eye.
If you have small or narrow top eyelids, also apply your highlighter to the eyelid to open or widen the eye area.
Step 2: Shading Colour
Any medium to deep shade can be used as a shading colour. Apply this in the crease, extending upwards to shade unwanted prominence of puffiness. Ensure a natural and continuous flow into surrounding areas, by softening and blending edges.
The natural brown eye-shadow colours will look good on all skin tones and all eye shapes and they are easy to work with allowing you to blend and soften the shadows into one another.
Step 3: Blending Colour
A blending colour is one that is a shade in between your highlighter and your shading colour. The blending colour is always applied to the boundaries of a shading colour to soften the edges, extending towards the highlighter.
It is essential to include blending colours in your make-up collection, as hard edges are a ‘no-no’ in make-up art. Without a blending colour, we are more likely to result with a ‘striped’ eye-shadow application as it can be difficult to get a very gradual fading from a deep colour to a very light highlighter.
Step 4: Framing Colours
These are either your darkest eye-shadow colours which can be used instead of eye pencils to add definition to the frame of the eye. The framing colour is applied close to the lash-lines, as well as the outer corner of the eye. This dark shade emphasizes eyelashes by giving the illusion of the lashes seeming fuller at the root.
Applicators for eye make-up
Dome Eye-shadow Brushes: When applying eye-shadow, use a dome shaped brush which will allow for an even distribution of the shadow.
Flat Make-up Brushes: These are used to blend away hard edges of the shading colours.
Fingers & Sponge-tip Applicators: While matte shadows are always best applied with brushes, shimmering shadows sometimes lose their intensity when applied with a brush. It is therefore necessary to use your small finger or a sponge-tip applicator where an intense colour is desired.
Joy Terri and her team of professional make-up artists can help you to enhance your eyes perfectly with eye-shadow.
Visit her website for more details www.beyondartistry.co.za.