You asked, so now we're delivering. This is my first attempt at a real smokey eye, and it was fairly easy: so I'm going to try and make it easy for you to achieve at home, too! I did things a little differently and actually drew directional arrows to go with my step-by-step instructions, and at the end there are more pictures of the finished product…I must admit that this is so far from my usual makeup routine--I normally use eye brightening colors rather than dark--but I thought it was fun to do. No matter what color your eyes are, it's sure to make them pop!
*I used ALL e.l.f. cosmetics for this look*
1. First, you want to get your makeup essential together. This is what I'm using:
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| elf 144-piece studio palette |
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| Brushes, q-tips, eyeliners, mascara & under eye highlighting powder: just a regular eye shadow brush, a concealer brush, an eyeliner brush, white eyeliner, black gel eyeliner, waterproof eyeliner pen (for sharper lines), volume plumping mascara, and under eye highlighting powder to illuminate dark spots. Oh, and q-tips for smudging (and screw-ups), of course. |
Tip: Eyelid primer always helps--I use e.l.f. white primer, white always helps the true color of eyeshadows show up better!
2. Choose your colors. I haven't deviated too much from traditional smokey eye colors: neutral brown, bright white, bright shimmery cream, and black.
3. Begin by applying under eye highlighting powder and primer. Then start outlining your entire eye with gel eyeliner. When you get to creating that triangular shaped wing, switch to the waterproof eyeliner pen to have more control over your shape when drawing on the outer and inner corners of your eyes. Smudge with a qtip or smudge brush, being careful to keep the lines smooth and move outward to your outer corner along the line as you do so.
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| You can just barely see the difference in outline between gel and pen (pen is lighter), but this won't matter once you apply black eyeshadow over the whole thing |
Create a short winged appearance on the outer corners of your eye to guide your eyeshadow.
4. Apply your neutral brown to your entire eyelid, making sure to darken the outward corners. I used a concealer brush for this, it's lighter and allowed me to have more control over how much color I was using and where. You want to follow that same triangle patter created when you outline your eye, don't worry about brushing eyeshadow over the eyeliner itself.
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| Heavier color should follow the outer right angle of your eye |
5. Now comes the intimidating part. Use the black eyeshadow and carefully go over your outer eyelid, where you made sure to darken the brown. Shade the outer crease about halfway into your eye, then shade the bottom along the eyeliner wing. Begin to shade into the middle of your eye, blending the best you can.
Tip: Use very little eyeshadow to start. You can always build color, but taking it off is a different story!
7. Once you've darkened your eye and actually created the "smokey" effect, take the white eyeliner and outline the inner corners of your eye. I used a sparkly white for an extra added shimmer, but use what you have!
Apply the lighter white eyeshadow over this, and for variation, add the cream color in the same inner corner. The point is to brighten your eye, and have an ombre light-to-dark effect by the outer corner of your eyelid by following your eye's natural contours.
8. Finishing touches--use the q-tips here to smudge or redefine any eyeshadow. I usually add more under eye highlighting powder, brush any excess eyeshadow powder off my face with a spare blush brush, and then add some foundation under my eyes to seal the look and prevent smudging.
Enjoy your smokin' smokey eye!
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