The Secret to a Smokey Eye.

Welcome to blog no. 4! I hope you have been enjoying them so far and hopefully I have been able to help you in some way! Today I wanted to go through eyeshadow and the how to. Remember when we were younger and would play with makeup and end up with just a mess of eyeshadow on our lids? Or hands up if you have ever had panda eyes or bad winged eyeliner days. I know we have all been there. I certainly have. I want to give you some trade secret tips to perfecting your eyeshadow.

Now there are a few different eyeshadow looks, spotlight, cut crease, smokey, cat eye, sultry look.. the list goes on. But today, I want to go through the smokey eye.

A few things to keep in mind while reading:

- You have a base colour and a transition colour

- There are different parts of the lid where you put your eyeshadow - inner corner, outer corner, brow bone, crease, lash line, lower lash line, centre of lid, outer V etc. (If you want to see a video on this, leave a comment below!)

- You will need a range of brushes - blending brush (different sizes too), flat brush, pencil brush, round eyeshadow brush.

- Practice makes perfect - trust me.

Smokey Eye.

They take forever, so please expect to be doing this for at least 30 minutes!

The first thing you want to make sure you do is have 2 or 3 colours in mind. For instance, if you want a black smokey eye, do not just use black - unless you are confident that you can. Use black and a warm tone brown. Or if you want something that pops a little more, use black, warm tone brown and hot pink (or whichever colour you want)

What you want to keep in mind that black is hard to soften once it's on, so try not to go too heavy handed when using black.

First of, you want to put your warm tone brown in your crease with a round brush and swipe it from your inner third to your outer corner and blow it out towards your brows and using a big blending brush and a shade that is 2-3 times darker than you skin tone and just blend the crease out so it's not too prominent. Depending on your eye shape you don't want to get too close to your brows either.

After you have done that, on a flat brush pick up the black eyeshadow and pack it on your lid focusing on the centre, then using the small blending brush, blend the black towards the crease but don't go over the transition shade because it will start to look messy. If you see some sparse areas, use the flat brush again and pack the black eyeshadow in those areas and again using the small brush, blend the eyeshadow out.

I usually go in with the black a few times, until I am happy with the intensity.

Once you are happy with how the black is looking, you will need to get some elbow grease into the blending you are about to do. Picking up some brown on the round brush, swipe it across your crease again and then go in with the big blending brush and blend away until it starts looking seamless.

For the lower lash line, I take the black on an angled flat definer eye brush and press it nice and close to my lashes and then using the round brush with the crease shade I blend and buff it out so it's not too harsh.

If something is not looking right, don't forget, you may not have your foundation or brows on and you are yet to apply false eyelashes (not essential)

With smokey eyes, I don't apply eyeliner as you can't really see it anyway, but now would be the time to do an eyeliner if it's what you want!

I always like to add a gold brow bone highlight if I'm doing a brown smokey eye as it looks very soft and fierce at the same time, but choose any highlight you like!

Inner corner highlight is also a must, sometimes I match the highlight to my brow bone but sometimes I do a champagne highlight to add some dimension to the eye area.

And that's it! If you gave this how to a go, let me know! I would love to see if it helped you!

I am contemplating doing a sultry eye soon, they look really sexy and suit most eyes/faces.

Disclaimer: By no means do I think this is the only way to achieve a smokey eye, nor am I putting down anyone if they don't do it this way, this is a guideline for beginners or those wanting to perfect a smokey eye.

If you are interested in a one on on makeup lesson (chargeable service) please contact me via website, text 0430 687 772 or email lucy.odwazny@gmail.com.

xx