I’m one of those people who got into makeup late in my life, when I started working. Even then, I only started with a lipstick, then blush before I finally had enough confidence to try eyeshadow. Early attempts were pretty much disastrous but these days, I’ve hit upon a technique that works very well for me and that I employ with almost every eye look and colour combination. Its terribly simple and uncomplex so you can imagine my surprise that I quite recently received a few emails asking how I apply my eyeshadow. I never thought that it would elicit interest LOL! 🙂
So, I thought I’d share how I wear a work friendly eye look, and also how I apply my eyeshadow. Its not quite as marvellous or amazing as the many other eyeshadow tutorials you see out there, but I hope some of you may find it useful because its dead easy 🙂
Do note that you can use any colour combination. For my purposes here, I’m using just 2 colours to keep things easy – a light shade (beige) and a dark shade (black). Most people opt for brown shades for work. I shy away from brown so I prefer going with a black for definition and a light for colour and highlight.
1. Bare eye. You may prep your lid with a lid primer or dab some concealer or cream eyeshadow in a neutral shade over your lid. I curl my lashes first and apply mascara before doing my eye makeup.
2. Apply a light beige shimmer shade over your whole lid.
3. Take a black or dark shade and apply on the outer 1/3 of your lid. Don’t be afraid that it looks harsh or odd at this point.
4. Blend the dark shade inwards so there are no harsh lines. Add a dab of lighter shade in the inner part of the eye to lighten the colour if you prefer something less stark. Keep the outer part darker.
5. This is more or less how it’ll look with your eyes open. Lighter shade on the inside part of the eye, darker shade on the outer part, blended in the middle.
6. Using an eyeliner pencil or brush, draw a line on the lower lid, just a small part of the way to define the eye shape. Don’t draw it too long or that may look too harsh or stark for the day. Use a light coloured eyeliner pencil or using an eyeliner brush apply a light shimmer beige shadow on your lower lid. This covers up the redness that makes eyes look tired, and makes eyes look bigger and brighter.
7. On the upper lid, draw in your eyeliner on the top line and tightline if you prefer.
8. Finished look.
How long does this take me? Well about 5 minutes if I’m in a hurry or, if I have more colours to play with and more time on my hands, longer. I will also note that this technique works for me primarily because of the shape of my eye which is the classic shape of an Oriental eye, being long with not much lid space, and without deep folds. If your eye folds are deeper, you may have to take the colour up further so that its visible when you open your eyes.
And for completeness, here’s how I would wear this look to a slightly more serious work place than mine 🙂
Eyes: L’Oreal Infallible Colour Eyeshadow in Hourglass Beige and Eternal Black ; Cheeks : Chanel Les Tendres de Chanel Les Roses Travel blush highlighter palette; Lips: Chanel Rouge Coco Shine in 60 Antigone
Whenever I play down my eyes, I tend to play up the rest of my face to keep things balanced because I’m one of those people who love colour 🙂
It is, as I have noted, uncomplex and not quite as elaborate as many other excellent tutorials out there. This is actually an adaptation of the Japanese layering method which I was using before this. It works well with sheer shimmery eyeshadow which is my texture of choice and I do it this way because its faster for me and defines my eye shape better. I hope some of you found it useful 🙂
I just realised that about 2 years back I posted a similar sort of look also using black and light shadow – tells you a lot about my personal style right? 😛 I went back to look at it and realized that I must have tweaked things as I went along the past 2 years, because I much prefer my present method – practice as they say, makes perfect 😛 Also, I’ve abandoned the heavier smokier look I used to do and am now going for a more defined eye look. Funny how our personal tastes change 😀
Would you give this technique a try or do you already do your eye makeup this way or in a similar manner?
Paris B
How are you, Paris? 🙂
I have been defining my eyes a lot lately in terms of eye makeup, for work. Always in a rush in the morning to get my daughter for school and going to work.
Am so missing the colorful eye makeup….
Hi Vonvon! Long time no see 😀 The good thing about having a nicely defined eye is that it looks polished plus gets done in the shortest possible time so you can fly out the door with your daugher 🙂 Are you still in the UK? 🙂
Yup, Paris, still stuck in the UK. 😉
Btw, I almost couldn’t recognize you in your new hair style…or has it been that long? You look very young! 🙂
Thanks! The hair was since just before Chinese New Year so its my 2012 do 😉
You look young and fresh with this makeup! It’s kinda similar to my technique, but mine is a bit on the heavier – and colourful – side. These days, however, I’m going with the browns – too many meetings with the higher-ups made me sober up.^^
Hiya Mari! How have you been? Meetings with high ups sound ominous and also pretty exciting – means you’re moving up! 😀
Yeah and it’s scaring me to bits! o_O But I think I’ll be just fine. Too bad I can’t keep up with my virtual life as I did before. 🙁
There will have to be sacrifices to get ahead 😉 I’m sure you’ll do well and when things settle down, you can get back to some online activity 😉
Yeah, but I’ll try to come back at least on weekends. Meh, I really should be studying right now – somehow I was chosen to speak at a summit… and the governor and other foreign leaders will be there. Woe is me! 😛 But as soon as it is over, I’ll reclaim my virtual life! 😀
Wow it sounds like a great honour to be speaking before dignitaries! Good luck! 😀
Excellent tips! This looks so effortless, I love it! I’ve been experimenting with different techniques and haven’t quite worked out my favourite method yet. My eyes are not really even so I try to put in effort to even them out with eyeshadows. But it doesn’t work all the time.
Thanks Lyn 🙂 Its taken me a while to work out this technique but I think it suits those of my eye shape more. You have nice round eyes so that might call for a different technique? Can’t wait to see what you settle on though – would be interesting 😀
I always envy people who have the same kind of eyelids for both eyes. Mine are different so I only put on eyeshadow on certain occasions like dinners. I’m too lazy to put extra effort to balance out the eyeshadow for both eyes.
Ah NN can’t be lazy to look good 😉 Does using a liner help balance out the look? Sometimes, all it takes is a slight tweak in technique, or just using a sheer colour instead of a strong colour. It’ll balance out your eyes too 😀
Is very sad my dear say I have squint eyes so not nice put eyeshadows
Hey, everyone looks good with a little shadow on! It defines your eyes and I used to think that lining my lower lid made my eyes look smaller but now that I’ve worked out how to properly do it, it actually makes my eyes look bigger and less tired. I think you should follow your gut feeling, and practice and not let others dictate what you should or should not wear 🙂
found this website accidently..
i am going to forward it to my friends who also don’t have eye socket.
I work in a very vain enviroment where all girls wear as much makeup as they want. (even some guys do too!) (full makeup is part of contract.)
I love eye makeup more then anything else and have been asked to “teach” my colleagues different techniques.. but i can’t seem to figure out the way to do eyes without socket.. most of them just place a chunky line of eyeshadow colour ontop of their liner or a cat eyeliner… but urs look pretty natual and a proper eye makeup. 🙂
it would be interesting if you can show some more simple eye makeup methods for same type of eyes.
Thank you, Wendy V 🙂 I’m glad you found this useful and your friends will be able to play around with this, using different colours too. This was just a very simple look to ease most people into applying some form of eye makeup 🙂 I will try to see what other options or methods I can come up with for my type of eyes.
Love love your simple eyeshadow PB :)) I envy your skin 😀
Thank you 🙂 thanks also to good lighting 😉
It’s great that you did a post on work-friendly makeup because I come across way too many women wearing full runway looks to the office. It’s one thing if you work in the fashion industry, but it’s just wrong when you work in a law office.
Thank you Tia 🙂 I thought it might be useful since most of us work in a more serious environment than we think! 🙂