highlighting and shading the eyes

natural highlighting and shading
Natural highlighting and shading for the eyes by Tina Prajapat

Whenever you apply make-up it should always be done in a way that is going to enhance your features and the way to do this is through highlighting and shading.  Good make-up application is about highlighting and shading the eyes, lips, face and cheeks to enhance and correct the facial features.  When it comes to eye make-up you are always trying to achieve the perfect eye shape by shading the socket line to ‘push back’ creating depth and highlighting the lid and brow bone to ‘pull forward’.  Keeping the inner corner of the eyes highlighted helps to achieve a more open wide eyed look.

Applying make-up is all about copying what you see, it doesn’t matter what order you apply your colours the end result should still look the same, start your eye make-up by applying an eye primer first as this will give your eyeshadows a good base that will last you all day.  Most pallets of eyeshadows will contain light, medium and dark colours, start by applying the lightest colours to the lid, brow bone and inner corner of the eyes.  Now start shading the socket line with your medium or darker colour in soft back and forth motions staying within the socket line, continue blending the colour in this area until there are no hard lines or edges.  The post ‘how to conceal dark circles’ briefly discusses highlighting and shading powders for different skin tones as the highlighting colours used for darker skins need to be more yellow toned to avoid the grey tinge that the white eyeshadows will give to darker skin.

Finish the look by lining your eyes according to your eye shape, ‘close’ large eyes with black kohl pencil inside the waterline, ‘open’ small eyes by using a white pencil instead. Further define the eyes with top and bottom eyeliner, if your eyes are small or deep set then don’t apply too much eyeliner or skip the eyeliner and go straight onto mascara.

Curl the lashes with an eyelash curler to ‘lift’ the lashes and apply mascara, for a more defined look add false lashes. In the photo above I added two sets of false lashes to created a more fuller look, if you have small eyes then try to go for the more natural looking lashes as they will open your eyes more, some of the thicker lashes will look very heavy on small eyes closing them up.  Correct application of make-up to suit your particular eye shape is going to give your face balance, so small eyes need more highlighting and larger eyes need a bit more shading.

Products used:

MAC Gesso eyeshadow (highlight colour)

MAC Saddle eyeshadow (shader colour)

MAC Blacktrack Fluidline (eyeliner)

This basic highlighting and shading look can be used for all eyeshadow colours just keep the lid and brow bone highlighted with the lighter colours, or apply the pastel version of your chosen colour to the lid (I don’t apply the pastel colours to the brow bone as I always think that looks best kept neutral or highlighted with whites, keep the colours to the lid and socket line).  Then apply your more vibrant or darker colours to the socket line whether its greens, blues or purples as these darker colours will act as the shaders. By following this basic guide you shouldn’t go too wrong, if you are having trouble blending then apply the colour a little at a time so you build the intensity up slowly.  Don’t stop half way through because you feel it’s not looking right, keep going and finish off the whole make-up because eyeshadow on its own doesn’t always look right, it needs the liner and mascara to make it look balanced so don’t give up keep going till the whole look is finished.

Tina

www.hairmakeup.co.uk

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