Unfortunately I didn’t take a good look in the mirror with some good lighting so I suppose you’ll have to live with the patchy lip product application in these photos, as they are besides the point of this post. And it’s nowhere near as bad in real life, I tell you. I’m by no means calling myself someone with particular expertise with the whole smoky eye thing but I do rock one fairly often – it was the first makeup look that I fell in love with, after all – and considering that it’s something that my real life friends tell me they find that it’s difficult, I figured I would give a more intensive post a go. This might be quite intense for some but legitimately I wear it to school and such and it doesn’t look too heavy, but I’ve been told that with my rather large deep-set eyes I can pull of a lot of eye makeup without looking overly done up.

As per usual, I began with a base and this time I went for the unfortunately limited edition Maybelline Color Tattoo in Nude Compliment to add a hint of taupe with the added longevity and such. I just used my fingers here as I honestly can’t be bothered to use any more brushes than I have to.

The main brush used was my ancient MAC 217, and it was first used to apply the caramel hue from the Dior Greige Quint as a transition colour and base crease colour but I also applied it to the outer corner. The main palette in use here was the metallic Marc Jacobs Beauty The Starlet but it is unfortunately lacking in matte basic sort of shades. With the same brush, I packed the champagne with a mauve lean all over the lids and into the inner corner, which keeps the look
from being too dark. Concentrating on the outer third of the lid and crease, using the same brush again, I went for the dark bronze brown and slowly built up the colour. Then I switched to a generic shading brush with the same shade, concentrating on the outer v and lower lashline. Before dealing with the blending, I went straight onto liner, using my creamy Annabelle Smoothliner in Black to tightline and to smudge into the upper and lower lashes with the same shading brush. And before going in with a good couple of coats with a mascara that does amazing things for my lashes, I blended out the harsh corners and diffused the colour with my Real Techniques Domed Shadow Brush , going for a blown-out rounded shape rather than having to clean up the outer corners. Then concealer is a must… either for toning down messiness from the blending or eliminating darkness.

So here is my take on a subtler smoky eye. I have to say that I haven’t mastered this yet but if you’re looking for someone who has, check Amelia Liana out (she blogs and does videos) – she’s the smoky eye queen! What are your go-to’s for a smoky eye?

Maggie, x.