Makeup Masterclass: Quick And Easy Smoky Eye

When flicking through beauty blogs and Instagram accounts, one thing I'm always jealous of is their ability to perfect the smoky eye look. It's a classic make-up style which will forever be fashionable, yet one I have never been able to master. Give me liquid eyeliner and tell me to create winged liner and I'm fine, but throw eyeshadow into the mix and everything goes to pan. After watching some tutorials over the weekend, I thought it was time to bring out the palettes and give the shadows another whirl. This look is inspired by fashion-blogger-wonder-woman, Sarah Ashcroft. She obviously has done her make-up far better than I have and ever could, so if you want to know the in depth 'how to' for the rest of her make-up (and not just the eyes), you can find the original video here. As I prefer a few extra minutes in bed to contouring my face (I lack the patience to use 3 different highlighters, but that's just me), I just focused on the beautiful eye make-up that Sarah had created. Here's what I used and how I did it.

Using Make-Up Revolution's Flawless eyeshadow palette (a gorgeous collection of 32 neutral shades...you can read my review here), I took the lightest tones from the top left of the palette and packed it onto my lid. As these aren't as pigmented as other eyeshadows, I did have to repeat this a couple of times to get the depth I wanted. Next, I cut a bit of sellotape and stuck it on the outer corner of my lid so that it was facing diagonally outwards up towards the tail of my brow, following the line of my bottom waterline. This creates a barrier for eyeshadow, meaning you can pack on the darker shades, peel the tape off, and end up with perfectly sharp and defined winged eye make-up. This little tape tip has changed my life, as my biggest annoyance with eyeshadow was how difficult it was to get real definition, especially as I do love that cat-eyed look! With the tape in place, I packed the black shade (bottom right) onto the outer corner of my eyes. Using a fluffy blending brush, I blended the darker shade outwards, a tiny bit along the outer half of my lash line, and along the outer part of the crease, just to define the eyes more and emphasise the smokiness. Blending is so important as it softens the look, avoiding the 'block colour' eyeshadow and making the whole thing look a bit more seamless.


Taking off the tape to reveal perfect, winged eyeshadow, I popped on my liquid liner (Rimmel Scandaleyes felt tip liner) quite close to my lash line, running all the way from the inner corner to the eyeshadow wings. I find that, 1. I cannot live without cat flick eyeliner, and 2. doing this just emphasises the wing a little more. To finish the look, I smudged a bit of black kohl liner on my bottom lash line (mainly to disguise lack of lashes) and added a bit of highlighter to the inner corners of my eye and underneath my brow bone. If I was going out, I would probably add some false lashes, but I was only going to uni so I didn't really care if my lash gaps were on show! I was so surprised at how easy this look was to replicate...if someone so crap at eyeshadow like myself can do it, then it must be good! It's converted my to loving eyeshadow again, and I will definitely be turning to this sultry, smoky look throughout the festive party season.

What do you think of this look? Do you like experimenting with eyeshadow? Is this something you'll be trying out?

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