This look uses navy gel eyeliner across the upper lashline to add a little ‘pop’ of colour to an otherwise neutral look.  Navy blue, charcoal grey and chocolate brown are good options if you want to try something a little different from black eyeliner.  Jewel purple, forest green and teal also look beautiful with neutral eyeshadow if you want to experiment more with brighter colours.

Here’s how to re-create this look:

Click here to read my article ‘Parts of the Eye’ for help on where to place eyeshadow colours.

Products

Base: MAC Painterly Paint Pot (neutral light beige)
Lid: MAC Yogurt eyeshadow (matte pale neutral pink)
Crease: MAC Cork eyeshadow (medium matte neutral brown)
Highlight: MAC Naked Lunch eyeshadow (pale shimmery pink-nude)
Upper Lashline: Smashbox gel eyeliner in Picasso (navy blue)
Set Navy Liner: MAC Atlantic Blue eyeshadow (deep matte royal blue)
Lower Lashline: MAC Cork eyeshadow (medium matte neutral brown)

Steps

1. Apply Painterly Paint Pot all over the lid as a base. You can either use your fingers or a flat synthetic brush (e.g. MAC 242).

2. Pat Yogurt onto the lid, using a flat shader brush (e.g. MAC 239).

3.  Apply Cork in the crease of the eye with a crease/blender brush using a windshield wiper motion (e.g. MAC 217).

4.  Using a crease/blender brush (e.g. MAC 217) or a pointed crease brush (e.g. MAC 226), sweep Naked Lunch on to the browbone to highlight. Take this down into the inner corner as well to brighten the eye.  Using a highlight colour with a little sheen/shimmer prevents the eye from looking too ‘flat’ when the rest of the eyeshadows are matte.

5. Take an eyeliner brush (e.g. Sonia Kashuk bent liner brush) and draw a thin line of Picasso along the upper lashline.  Flick the line up very slightly when you reach the outer corner to help ‘lift’ the eye.  You can always use a pencil eyeliner for this step if you prefer this to gel eyeliner.

6. Take an angled eye liner brush (e.g. MAC 266) and apply Atlantic Blue over the line of navy blue eyeliner.  Applying eyeshadow over eyeliner ‘sets’ the line and also smooths out any rough edges.

7. Take an angled eye liner brush (e.g. MAC 266) and apply Cork along the lower lashline.  Applying a little eyeshadow to the lower lashline helps to balance the eye when using dark colours across the upper lashline.

8. Apply mascara to the top and bottom lashes.

One more picture of the finished look: