Holiday Look #4: The “Dense brown smoky” (Make Up Store Volga Shadow)

Trust me when I say this is one of the most intense - AND the quickest - smoky eye looks ever. In fact it’s slightly slapdash, and you can swop out the brown shadow for pretty much any color you want as long as it’s not pale.

The trick is not to cover the entire black base with shadow, but to leave just a bit at the lash line so there’s a natural gradation from black to brown as you smoke the shadow outwards.
The star here is the rich brown duochrome shadow, Volga. This MAC Club lookalike is less red-toned, so if Club makes you look like someone’s socked you in the eye while you were partying, this is a fantastic alternative.

You need only:

1. 1 brush - a rounded synthetic eye buffing/contouring brush like the Loveybelle small eye contour brush, which I used here
2. 1 matte black khol or cream liner - anything very soft and intense and creamy
3. 1 deep brown shadow - I used a satiny duochrome from Make Up Store called Volga - which is like a less red version of MAC Club shadow - for a bit of dimension (the black base will deepen and make it more matte, so choose something slightly brighter or more metallic than you intend)
4. 1 pale ivory/beige shadow [optional; I used an ivory shade in my Tarte Call of The Wild palette]
5. Mascara
6. A soft pink-toned blush - I used Benefit Rockateur, which is my go-to daily blush when I’m lazy to think!
7. A soft pink shimmery lipgloss - Make Up Store’s Orchid is a frikkin’ gorgeous beige-pink that isn’t too sheer or too frosty.

P.S. On nails, I am wearing Erik from Make Up Store, a blackened-green creme that looks like Japanese kombu (dried seaweed).