Tips for Wearing Pink Shadows

Wearing pink (especially any shimmery pink) around the eye area can sometimes end up making you look like you have pink eye or swollen eyes. It's not the easiest color to wear, and I tend to avoid it mostly.

But ironically, pink CAN be flattering on just about ALL skin tones because it's a color that is naturally occurring on our bodies.

There are just a few tips to wearing it well.

1. Pair it with a slightly deeper shade in the crease or socket line. Think neutrals like greys, browns, navys, blacks. Many softer pinks are too light to give you any definition around the eyes, so you need to add a bit of contouring back into your socket mostly. 
2. Always keep your lash line dark. Without some black or brown at the lash line, and dark lashes, you can look like you have rabbit-eyes when you wear pink.

Good pinks: Softer pinks with a peachy-gold sheen are universally flattering on most skin tones. The gold keeps it from looking like discoloration or broken capillaries. Cooler-based pinks and magentas can be nice too, but they don't go with as many looks and lip colors as a golden-toned pink.

• L'oreal Infallible 004 Forever Pink is a beautiful pink with a peach-gold tint
• MAC Swish, Da Bling, are nice light pearlescent pinks

Mattes are fine as well; in fact mattes are vibrant without looking flat. Locating a good matte pink is harder than applying it well. Avoid any pink that is too plummy or brown. You can look like you haven't slept for 3 days.

Quick Tutorial on a basic defined-crease look

Step 1: Important thing to do is to always set a nice darkness around your lash line first. Your pink shadow is going to go on top of it, but having some black below keeps things smokier. Make the black thicker on the upper lash line, and very light and only halfway inwards along the lower lash line. 

(Leave the inner lower corners clean.)

Step 2: Pack on the pink. Nothing complicated here. Just go up to the hollow of your socket line, but don't  go to far up.

Step 3: Reapply the black at the lash line. Keep things smoky and soft. Don't try to get any thin precise line there.

Step 4: Use a small pointed brush to lightly run the black shadow along the hollow of the socket line. (If you have hooded eyes, small lids or monolids, make sure you follow along the deep line right above your eyeball, NOT the fold of your eye lid.)

Step 5: Finish with black liner along the inner rims of the eyes (option) and black mascara.

Regarding Colors:

You can replace the black shadow with greys, browns, charcoals, navy blues. The only thing is to make sure the other shade you use is deep enough to give some definition. 

Whatever contouring color you use, stick with black liner and mascara.

Evergreen Metallic Winged Eyes (L'oreal Color Infallible Shadows in Permanent Kaki and Endless Chocolat)

Time to whip out some of my drugstore loves, after the recent features of high-end products!

Since I've been on something of a green kick recently, L'oreal Color Infallible Shadow Permanent Kaki (which had up to now been passed over repeatedly when I played around with the testers at the drugstore) suddenly caught my eye.

Now, let me first tell you not to trust what you see in the pot. The beauty of this beautifully-metallic sage-green gem only comes out when swatched on the skin.

You can wear this shade on its own as a soft wash as it's got some good dimension to it, but I wanted more contrast, so I'm pairing it with the rich chocolate shade in the range. (Once again, this brown looks a little red in the pot, but goes on a perfect neutral dark cocoa when swatched.)

Step 1: Because the best way to pack this binder-rich shadow (it's somewhere between a loose pigment and a cream) is to use your fingers, work it on gently in the outer 1/3 of your lids, going up just to the socket line but no further.

Step 2: This is where a brush comes in. Take a fluffy brush and quickly start blending the brown straight outwards into a wing. The binders in this shadow will set after awhile, so the faster you work, the easier it will be to blend.

Step 3: Using a flat brush, apply the brown to the lower lash line as well, pulling it out to meet the bottom of the wing.

Step 4: With your finger, carefully dab some shadow onto the inner corners. I'd usually use a brush for precision, but because it doesn't go on well with a brush, I used my hands. Just be very careful not to smudge any shadow all over.

Step 5: The star of the show is the green, but you won't need to use that much of it. I just gently patted it around the center of the lids and outwards lightly into the brown. Don't rub back and forth or you will muddy up the green and the brown. You want the green to stay very rich and "pure".

Step 6: Don't forget to dab a little onto the center of your lower lids as well, BUT if you have very prominent bags under your eyes, you might want to skip this, as applying a lighter shade in the center of the lid emphasizes contours more.

Step 7: For a touch more drama (but not too much), I applied natural-hair lashes (Ardell Wispies).