Green on Green Smoky Eyes

I wanted to play with a few green shadows that I haven't used for awhile, so I whipped up a green on green look today.

Base: Black kajal or black cream liner smudged over lids
Outer corners: Make Up Geek Envy (black with green shift)
Main lid shade: Top Shop U-Turn (you can also try Make Up Geek's duochrome shadow in Havoc)
Inner corners: MAC Shimmermoss
Lashes: Red Cherry #13
Cheeks: Tarte Celebrated
Lips: NYX Whipped Fouetté in Cocoa Bean

Top Shop's U-Turn is a more sparkly and transparent version of typical duochrome shadows like MUG Havoc, but if you don't have a duochrome, just go with a shimmery teal shadow and don't worry about it being duochrome.

The main thing is to go from dark to light, using a black-green on the outer corners, to a rich teal or emerald green in the center, and then a pale jade green around the tear ducts, so there is depth and richness with a nice gradient.

As for the cheeks, I was playing with my Laura Mercier Face Illuminator in Indiscretion, a soft rosy beige. This is an old fave, and I think LM has consistently been good with face highlighters. It's silky, fine-grained, buildable, not overly-metallic, and the colors are usually very multi-faceted. Never a flat  color like gold or pink.

Indiscretion is actually slightly too deep for my NC25 skin tone when swatched intensely, but when it's dusted on lightly, it just works like a subtler sheen on light skins. And it doesn't look too pale and stark or metallic. It's also perfect as a blush topper, to add glow along the tops of your blush.

Of course, if you own the other two lighter shades, you don't need to worry about this.

Mocha tones: Coffee lids and cocoa lips (plus a softer alternative)

Products used:

• Laura Mercier Eye Color Duet in Chocolate/Cashmere
• NYX Studio Liquid Liner in Extreme Coffee
• Tightline Cake Eye Liner in Violet Asphalt
• Maybelline Great Lash mascara in Blackest Black
• Sephora Precious Gold Luminizer
• Laura Mercier Matte Radiance Baked Powder in Bronze-03
• OCC Lip Tar in Sybil

For the day look, just skip the gold sparkles and the dark lips! I used

No7 Precision Lip Liner in Nude
Lipstick Queen gloss in Red Sinner

Laura Mercier Smooth Finish foundation powder in 04

Laura Mercier has long been a brand known for great base products, from one of the first and best known lines of foundation primers in the world, to the best-selling Secret Camouflage, one of my favorite blemish concealers ever.

Here’s a quick feature summary of Laura Mercier’s new compact foundation powder.

• velvet finish
• medium-high coverage
• no sun-screen (zero flashback in flash photography; I checked!)

The great thing is the finish of this foundation powder is matte and velvety, but your skin will look luminous, not flat. It actually contains oil-based conditioners (shea butter and vitamin E) so it’s very good news for slightly dry or mature skins because it won’t emphasize lines as much as most other powder foundations. But here’s the catch; it’s not stellar at oil-control. If you have oily/combination skin, expect to see the shine breakthrough in about 1-2 hours. I’d say this would be better for normal or slightly-dry people who like a velvety finish.

If you love the finish but have oilier skin, prepare to blot every few hours.

Coverage: variable as with most powder foundations, depending how you apply it. (More on that below.)

Shade range: The shades come in yellow and pink based shades but I find even the “yellow-based” ones to be more neutral than yellow. If you use C and NC in MAC, make sure you try before buying because the range might be warmer (pinker) than you’re used to. Also remember there is minimal oxidation, but it will still darken slightly by the end of the day.

A weekend face of the day using Laura Mercier Smooth Finish Powder Foundation.

3 Alternate Ways to Apply your Two-Way Powder Foundation!

Aside from using it with a dry or damp sponge, you can get more precision and a more seamless “second-skin” finish using 3 different brushes. Just remember that this always goes ON TOP of liquid or cream concealer. Not under.

My 3 alternatives to a sponge, for applying powder foundation!

• A regular big face brush: This is the way to get sheerer coverage. Just dust it on like a loose powder to set liquid foundation or concealer. To get a less powdery look, use a slightly smaller flatter brush like Sephora’s flat blush brush #42.
• Eye buffing brush: One of my favorite tricks. Dab the powder foundation on with an eye buffing brush to add precise coverage, set concealer and mask contours over raised spots.
• Flat foundation brush: Med-high coverage with a slightly less powdery look can be achieved by just pressing dry powder foundation on with the flat of a foundation brush. (Demo below.)

To see the full application demo, click here!