Twilight Fae: Dramatic Hologram Eyes

For those of you craving some excitement for Summer nights, here's a colorful and dramatic smoky eye which is actually pretty easy to create. To tone it down for day, just keep the shadow within the socket area instead of blending it out and up as far as I did.

There were 3 main products I used:

• Black kajal (any very creamy and smudgy black cream shadow or pencil will work)
• Translucent green sparkle (I used a discontinued mica from TKB called Starlight Green, which has been replaced with Starbright Green. The Body Shop also has a single shadow highlight #08 which is exactly the same thing but in pressed form.)
• Pink/purple duochrome with blue sheen (I Nuovi Amethyst dust; this is like a loose version of MAC Stars n Rockets shadow.)

And yes, these swatches above look NOTHING like how they appear on my lids, but that's why it's so fun working with duochromes and a black base!

Step 1: First apply black kajal or paint very thickly all over the lids, up to the socket line. 

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Step 2: Using a synthetic concealer brush (or any synthetic paint brush), softly smoke out the edges so there are no hard lines, and bring the color up and out. 

Step 3: Apply the kajal to the lower lash line and water line as well, and smudge out lightly. The finished look should now be like the above image, which is a typical winged smoky eye shape.

Step 4: From here, we move on to the fun stuff. Lightly dust the translucent green highlight all the way from lower lash line up to the brow, but ONLY ON THE INNER HALVES of the lids.

Step 5: The shade that's going to make everything look holographic is the pink/violet/blue duochrome on the outer half of the eyes, top and bottom. When you pack it over the black, you will no longer see the pink, but the violet and blue is going to take on a sort of glow which is going to stand apart from the green and give the most interesting effect.

Step 6: This step is optional. I wet a flat brush with a little liner sealant (Ben Nye Liquiset), dabbed it into some aqua green translucent glitter, then pressed it right down the center of the lids. This echoes the green shadow, but adds a "wet" effect and gorgeous sparkle when you blink.

Step 7: To finish the look, I curled my lashes and then applied a strip of wispy lashes. Any type of lashes would work, including plain black mascara.

Easy Weekend Eye: Pink-Violet Duochrome

Get a Pink and Violet Duochrome Eye with MAC Stars n Rockets and Flashtrack shadows

Pink and Purple are right up there in many "Favorites" lists when it comes to makeup colors. But what about Purple-in-Pink?

This look features a bright magenta pink with a violet-blue duochrome shift. I'm not sure about you but I find this color to be just a little too dramatic and reminiscent of the 80's on most days, so I seldom touch it. But when you temper it with a little blue and black at the lash lines, and heaps of blending, the overall effect can be quite modern and smoldering even.

I used an old mica from I Nuovi called Amethyst (I believe they've discontinued this in their Dust collection), but this is not a hard color to find. Urban Decay Deluxe Shadow in Fishnet and MAC Stars n Rockets are pretty much identical to this.

The other 2 key componenets to this look are a strong, creamy black kohl or kajal, and navy blue shadow (I used MAC Flashtrack but any shimmery deep navy will do equally well.

Step 1: Apply the black gel or kohl liner very thickly to the upper and lower lash lines. Don't worry about getting it neat as it will be covered over later. Just make sure it is very black, very dense, and quite thick. You will likely need to reapply after you're done with your eye shadows.

Step 2: Run a deep navy blue shimmer along the lower lash line to get a smoky finish. Do not apply the blue shadow to the water line. You want to keep the liner very black there.

Step 3: Pack the star of the show, a bright duochrome magenta to the lids, up just past the socket line. As the pink goes over the black liner from earlier, it'll transform into a lovely dark blue sheen.

Step 4: Dab your brush into a blend of both the magenta duochrome and the navy shade from earlier, and very lightly buff it along the outermost section of your socket line to add a bit of depth and contour. At this point, you may want to touch up the black kohl or liner along the water line, as it would probably have shifted and faded a little. (A second layer also helps to keep it on better.)

Step 5: Finish with lashings of black mascara. I wanted to keep everything still looking smoldering by keeping all the darkness just to the inner rims of the eyes, so I skipped false lashes here, but if you really want to go to town with this, you can definitely pop on falsies.