Starting Out with Shadows and Shades

With eyeshadow, choosing colours that compliment your hair or eye colour is always the best way to go. Not only with you get complimented on your makeup, but it will also boost your confidence when it comes to choosing different eyeshadows and palettes in the future. Different colour eyeliners can also affect your makeup, using a pop of colour, like a blue eyeliner, for example can bring out the colours in people's eyes.

When it comes to finding the right shades of makeup, different shades of eyeshadow, lipstick etc can suit you more. Finding shades that compliment your eye or hair colour can create a big difference on how your makeup looks on your face. Sometimes certain colours can appear a different shad due to different tones in your skin and can wash you out or sit differently than how you expect it to look, especially in different lighting.

Making sure to match shades with each other is key, as they may clash on your eyes and it can look slightly bad. Using green and purple wouldn't be a great pair to use on your eyes at the same time. Using colours that blend well together is key. Like a pink, purple and red can blend and create a subtle warm sunset look, added with a bit of glitter in your inner corner and you're sorted! Different eye colours go with different shades of eyeshadow, brown and blue eyes always look really vivid with a dark brown or black smoky eye, whereas green eyes always stand out with browns and pinks. Another good mix is blue and green, which can create a really smooth blend of the two colours.

Beauty Bay Origin Palette

Starting with eyeshadow can be daunting, especially when you open a palette and there is around 12 colours to use, or sometimes even more. When I started with eyeshadow, I found a really useful palette that actually categorises the shadows for you. The palette is by Beauty Bay and is called Origin. The palette contains 42 colours, which is a lot, however they are all quite natural and nude shades with a few darker ones and some shimmers. It has 6 rows and each row tells you what the shades on that row are for. For example, it has a base row, which you would use for a starting point for your eyeshadow look, there is also a highlight row and liner row to name a few. It is a really easy way to learn what sort of colours and

A simple cat eye look

shades are right for your looks.

As well as eyeshadow, eyeliner also comes in lots of different colours. Personally, I don't tend to use bright coloured eyeliner as it can clash with your eyeshadow, however a bare eye with an electric blue cat eye would look amazing for a night out or party. I tend to use black eyeliner as it is classic and really completes the look. When you are starting out with eyeliner, an alternative to going straight in with black is getting a brown liner, it is more muted and natural on the eye. I often use a brown liner on my lower lash line to make my eyes stand out.

A simple cat eye is easy enough to learn, but you can go further than that and create shapes and make the lines really thick or thin, it is completely up to you!

A simple cat eye look

I have included my own pictures of how I usually do my eyeliner, just as a guide on how a simple cat eye looks. If you want to know what eyeliner I use, check out my other blog post 'How To: Day to Night Glam Eye Look'!