Favorite Eye Shadow Combos!

It's the last day of summer for me. My students started trickling back to town last ween but their first day of class is tomorrow. So that means summer dress is over, no more jeans in the middle of the week, no more flip flops, and for me- no more lazy makeup.  So I have a couple of Go-To eye looks I do throughout the academic year. I've been spoiled over the summer with my 10 minute makeup look, my usual routine takes about 1/2 an hour with the majority of time spent on my eyes.

So the palettes I use for my eye looks and will reference throughout this post are as follows:

1. Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette
2. Tarte Tartelette Amazonian Clay Matte Palette
3. Tarte Rainforest After Dark Palette

All of these links are for ULTA- so no affiliate links.

Neutral Matte
I would say the look I do the most and will continue to do the most this semester will be close to my Tartelette Redux look. An all Matte neutral bown-ish natural look. I can accomplish this look with both my Chocolate Bar and Tartelette palettes.

Chocolate Bar Palette (Left - Right)
White Chocolate, Strawberry Bon Bon, Salted Caramel, Milk Chocolate, Semi-Sweet, & Dark Chocolate

1. I'll start every look with eye primer- I'm working through Milani Eyeshadow Primer right now.
2. Then I cover the entire lid with a base powder either White Chocolate or Free Spirit. This makes blending out all the colors easier and doesn't seem to effect lasting time.
3. Next comes a pale pink all over my lid below the crease- I use either Strawberry Bon Bon or Caregiver. If these shadows get muddied during the blending process I'll come back to them at the end.
4. Then I start deepening the crease starting with a light medium brown or camel color like Salted Caramel or Force of Nature.
5. Then another crease color a little darker still- Milk Chocolate or Wanderer.
6. Blend Blend Blend!
7. Then the next shade darker brown goes just in the outer V and blended with a very light hand into #4&5. I used Semi-Sweet or Dreamer here and make the outer corner the darkest of all and blend it just so slightly into the V.
8. Blend Blend Blend! you don't ever want to see where the color changes so I blend till it's a perfect gradient.
9. If my pale pink has gotten a little lost then I'll brighten it up with it again, I don't always have to do that though.
10. Finally I use either the darkest brown color to line my lower lashes lightly and the outer corner of my top lashes- Dark Chocolate or Multi-Tasker.
11. If I want real liner I use my dark brown gel liner, but I've been liking the no-liner look lately.

Tartelette (Left - Right)
Free Spirit, Caregiver, Force of Nature, Wanderer, Dreamer, & Multi-Tasker

I feel like this is the most universal eye look I do. It goes with everything and always looks classic. If I want to make it more dramatic I can add Dark Chocolate or Multi-Tasker as a second outer V color. If I want my eyes to really pop I can use gel liner around the whole eye. I can even skip the outer V colors all together and just have a very no-make-up-make-up eye look. So I love this one, it still takes me 20 minutes to complete because blending takes time, but I feel like I've gotten as fast as I can with this.

Burgundy and Gold
I don't know when I fell in love with gold shadow on my eyes but I know it was sometime after purchasing the Rainforest palette and seeing Kristin Gehm rave about it. But I started playing with the golds in this palette and my chocolate bar palette and somehow stumbled upon burgundy being a good pair with those. So this is another look that I loved all last fall and have already broken out a couple times this past week. Gold is fun! So these looks can be done with the Chocolate Bar or Rainforest palette.

Rainforest After Dark (Left - Right)
Bare to Explore, Tangled Up In You, Up To No Gold, Plum Away With Me, Don't Turn A-Brown

1. Primer
2. All over lid base color- the Rainforest palette is missing a good nude base color so I either pull it from my Chocolate bar or just use my setting powder here as a base. White Chocolate still works here and whatever color I use goes all over the lid because the base is all the same color for this look.
3. Next I move to the crease with Milk Chocolate and Semi Sweet or Bare to Explore and Tangled Up In You. The chocolate bar look gets darker quicker and the Rainforest stays a little lighter.
4. Then I take GOLD all over the lid below the crease. I do it after the crease base colors in this look because gold gets everywhere if you blend over it too much. I use Creme Brule or Up to no Gold. They're both gorgeous- I feel like the Chocolate Bar Gold is smoother but the Tarte's sticks a little better to the eye. I usually do two layers of each to get that really metallic look.
5. Next up a burgundy or maroon color. In the Chocolate Bar you have two options depending on how dark you want to go Amaretto or Cherry Cordial. For Rainforest I go with Plum Away With Me. These colors start at the outer corner and come in for the outer 3rd and then blend lightly in the crease above the gold.
6. Then if I need more depth I'll add Dark Chocolate or Don't Turn A-Brown and add to just the very outside of the eye.
7. I use my dark brown gel liner with this look and usually take some gold and medium brown on the lower lash line.

Chocolate Bar Palette (Left-Right)
Milk Chocolate, Semi-Sweet, Creme Brule, Amaretto, Cherry Cordial, Dark Chocolate

This is a great look for fall! I just love the gold, if you were this look with Green and have blue or green eyes it's amazing! I also love to wear this when I'm wearing brown or orangey- you know fall colors. It's a great look that works for all the eye colors. Brown eyes look gorgeous with gold. This look takes me a little longer even though there are fewer steps because Gold can smell fear. You have to go slowly with gold or it'll end up all over your face.

So I think these shadows make great fall looks. Even within just the shadows I shared you can do a variation of things and each can be very appropriate work day or school day looks as well as evening looks. I frequently will just darken things up after work and have a perfectly good evening look.  Here in Texas fall is still a few months off, but hopefully we're at least done with the 100+ degree days so fall eye makeup here I come!

In case you want to know what blushes I would use with these looks- definitely plummier, deeper rose colors and with hints of gold. So I'll break out my NARS Orgasm again, my Cabana Boy from the Balm and my deepest Tarte blush in Savored. Less pinks more plums!

It's Yzma Time! (Super late Halloween look)

Okay I know we're already in the middle of November but I still wanted to share my Yzma transformation experience. Every year for Halloween my office has a ridiculously competitive Halloween Spooktacular Party with group costume contest. My office has come in 2nd place the last two years and this year we wanted to change that. In early October we decided we'd all go as Disney Villains and instantly I knew who would be perfect for me. The one, the only, her name is in the title...

Not me.

Yzma! She's fabulous, loves makeup and accessories and may just be my spirit animal. I love her. Unfortunately I couldn't find a Kronk in my office, but a girl can wait.  One of the important rules of our costume contest is trying not to spend money on things and if you do spend money to spend as little as possible. (I usually have a problem with this) So I pulled out my makeup and said okay I can do this, found a black dress my mother made for me in high school that still fits- yah it had sleeves but whatever- my boss brought me some big shell earrings my student worker painted blue for me and then I only spent money on a purple boa, feathers and eyelashes.  I kept my costume probably right around $12.  

This one is me. 

So unlike my other smart co-workers I didn't really practice my makeup till the morning of when I was applying it for real. I applied my usual allover face makeup but used a face primer to help it really stick.  Added extra bronzer in the hollows of my cheeks, a more dead color blush, filled in my eyebrows then went in search for my 120 color eyeshadow palette.  

I have no idea when or where this eye palette came from. I've had it since high school I know but don't know if it was purchased in 1999 or 2003- who knows. But whenever I need a random non-natural color I pull this thing out and it's always done the trick, it's great for theatre and Halloween but not much else. It lives at the top of my closet cause I don't use it very often and when I pulled it out and looked inside....

It was much more shimmery than I remembered and the colors all had the same kinda sivlery cast to them instead of the pigment I was wanting- which was PURPLE.  So I had to come up with a quick backup plan...how about my Too Face Chocolate Bar palette that has a beautiful and amazing purple in it- yes my favorite neutral eye shadow palette has an amazing sparkly purple to it- in order to get the color to build up I did have to use a very light colored base and then add lots of layers, but overall it worked great. I used my Victoria's Secret black/grey eye shadow for accents and to really deaden up my lids under my brows and then the black to help smudge out the outer V.

Then I added some mascara a neutral lipstick and headed out to work. I was gonna wait to apply my eyelashes till right before the party and the lipstick too. Once I got to work I slapped on some purple sparkly nail polish from Gel Envy by Revlon- the color Showtime is amazing (thanks Stilakiss33) and continued out my morning.

A little before lunch when I had to go decorate for the party I added some fabulous feather lashes, my red lipstick and had my student worker help get the feathers in my hair. Overall I'm super pleased with how the look came out. I think for a DIY Yzma is was perfect, I could have put a little more effort and $ into the project and come a little closer, but that wasn't the goal. I loved this costume probably my favorite I've done for work and the makeup was so fun, but I definitely think it was the lashes that made it.

PS- The team came in 2nd place again.

My go to fall makeup.

Once upon a time I only had one go to makeup. The makeup I wore everyday, didn't edit and change with my outfits, or the season or the weather. I wore the same eye shadows, blush and concealer everyday.  Now all those things change...pretty much daily.  But this fall I've been using the same color range over and over.  I like a bronzey gold eye with a dusty rose cheek.  Unfortunately I have too many options for products to achieve this.  And require about 6 individual eye brushes to achieve just the eye shadow look.  But it's always fun, always new and always makes me be creative first thing in the morning.

Here's the process-

1. Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream in Light to Medium.  It's the perfect base it offers beautiful coverage without being drying or looking like heavy makeup.
2. Under Eye Concealer- either my Pixi Color Corrector or my IT Cosmetics Bye Bye Undereye.  Both are super hydrating but the IT Cosmetics is a little light and I usually have to set it, so I only use that when the bags are really unruly. 
3. Fergie Wet 'n Wild Eyeshadow Prime. I love this stuff! It's cheap and it works great.  It's very tacky though so I need to let it dry for at least 2-3 minutes before I pack on the eyeshadow.  
4. NYX Eyebrow Powder and Wax Pencil. While waiting for my primer to set I use the wax eyebrow pencil to place my brows, then I use the powder to fill in the gaps.  The wax helps the powder stay in place and the brows. To apply my brow powder I use my Real Techniques Small Detail brush. 
5. Oh the eyeshadow process so many steps
1. Cream color all over the lid up to the brow- I use either L'Oreal Infallible in Endless Pearl or  White Chocolate from the Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette- I use a flat Real Techniques brush for this 
2. Next I use a matte warm pale brown to warm up the crease like Salted Caramel from the Chocolate Bar Palette- I use a Maybelline brush I've had for years that doesn't have a name 
3. Then I layer a darker brown in the crease too but pull it down a little in my Chocolate Bar Palette I'll use Milk Chocolate and Semi-Sweet to build up different shades with the medium shade in the middle and the darker towards the outer v all while staying in the crease- I've been recently using the Up and Up eyes brush duo for this step
4. Next I decide if I want to just go smokey brown or burgundy and pick a satin finished brown or burgundy for the outer third of the lid and the lower part of the crease- I use the other Up and Up brush or a real techniques blending brush
5. Then I use a shimmery gold for the inner 3rd of the eye like Creme Brulee- I use a classic Sephora pencil brush 
6. Next I use eyeliner. Depending on how I feel I'll tightline with a brown khol pencil and then use brown gel liner from NYX for the top lash line, if lining the bottom lash line I'll use just a medium brown shadow with a smudger brush 
7. Next I move on to bronzer and use either my Tarte After Dark bronzer or NYC Bronzer in Sunny with a Real Techniques precision face brush
8. Then Blush from either Tarte After Dark or NYX Dusty Rose with an ELF small tappered brush
9. Then I highlight with my Tarte After Dark highlighter with an ELF small tappered brush as well
10. Next I add mascara. I've been loving my Urban Decay Subversion primer and Perversion mascara. I do mascara after bronzing and highlighting in case a get a little crazy and hit my lashes.
11. Then I finish up with lips, depending on how I feel I'll either just throw on a chapstick and call it a day or I love love love my Revlon Matte Balms or Kate Moss Rimmel pink nudes. They have good lasting power and don't stray too much.

Once everything is done I let it sit for a few minutes before topping it off with a setting spray. I have the NYX Dewey Setting spray or a homemade one from water and glycerin. I don't feel like either makes my makeup last any longer but it gets rid of any powdery look and add a touch of hydration on top.  And then I'm out the door.