How vain are you?

Selena, have you tried purples both soft and dark for smokey eyes? I'd think they'd go really well with your colour. My eyes are green and very hard to work with, but I never fail with plums.

Welcome oh vain one!!! FL_sunshine!!

I think I've worn the same eye make-up style forever. I have rather large blue-gray eyes.

Concealer, light colored shadow ( bone or pink) over the lids with a brush, then line upper and lower lids with plum crayon eyeliner. Use plum powder shadow in crease of eyelid- a little wider at the outer corners- then go over the eyeliner with a narrow brush and the same plum powder shadow, just to set it and smudge it a bit. Follow that up with some brownish black mascara .. I have dark hair.

At my age, everything sinks in fast, so I get the smoky look whether I wanted to or not!!!

Thanks Selena! 

Welcome Fl_sunshine!

I've read recently that us "older" women shouldn't wear a shimmer product. Anywhere. I've always liked a bit of shimmer to brighten my eye area. I have never been able to line my "waterline"!! What the heck do you do it with and how does it not weep off?? My daughters do it and I've asked them to show me but they laugh and don't take me seriously (in their 30's). But I'm serious. Is it a soft crayon or what? Anyone remember Kohl from the '70s???

Morning ladies, I'm with DP, I have blue/grey eyes too Selena and platinum hair, so I need to be careful with the smokey eye too. I always use the neutral browns too, always matte or just a very slight shimmer. I can get away with the black liner, if it is really fine and close to the lash line and then covered with a layer of deep brown shadow applied with a touch of water. Then a highlight pencil to the corners of the eyes will make them pop without being too dark. I used to do the same look with charcoal, but it doesn't work at this age, the neutrals work so much better.

Barbe - I have dark brown eyes but still feel like my heavy lids need help. In the spirit of vanity, yesterday I got a pedicure, had my brows waxed and tinted, lashes tinted and a haircut. If I had been able to squeeze in highlights, I'd really feel like a new person but it was a good start. With my brows done and lashes tinted, just curling my lashes is enough to make a difference.

Shimmer is different than sparkle - the latter should be approached with caution but the former can be successfully used by anyone if you use the right color and formulation. In fact, flat matte products can be quite aging. Maybe think of it as "dewey" rather than shimmer if that helps. Many of the cosmetics marketed to us "mature" women (over 40ish) contain "light reflecting" ingredients that when done right, create a soft-focus effect and when done wrong, sparkle like a disco ball when the light hits. The "waterline" of the upper and lower lids is the rim between the lash line and the lid. I only do it to my upper lid as lining the I side of the lower lid can make the eye appear smaller. My eye doctor would be horrified to hear that I do it but it really does make an impact. I use a soft pencil like the Stila I mentioned earlier and gently pull up the lid and carefully press the pencil into the lash line and color in the waterline.   I found this page that explains the technique well and the before and after photo is a good illustration of the impact (I didn't watch the video). http://theeverydaybeauty.blogspot.com/2012/02/eye...

The reason plum shades look so great with green eyes is that purple and green are opposites on the color wheel.  Brown and blue are also opposites which is why I recommended bronze for Selena.  As a brown eyed girl, I do feel it's a little unfair that brown shadows/liners make blue eyes pop and blue shades just make brown eyes brown.  

DP - if I could get to a beach, all I would do is sit on it!  

How do you keep the black eyeliner from melting onto the white?  Even with waterproof liners, a little smudges onto my lower waterline when I tight line the top.

Years ago, I finally threw away the awful  harsh black Maybelline liquid eyeliner that I used for so long... seems that there is no way to make a straight line when painting over wrinkly eyelids! 

I've never found any brand of eye makeup in shades of brown that didn't make me look jaundiced or sick. At least the plum color makes my blue eyes look a bit more turquoise.

And there is NO WAY I would put anything inside my lower lash line... My eyes would be running like sprinklers the whole time.... under the lashes is o.k., but above? Can't do it! Hurts to think about it!

I use lavender shadow. Other colors don't do it for me but the lavender emphasizes the green of my eyes. It's not a popular shade right now so it's sometimes hard to find but since I don't use it every day it lasts for a while.

Leah

That was a GREAT video!!! Thanks for posting! Validated some of what I do, and then added some new tips. Gotta get me some pixie dust! hehehehehe

Loved the video... only I liked the "make your eyes look smaller" side better! 

And sadly, she still ended up with a great big wad of white concealer on the left (her right) that made her eye makeup look unfinished. Reminded me of these shots....

I find it extraordinary that a makeup artist is using a concealer in that color these days even with her fair skin, and HD cameras. The colors are quite different for concealing now, just varying shades of the foundation and as lekker says, blend, blend. blend!

You'd have to wonder if she did this one herself.    

Sorry Barbe, I should have said concealer in varying shades, of the shade, of the foundation used. There are so many great color wheels of several concealers that don't sit in the wrinkles. You can mix and blend to get just the right shade, and they have correctors in them too, so they eliminate the teabag stain a lot of people have, and any broken red capillaries, even sun damage and freckles.

I have just started using Eve Pearl cosmetics for the first time, I am such a consumer, and have to try anything new with a difference! Eve Pearl has salmon concealers that I was interested in trying. I really wasn't expecting much, but after a bit of practice I really like them. They have two shades in the palette, a dark and a light and they aren't colors I would ever have looked twice at before.

I had my own business many years ago when I worked in cosmetics for some of the big houses, doing makeup for Weddings and Events, even did makeup on a Rock and Roll Tv,  interview show for a while. The cameras were a lot more forgiving in those days! LOL   

Ha ha, DP, don't know about chic or swanky, but I loved growing up and being young in the 60's and 70's, it was just the very best time. Great jobs were easy to come by, I worked in Television when it went from black and white to color and I worked at the first commercial FM radio station, on the day it opened, where my future husband, was the first voice on Commercial FM radio in Australia. Wonderful times, lots of travel, every live concert that came to town. I loved it all.

I feel for my Daughter and her generation, born in the late 70's, by the time they were leaving school and venturing out, so much had changed and the freedom I had experienced just wasn't there any more. The specter of Aids, really scary drugs and the crime rate had changed the way young people could enjoy themselves.  

I still have many friends from those times, some I've been close to for 40+ years, we often get together to reminisce about the good old days!

that's a great philosophy caryn. Especially the part about the only time you have to raise your children is now. I still think I would love to hang out with ariom in her gogo boots doing rock star makeup though. The cool thing is that even though those times have passed, the way they were spent are indicative of who a person is.  Unfortunately, my generation has no defining ideals that were evident in bygone eras. Or at least not many that I can think of. I suppose if one was in on the beginnings if the dot com boom - that would count, but it certainly isn't very exotic. There have surely been good times and more to be had, but with the current idiotic society that we live in, I fear they will never be defining in a good way. When I think about the generations younger than I, and what their contribution will be, it actually scares the hell out of me.