I really had a good time making the last eye look post, once I got over my fear of taking so many close up selfies. I guess I’ve seen so many really beautiful eye look photos done with extremely high quality cameras and likely fancy lighting situations that I will never be able to reproduce that I figured why bother? Why bother? Because I am just a normal person in her 40s who likes to play with makeup and there have to be others like me out there.

So, I’ll start with a look I did with my ABH Sultry palette. First of all, I need to mention that because I knew I’d wear this at my wedding, I’ve had the opportunity to really spend a ton of time with this palette this spring. And it is hands down my favorite palette. I love the color payoff on these shadows and it’s soooo easy to use. I have loved every look I’ve ever created with this palette. It makes me want ALL of the ABH palettes. (Not gonna do that, but if I could get my hands on the Norvina at a discount, I’d probably get that one.)

Anyhow, here’s the palette I’ve used. I am not going to bother with the circles because I think the color names are fairly visible this time.

So, I started with my mac paint pot eye primer, then went in over it with Fresh to set the primer. Then, I made a look I am making about once a week with this palette. I take Bloom all over the transition area. It’s a bold choice because it’s such a pigmented color. But, with enough blending, it looks very pretty. Then, I use slate in the crease, blending it a bit up into the transition where I can. The gray over the coral makes a really interesting almost purply color. At the outer corner of my eye I went in very lightly with noir, I did blend that to almost nothing. But it, too, over the bloom makes an interesting purple-toned color. I used steampunk all over the lid. I’ve been playing with which shimmer to use with this look, I’ve tried Teak and Cinder as well. I think maybe my favorite has been cinder. I mean to try it with cyborg at some point, but I suspect that’ll be quite an over the top look. Anyhow, in this case, I used Steampunk. For the undereye area I used slate for the bottom lash, blended Bloom into the outer corner of that, and then lined with a black liner. For my inner corner, I used a gold eyeliner. Here’s the resulting look:

This look has become a go-to spring look for me. I just love it. It’s fresh and bold but it also has the cooler tones of the grey. For the record, I am wearing a coral lipstick not pictured here, and grey slacks. So, the entire thing is highly coordinated as well. With my gray hair….well, it’s probably a little over the top. But I like it.

Next up we’ll look at the Too Faced Sweet Peach palette. I really enjoy this palette but it is another one I haven’t given that much attention to. I got it half price over last summer. I picked up the chocolate gold palette for Miss Butterfly at half price at the same time. That was her birthday gift and she uses it all the time. But, I got interested in panning my tarte be a mermaid palette and didn’t give the sweet peach palette all that much attention.

This palette has a surprising amount of neutrals when all is said and done. But, I also love a peachy toned shadow as I am sure I’ve mentioned. I decided for this look I was going to concentrate on the brown tones. I am sorry that not all the pan names show up on my photo, I’ll do my best to explain anyhow.

I began by setting my primer with white peach. I had anticipated making a much softer look than the one above, so I used Georgia as a transition shade. I then used the brown shadow below Bellini in my crease. Since Georgia isn’t a very poppy transition shade, I blended the brown up closer to my transition as well. Then, I took Charmed, I’m Sure on the outer V. I tried to blow that out a little further from my eye than I typically do. Not sure how successful I was. Anyhow, I put Bellini all over the lid and used Luscious in the inner corners. I did pop an unphotographed highlighter on the very middle of my lid just for a little more dimension.

Under the eye I used the brown shade under Bellini and Charmed, I’m Sure toward the outer corner, connecting it with the blown out outer V section. I lined with the style sepia liner I am trying to pan (There’s a theme here!) and then called it good.

So, the browns are far more neutral than I’d usually wear, and I kept the transition shade pretty subtle, but in the end I don’t think my look is any more subtle than the look above, despite being far less colorful.

Here’s another using my Sydney Grace Taylor bundle, light and dark. This was a bundle offered last summer during their christmas in july sale (I highly recommend keeping an eye out for that as I see it is happening again this year.)

First of all, I need to mention that there are two shadows here that are not Sydney Grace. Those are the one circled in lime green and the one second from the top left which I did not use in this look. The one in green I used to set my eye primer. It’s a morphe shadow. I just slipped it into this palette because it needed a home.

So, after setting my primer, I went in with the top three browns which are circled in white.  The lightest as my transition, the middle as a crease color, and the darkest on the outer corner. These browns are quite cool toned which I love. The darkest is a bit hard to blend without blending into nothing but that’s the case with many of the darkest shades in many palettes. I used the shimmer circled in yellow all over the lid and then popped the lightest color shimmer onto the center as a spotlight. That would be the color circled in burgundy. I then needed to blend my crease a bit more as much of the shimmer migrated upward, as is typical for me. I blended the lightest brown on my undereye and then the mid-toned brown toward the outer corner of my undereye. I lined in my style sepia liner I am trying to pan (Will it never die?) and then my inner corner got a nice sparkly urban decay liner in gold.

Here’s the resulting look. It’s quite cool toned since those browns are so cool toned.

I think three is enough for today though I do have one more in my back pocket. I’ll save it for another post. These have been fun to do. Just recording what I am doing has made me feel a little more creative, exploring shadows I haven’t messed with before. But, I can see why one might want a fancier camera to get better photos. That’s not really in the cards for me but it’s fun to think about.