Tips to improve your eye makeup

Doing eye makeup can be pretty tough. We all know that feeling when we’ve tried so hard to pull together something nice and we still don’t like it. Here are some tips to improve your eye makeup, that you can try even if you are on a budget.

Tips to improve your eye makeup

These tips are really easy, and will do the trick for most common “problems” one bumps in when or after doing their eye makeup. You should have most of the things needed, but in case you need to buy something you’ll be able to find that for a low price.

Eyebrows

Sometimes the mistake is how you do your eyebrows. Here you need to base yourself on your hair colour (the colour of the hair on the scalp). If you have dark hair, choose a product that is 2 shades lighter than your hair colour, and if you have light hair then choose a product that’s 2 shades darker.

In case your eyebrows are sparse, fill them in more. If your eyebrows are naturally very thick, fill the sparser areas only. If you start filling your whole eyebrow, it can overwhelm the rest of your face.

The best advice on shaping is to simply leave your eyebrows alone. If you remove any hairs it can have a negative effect on your memory, and of you are studying you should not take this risk. If you still feel you need to shape, then remove your unibrow and those hairs that are closest to the eye. Use a white eye pencil to trace the edge, and don’t remove anything beyond it. The safest choice though is to bleach your brows. It won’t physically remove your hair, but it will decolour it to a point that you can’t see it.

Eyeshadow

Have you ever had that moment in which you applied your eyeshadow in the morning and it was perfect, but in the evening it’s gone all over the place? It’s probably because you didn’t prime your eyes. The eyes are the one of the oiliest areas on your face: you need a good base for your eyeshadows to hang on to. There are two ways to prime your eyes. You can either use an eye primer or a concealer with a normal setting powder on top.

Sometimes one has a tough time in getting those matte eyeshadows to blend. If you need to blend where there is no other eyeshadow, you can use an eyeshadow the colour of which is close to your skin tone and use that to blend everything out. If you need to blend it with another eyeshadow, pick up both eyeshadows with the same brush and use it where you need to.

You also want your shimmers to pop too. Most say the trick is to wet the brush before picking up the shimmer. Actually, this causes a hard pan. There is a trick to get that shimmer to pop without getting a hard pan. It is to pick up that shimmer on a dry brush and then wet the brush with some setting spray. Or, you can very simply apply the shimmer with your finger.

Lashes

One of the best ways to emphasise your lashes is to apply false lashes on them. But not everybody has the time and the skill to do so. The best solution is magnetic lashes: apply a thin line of “magnetic” eyeliner and the lashes will find their place by themselves. But what if you can’t find them?

Make sure to curl your lashes. You can try blinking when you apply your coats of mascara. If you want your lashes to look longer, you can try applying a good amount of setting powder to them, and reapplying the mascara until you don’t see the setting powder anymore. Then tightline your lashes. Choose a soft black pencil to apply in your upper lashline. In this way your lashes will look richer and it will also save space on the eyelid.

Black or white eye pencil?

It depends a lot on the effect you want to achieve as well. As a rule of thumb, during the day you should use a white eye pencil and use the dark one during the night.

It also depends if you want to optically shrink or enlarge the eye. In the first case, use a black (or equally dark) eye pencil. In the second, you can use a white eye pencil.

If you have a very dark undereye, using a black pencil might give you a “panda eye” or “somebody punched you in the face” effect. You should use a white pencil instead. It will help your eye seem more open, fresher and more awake. If you have a warm undertone, you will want to consider a butter-coloured eye pencil instead of a white one.

Light point placement

Light points are those points where the light hitting your face is more obvious. For the eye area, the should be your inner corner, above and below your brow arch. You can create or emphasise them by using your favourite highlighter on them.

The undereye area

Out of all tips to improve your eye makeup, this could be the most important. In fact, if the makeup of this area isn’t taken care of properly, it can affect how the rest of your face looks. If your undereyes are particularly dark, use a relatively thick peach, orange or red concealer first to colour-correct. Then, apply a concealer slightly lighter than your skin tone on top to brighten.

Apply a setting powder so it doesn’t crease throughout the day. Try looking slightly upwards to make sure those fine lines are covered too. If you do this, they won’t seem deeper through the day.