Saturday, July 12, 2008

Professional Makeup Tips - Smokey Eyes
By Rob Closs

There are many renditions of smokey eyes - here's one that works on everybody.

smokey eyesLight Lids & Brow Bones; Smokey Crease & Liner:

1) After you've highlighted the lid and brow bone area with pale shadows, line your eyes from the first inner eye lash to the outer corner - on top and bottom. Gel or creamy pencil eyeliners work well for this look.

2) Choose a smokey crease color and shade the outer lid traveling up to the eye contour area.

3) Dip your angle brush into your smokey eye shadow color, and trace your original eyeliner, hugging it with the second color. This layers the eye design, expanding it for the ultimate smoke out.

4) With a virgin brush, go over the liners a third time. Because the brush is void of color, it will pick up the existing color and soften into a daring and sophisticated eye.

5) Go big or stay home. This eye needs full lashes, or the design reads as a demonic possession. Lash out with a moderate false strip or some individual false lashes. This will feminize your eye from this bold design.

6) Nude, soft light glossy lips will compliment a dark eye on any occasion. So leave the cranberry colors for the table if you wear this dark eye.

Reality Check!

Recognize all makeup designs in the context to which you see them. These big, huge smokey eyes in the magazines are frozen in time, part of an illusion and the sensationalism that heightens the viewer's experience. You would look at the same model from a very different perspective if she were shopping in the frozen pea section at the grocery store. You might even throw something at her. So have fun with a bit of smoke, but remember you have to wear it out.

Rob Closs is a professional makeup artist, and is the founder and managing director of The School of Professional Makeup, one of the premier makeup schools in Canada.

The School of Pro Makeup is now celebrating 10 years of creating careers through the art of makeup design.


Photo: Jennifer Stewart, courtesy of B Magazine, December 2007