A Quick and Easy Smokey Eye with Gold and Taupe

Just because it's called a "smokey eye" doesn't mean it has to look like smoke.

Today I want to show you how I played around with gold and taupe to create a great sultry look  (and just for a quick resume, I've been taught by MAC professionals :)

Here are the colors I used and their corresponding brushes...

It's very very very (very x infinity) important that you have the right kind of tools when applying makeup. The right brushes will take your techniques from novice to professional looking in seconds. So make sure you've got good ones (more blogs on that coming soon).

The left is blended, the right is more defined. Learn how to do them both!

Step 1:

Cover your whole lid with a very light gold. To do this, you'll need a wide brush. You want you're entire lid covered in this color so a brush that gets everywhere is perfect (like this one).

Step 2:

Take a slightly smaller brush and use a darker matte shade of taupe. You really want to stay away from doing smokey eyes with three shades that all sparkle. It's best to mix texture and color when it comes to doing a smokey eye, but if all you have is all matte or all sparkly eye shadows, that's fine. Just remember in the future to mix it up when you buy new ones.

(Here's a link to a great brush starter kit!)

Step 3:

For this step you'll need your smallest, tightest brush (here's a good one). Because what you're going to do is use the darkest shadow you've got and make a W shape starting at your lash line, going up slightly into your crease, and then bringing it down below your lower lashes (it's a funky looking W, but you get my drift). You don't have to go below your lower lashes, but I like to because it makes my eyes look bigger.

Step 4:

Now at this point you'll want to blend with that smaller brush you just used for the dark shadow. Really try to work that shadow in so the lines are blurred (sing it: Blurred lines!)

Step 5:

As you can see on my lovely model (her name is Petunia, by the way) I blended her left eye, but not the right. So there are two directions you can go at this point. You can...

A. Take that first brush (the big wide one) and go over the whole lid making sure all the colors blend together perfectly.

B. Take that first brush, dip it back in that gold color to retouch the lightest shade and leave it at that.

It's up to you, and how good your work looks after step 4.

Step 6:

Finally, I like to add a defined cat eye to complete the whole look. I really feel like it helps amplify your lashes, and perfectly punctuates the whole thing. Again, you can do it more defined, or you can blend it in with the brush you used to add the darkest color.

As you can see on the right eye, I let the end of the cat-eye line a little thicker. Don't feel like it has to be perfect when you're adding it to a smokey eye, because it's not as visible.

Petunia was a little squirmy, but if you want to print out and practice on her before you do your own face, you can find the same picture here (but be warned, she complains a lot ;)

I really hope this helps! If you have any questions about this, or other makeup application techniques, feel free to email me elizabeth@thespiff, or of course you can reach me through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and now Pinterest!!

Get your toes ready for the warmer temperatures next week, check out these great shoes and toe nail polish pairings!

Have a very Spiffy weekend! :)