A Smokey Storm

Hang on to your seat here folks. There's a storm rolling in and it's going to be beautiful! When I started this blog, I didn't think I would feel the passion for the makeup tutorials like I do right now. I have this urge to do one every single day, maybe twice; I'm just having so much fun with it. Of course, being the weekend, that sounds like a fabulous idea, but during the week? When I'm already getting up at 5:40 every morning? And now I want to get up earlier to work on a makeup tutorial? Psycho. Seriously lol. So right now I'll settle for frolicking deep in the lands of makeup on the weekends.

For this tutorial, I'm using two different eyeshadow palettes. The first is Bobbi Brown's Caviar and Oyster palette and the second in Urban Decay's Naked2. I'm pretty sure you can buy the Urban Decay shadows separately, but I think some of the Bobbi Brown ones are a special edition for the palette - at least I didn't see them on the website. I'm not a person who wears a dark smokey eye like this, but I still think it's fun - like playing dress up when you were little! =) I'll admit it's quite a long tutorial. I thought about editing it down, but since I actually did all of these steps, that wouldn't be a true tutorial. So. Here's the truth - sometimes you layer 5 million things on your face. Oh well.

Step 1: Apply a base to your eyes. I'm using Maybelline's Color Tattoo in Audacious Asphalt. I only applied this on my lid, not up into the crease. You can see it's quite sparkly, but that will work to our advantage later.
Step 2: Apply a softer matte grey to the inside third of your eye. I'm using Bobbi Brown Grey Sky. This will actually cover most of the sparkle from the base and help give your eye some depth.
Step 3: Apply a medium dark color to the crease. I'm using Bobbi Brown Plum Steel. This shadow also has a shimmer to it, so it blends in nicely with the base I used. It's got a slight purple tint to it as the name suggests - actually it's probably one of my favorite eye shadow colors because of the subtleness.
Step 4: Next apply two dark matte shades to the outer corner. I layered Urban Decay's Blackout on top of Bobbi Brown's Rich Caviar. As you can see I didn't bring my color all the way to the top edge of my crease. Because of the shape of my eye, this looks better on me, but if you prefer, just bring that into your crease.
Step 5: Apply a light shimmer to the bottom center part of your eye. I'm using Urban Decay's Verve. This will brighten up the part of your lid that you will see when your eye is open and the light color will make the center stand out more, rounding out your eye.
Step 6: Next, apply your eyeliner. I'm using Revlon's ColorStay Liquid Eye Pen to draw a very thin line on my upper eyelid, and I'm using Maybelline's Unstoppable Soft Kohl Liner on my bottom water line.
Step 7: Take the same matte grey shade you used for the inner third of your lid (mine was Bobbi Brown's Grey Sky) and apply that softly just below your water line on the outer 3/4.
Step 8: Take a dark matte color and layer that over the top of the outer 1/4 of your lower lid. I used the same color I layered on earlier in the outer corner of my top lid - Bobbi Brown's Rich Caviar. Make sure you take this all the way to the outside of your eye and it blends where it meets the colors in your top lid.
Step 9: Now that we're done with the top and bottom lid, I add a highlight to the inner part of my eye. I used Bobbi Brown's Pink Opal. It's not a very strong color, so the camera didn't pick it up, but I swear it's there. =) At this point I usually start to see my shadows settling into each other (thank you oily eyelids!) so I like to go back and intensify the colors. I just added more of the inner matte grey and outer matte black. Then, since I'm done with the shadow, I clean everything up. With such dark eyeshadows, I usually always have fallout, so I just touch everything up with a little concealer. (You could always do your eyes first and then do your foundation/concealer.)
Step 10: And last but not least, curl your eyelashes and apply a bunch of mascara. I'm in love with L'oreal's Voluminous Carbon Black mascara. It's super hard to work with since it's so thick, but it if you have the patience it gives you great results.

And wa-la!! A fun smokey eye! I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you think!