Make up is always about trial and error. The good thing is you’ll get better with practice.You don’t need designer brands to look good. For colour intensity and durability I recommend the Silky girl range and In2it (both available at Guardian and Watsons)

This is the colour scheme I usually use for stage make-up. Am not a fan of glitter on the eyes so I don’t do the Space Age* look which is pretty common in bridal make-up.

* using silver eyeshadow over the lids of the eyes, highlighting the brow bone with bronzer and lining the eyes with black liquid eyeliner followed by a thick coat of mascara

Tried incorporating the smoky look with shades of pink and brown. The results were not very satisfactory.

Minimal eye colour-soft blue on the lids and some pink hues above. Prominent eye bags-travelling makes one tired.

The lighting in the room made this picture look better than it would have, under normal light conditions.

A classic example of why eye shadow should be applied evenly over the lids and not just at the end of your eyes. I made a mistake here and my eyes ended up looking cat-ish.

My first attempt at incorporating the Space Age look with my usual colour scheme. Might have been suitable for studio photoshoots (where the bold colours are compensated by laborious photoshopping and editing at a later stage)

Left: Tried out Silky girl’s “Funky Eyelights” in cobalt blue. Texture wise it was smooth and easy to apply.

Right: Heavily made up eyes with layers and layers of black eyeliner on both the upper and lower lids and false eyelashes. This was done for a photoshoot.

Tips:

Generally,if you have large eyes with double eyelids, I’d recommend using a dark blue eyeliner instead of black ,as black eyeliner tends to make large eyes appear fierce (unless you’re aiming for cleopatra). If you want to line your lower eyelids, line your eyes in the mid-section and try not to draw a line towards the end of your eyes. This would prevent the “droopy eyes” look (as girls with double eyelids are more likely to have prominent eye bags, you don’t want to bring attention to the lower lid area of your eyes). Personally, I don’t line my lower eyelids as I find that my eyes look weird with eyeliner on the lower lids.

Brown hues are acceptable if you’re into nudes and neutrals. See below.

Girls with elongated eyes and non prominent double eyelids, consider yourselves lucky as you will be able to pull off the smouldering smoky eyes look without looking tarty. My “model” for sultry smoked eyes has gone to KL to further her studies so no pictures today. If there’s anyone who would like to volunteer to become my guinea pig for this blog, do contact me

Mascara is a must if you want attention grabbing peepers. True they’re a pain to remove after you’ve washed off all your make-up but the results are very much worth it.  As of todate, I have yet to master the art of applying false eyelashes. Therefore its mascara all the way until I manage to upgrade myself.

Find out if you’re a cool or warm person- this would help you identify colours which suit you best. And please do not think that your eye shadow should be an identical shade to what you’re wearing. I had this ex-colleague who wore a green dress to work and applied green eyeshadow liberally over her eyes (yes, one colour only) and all I could think of was why she didn’t join the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in their pursuit for justice.

Hope this post was helpful. The floor is open for comments.