Eyeshadow Palettes and Building a Look

Most eyeshadow that looks wrong is not a color problem but a placement and blending problem. Three shades build almost any look: something close to your skin tone, something a few steps deeper for the transition, and a darker shade for depth at the outer corner. Learning that sequence makes an eight-pan palette go further than a forty-pan one.

What a transition shade does

The transition shade is the mid-tone that sits above the crease in the socket, and its job is to stop the darker shade from ending in a hard line. On deeper skin a transition shade has to be genuinely deeper than the pale taupes usually sold for the purpose, or it does nothing visible at all. Warm browns and brick tones read clearly. Lay the transition down first, over a wider area than seems necessary, then build darker inside it.

Placing it on the crease you have

The standard instruction to follow your crease assumes a visible one. Hooded eyes need the depth placed higher than the crease so it is not swallowed when the eye opens, which you check with your eyes open rather than looking down into a mirror. Deep-set eyes need less dark shadow in the socket and more light shade on the lid. A monolid works best with a gradient built outward from the lash line.

Blending is mostly brush and patience

Keep one clean fluffy brush for nothing but blending, with no product loaded on it, and work in small circles at the edges of the color. Build in thin layers, because you can always add and you cannot easily subtract. Tap the excess off a brush before it touches the eye. If a look has gone muddy it is usually from too much product too fast, and the fix is concealer over the top and a restart.

Judging pigment in a palette

Swatch on the back of your hand with a fingertip rather than the sponge applicator. A good shadow lays down close to its pan color in one pass; a weak one needs three and still looks dusty, which matters far more on deeper skin, where chalky formulas read ashy. Check the mattes rather than the shimmers, since shimmers almost always perform and mattes are where a cheap palette falls apart.

Primer and keeping it clean

Shadow on a bare lid creases wherever the lid is oily, so either an eye primer or a thin layer of concealer set with powder gives it something to hold onto. Do the eyes before foundation if you are heavy-handed, so fallout can be wiped away without ruining a base. A fluffy brush loaded with a little setting powder under the eye catches fallout and sweeps off with it.