With fall's grown up looks, comes grown up make-up. The runways were smeared with REDred lipstick and film-noir eyes. That is why they call it a spectacle! This is not everyday walking around makeup! First off, choose lips or eyes, never both, unless you work the late shift in a cocktail lounge. During the day it is just too much to look at and you want to be remembered for your stunning personality not your stunningly RED lips and gothic eyes
So here's how to do a great
enhanced eye, not smoky, though you could get there from here
but a modern, wearable, just slightly more dramatic version of what you
came into the world with. You will need: Mascara, eyeliner, and 2 tones
of the same color eyeshadow. If you want to do the training wheels
version use taupes, if you are definitely a cool tone, greys. The idea
is to be very light handed. When I worked in cosmetics, this was the #1
difference between what I did and what most women did in front of their
bathroom mirrors. If you have brushes, great!, other wise put the
shadow on with a Q-tip and blend it with you fingers.
I'm going to assume that you've used concealer and foundation to prep your skin. Aim for 70% coverage of dark circles and get something that matches you skin, the old lighter under the eyes thing, is so 80's and shines a big flashlight on bags and wrinkles. If your skin is good just dab a bit of foundation under there to smooth things out. BLEND! No raccoon eyes!
Now do your mascara, odds are you look better already but go ahead and let that dry and give it another coat. BTW, 2 thin coats are better than one glopply one. Now you've got some polish.
Now eyeliner, this may be different than how you usually do it
but trust
me, the reason is that doing it now will make it last
longer and go one
easier.
Pencil in a line as close to your lashes as you can get. This
doesn't require any special talent, just wiggle the pencil between your
lashes (gently, this is your eye, we're talking about!) So now you have
a pretty narrow line all across your eye. If you hate pencil, take a
really dark
shadow and use that, wet is even better!
So add a little more to the
outside edge and make it just a squosh thicker there. Take one of your
Q-tips and soften it a little. For some of you, this may be where you
stop the insanity. My au naturel sister never does more than this and
she
pulls herself together pretty well.
If you're still here now we do eyeshadow. Doing shadow now
tones down the eyeliner and 
makes it all hang together better. You
can always go back and add a little more liner. So take the lighter of
your two shadows and blend it
over your entire eyelid, above the crease too. Maybe not all the way to
the eyebrow but maybe if that works for your eye shape.
So now you look spiffy and you've spent maybe 2 minutes and can get your butt to work or hustle the kids onto the bus, whatever. You get the idea.
So still with me? Now we get fancy, not
really fancy, sorta going out to dinner on a Wednesday, fancy. So take
the darker of your two shadows and imagine your eyelid divided
into 3 parts with the lines running from your eyebrows to your lashes.
Got that visual?
Starting in the outside section put the shadow in the crease blending
it down over lid and up past the crease. Now, without adding more
shadow blend it toward the middle
section.
Alright, you're in the homestretch! Check your eyeliner. Is
it still good? Now let's say your
going to the office holiday party and need something with more oumph.
Smokey eyes are usually to much in artificial light. I highly recommend
the cat eye instead. It looks festive without looking like you're
moonlighting outside the bus station later. All you need to do to the
basic makeup you've done, is deepen the eyeliner on the outside edge
and pull it out and up a little at the corner. The up part is important
because most us have droopy eyes and if you just follow the line of
your eye it just makes you look tired. You may want your boss
to
think you're working like crazy but that isn't gonna do it.
Feel like all of this is just too much? Get yourself some RED gloss! It is training wheels for makeup phobes.
