Transform Your Look With This

Unlimited Eye Shadow Looks!

Makeup has the power to enhance, transform, and highlight all of our best features. We know this, and yet, with eyeshadow, we often freeze up. How do you apply eyeshadow without it looking too heavy? How do you decide which colors to use? Which brushes? Maybe you’ve never worn eyeshadow in your life, or perhaps you just have some questions about best practices. Whatever camp you fall into, we’ve got an answer for you. We’re here to increase your confidence and knowledge for the next time you dip your brush into a pretty pan of shadow. Trust us, from now on, you’ll know exactly what to do with your shadow. No freezing up involved.

Let’s dive into this!

The Basics of Eyeshadow

First things first, let’s get comfortable with eyeshadow, okay? As with all aspects of makeup, there are different levels of application, so don’t be intimated. We’ll get into the more advanced principles of shadow application as we go on, but if you’re just starting out, we suggest beginning with the absolute basics until you get comfortable. Don’t worry, we’ll teach you how.

Choosing a Color and Picking a Palette

First, get familiar with deciding which shades you prefer on your eyes. Keep in mind, you should never feel restricted by color (there are no rules in makeup, after all), but if you’re having trouble deciding, base your decision off your eye color. Certain shades will make your eyes pop.

Blue eyes: try gray tones or earthy shades; shimmery silver will look particularly stunning

Green eyes: try purple shades, like maroon, burgundy, and plum

Hazel eyes: try neutral colors, or shades with a blue undertone

Brown eyes: the options are endless (in particular, shimmery golds and purples work nicely)

If you’re still unsure, you can’t go wrong with a basic neutral, like brown or beige. Our 9 to 5 Collection palette is wonderful for beginners who will likely find these soft neutrals easier to work with. We also sell single shadows, which allow you the freedom to begin building your own palette of your favorites shades. This way you don’t end up buying premade palettes with colors you may never use, which is especially wonderful for beginners who may not need large palettes filled with bold colors.

We also suggest when you’re just beginning with shadow to stick with lighter tones. So instead of a highly pigmented brown, try a more diffused brown; instead of deep burgundy, go with a soft lilac; instead of black, go with a light grey. You get the idea.

Related: Get That Perfect Eye Shadow Look With This

Basics of Eyeshadow Application

No matter what stage of makeup expertise you are in, you should always, always, always start with an eyeshadow primer. This will get your lids ready for makeup application. It will also ensure the shadow doesn’t crease or budge. There’s nothing worse than applying shadow, only to have it gone or smudged within the hour. A primer will help prevent that from happening.

If you don’t have a primer on hand, you can also simply apply a little concealer to your lids. The concealer will not only give you the perfect canvas to work with, it will also brighten the lid and hide any redness.

Okay, now that you have your preferred shade picked out and your primer on, it’s time to apply!

Related: Create the Perfect Smokey Eye With This

As a beginner with eyeshadow application, simply apply the shadow to your entire lid. You’ll want to pick up a small amount of shadow onto your brush. You can always build the color by picking up more product as you go, but if you start with too much product right off the bat, it’s a lot harder to correct. Also, even with a small amount of product on the brush, always tap your brush off against a hard surface. This ensures that any excess powder falls off the brush.

Once you’ve picked up the shadow, use a light hand to blend back and forth. Sweep the brush from one side of the lid to the other, concentrating the product into the crease. Back and forth, back and forth. Continue with that sweeping motion until the shadow looks soft and perfectly blended.

For this beginner’s blending, you’ll want to use a large, fluffy blending brush. A blending brush will ensure the color is well blended, giving you that soft, diffused effect on the lid. If you use a more stiff brush, you’ll find blending the shadow to be more difficult, and you could end up with a patchy application. Definitely not flattering.

Now, once you feel comfortable with applying your single shade, we also suggest beginners experiment with applying a highlighting shade. There are two spots we recommend beginners apply highlighter: to the inner corners of the eyes, and onto the brow bone.

Simple highlighting to the inner corner and brow bone will brighten your eyes and make them appear wider and more awake. Make sure you’re first comfortable with blending your shadow onto the lid and into the crease, but once you are, you should have no problem applying your highlighting shade.

And there you have it: simple application for beginners. If you’re feeling confident and ready to step your eyeshadow game up, read on for more advanced practices.

Related: How to Add That Soft Diffused Effect to the Eyes

Pro Tips: Advanced Shadow Application

There are certain eyeshadow best practices that will always apply to both the beginners and the more experienced, so even if you are more experienced with makeup application, we suggest reading the beginners’ section above for a refresher in best practices regardless.

Okay, now that you’re refreshed, let’s chat about how you can start adding more shadow than your base color and highlighting shade.

No matter how many shades are in a palette, you’ll likely find that most palettes are broken up into three sections: light shades, medium shades, and dark shades. You’ll always find that concentrating the darker colors towards the outer edge of the eye gives off the best look, with lighter colors reserved for the inner corners. This keeps the eyes looking bright and awake.

To help you understand where light, medium, and dark shades go, reference a quad palette (so a palette with four shades in it):

The lightest shade works best for highlighting (inner corner and brow bone)

Second lightest shade works as an all over the lid application (the base color)

The second darkest shade works best when applied in the crease (use a blending brush to soften out the edges, as discussed above)

Darkest color is reserved for the outer V

The more shades you start applying, the more complex the look gets. Using more shades also means there’s more opportunities for mistakes, so start slowly and work your way up to more complex looks as you begin feeling more confident with eyeshadow.

Replacing Eyeliner With Eyeshadow

You can also use a darker eyeshadow color to replace your eyeliner. As long as the shadow is relatively pigmented, it should show up very nicely and give a more soft look than your typical eyeliner.

Things to keep in mind when using eyeshadow as eyeliner:

You don’t have to line the entire eye in shadow. Remember, applying darker colors to the inner corner of the eye is not recommend. To help avoid this, use a lighter stroke as you work your way in. Use a precision brush to get that very precise line. If you want a more smokey look, you can use your blending brush to smoke the edges out. Always ensure you tap your brush off on the side of your palette to remove any excess powder. This will help you avoid getting excess powder all over your face when applying. You can also avoid this problem by always doing your eye makeup first, and then your face makeup.

Removing Eye Makeup

While eyeshadow may fun to wear, nobody ever said it’s fun to remove, so of course we’re going to give you the scoop on removing your eye makeup properly. Unless you’re going for an intense smokey eye, raccoon eyes are never a good look. Plus hey, it is never, e ver a good idea to sleep in your makeup. By not properly removing your makeup, you’re more prone to signs of aging. Keep that skin looking young and fresh by properly removing that makeup, ladies!

Three things to keep in mind when removing eye makeup:

Don’t rub. The skin under your eyes is one of the most sensitive areas. By tugging and pulling to remove your makeup, you’re more prone to fine lines and wrinkles showing up around your eyes. Be gentle.

Keep it clean. If you have a particularly heavy makeup day, don’t continually use one side of the makeup wipe/cotton pad. When you do this, you’re simply depositing all that dirty makeup back onto your face. One swipe and move onto the other side.

When looking for a makeup remover, look for something that is a combination of water and oil. The oil helps lift and remove the makeup from the skin, while the water keeps the product from being too drying. Also, always use a gentle cleanser on your entire face after eye makeup removal. This ensures you eliminate any residue from the eye makeup removal. Leftover residue can leave the skin dry, which results in creasing and poor makeup application (i.e. eye makeup will settle into these fine lines).

Eyeshadow: Final Thoughts

No matter what your experience with makeup, there is always something new and exciting to learn. With eyeshadows, we highly recommend trying out different palettes and colors so you can discover what you like and don’t like. Our single eyeshadows are great for putting together your own dream palette. The more you play and experiment, the more you’ll grow, because really, with eyeshadow, some things can only be taught with practice. Watch tutorials, play with colors, experiment with techniques, and we guarantee you’ll be creating some amazingly stunning looks in no time! To hear more about our eye shadow colors, check out Collective Beauty’s Blog.

Related: This Magnetic Palette Has It All!

More Great Eye Shadow Resources:

These 12 Eye Shadow Tricks Will Change Your Beauty Life

Beauty 911: How to Fix a Smashed Eyeshadow

8 WAYS YOU’RE REMOVING YOUR EYE MAKEUP WRONG

10 Makeup Cleaning Tips From a Makeup Artist!