Tips & Tricks: The Smokey Eye

When the leaves start to change their rainbow of colors for Fall, my heart fills with excitement. 'Tis the season for cooler weather, cozy sweaters, and smokey eyes. The smokey eye is not always the easiest look to achieve. It seems simple enough - a few colors, some smudging, and mascara to pull it all together. But goodness-gracious is it easy to mess up and look like you have gotten punched in the eye or the colors just don't blend well and it's just a crazy color mess.

I'm going to share with you some of the UnitWise Heroes most tried and true, tips and tricks for the perfect smokey eye. A few basic techniques are all you need, then you can create an endless array of smokey effects to highlight your gorgeous eyes all year long.

The Base
The biggest secret to a smokey eye is the base applied before the shadow. You're going to need something to hold that shadow in place and make blending easy. An eye primer is a must. On top of the eye primer you can apply an anti-crease cream shadow in a nude or white color. A white cream shadow with make bright colors really pop. You want to make sure and apply your eye-primer along your lower lash line too.

Three is key
Your basic smokey eye will consist of three colors. Selections of matte or shimmer is completely up to you. You will want to choose a light shade for highlighting, a dark shade for shading, and a color in between the two for you lid shade. A Hero favorite trio for an everyday smokey eye is MK's Glistening Gold, Chocolate Kiss, and Espresso. Just remember three is key; a light, medium, and dark shade.

Application
Upper Lid:
Tools for application are a shadow brush and a big fluffy blending brush. After you have put on your eye primer and given it a sec to set, it's time for shadows. I tend to have the best success starting with the darker color first. You want to very lightly apply your darkest shade in the crease and blend. Then continue lightly layering and blending out any harsh lines until you reach your desired color - usually two or three layers.
 Then go in with your medium shade on the center of the lid and outer corners. Leave the inner corners blank for now. Blend in the medium shade up into the darker color you applied in your crease. Really buff the color in so it all looks seamless.
Last to be applied is your highlighter shade. This color goes in your inner corners and brow bone. Then just blend, blend, blend.

Lower Lash Line:
You want your lower lash line to be smoked out just a tad to really bring the look together and connect with your blending on the outer corners. First start with you darkest shade and buff it on your lower lash line starting on the outer corner and working just to the center. Don't worry if it looks like a bit much, once you apply your mascara it will all make sense. Next you want to work in your medium shade over the darker shade and bring it as close to the inner corner as you like. It should start looking really smokey.

At this point, really look over where the different colors meet and make sure everything is blended well to create a gradient like effect. From here you can apply a liquid/gel eyeliner to the upper lash line to add thickness to your lashes. Completely up to you. Mascara is the last to be applied and the MK Ultimate mascara is every Heroes favorite.

Remember to always lightly apply shadows and gradually build and blend the colors. Once you have the blending techniques down, the smokey eye creations are endless. Let us know what tips & tricks you have for the perfect smokey eye in the comments below.