Your eyes are one of your most prominent facial features. Like many women, you may wear eye shadow in an attempt to emphasize your eyes. Yet you may wonder if you are wearing the right color or even applying your eye shadow correctly.
Choosing the right eye shadow depends on a number of factors: your skin tone, your outfit and the color of your eyes. Even your level of makeup application expertise plays a role. Read on to find out a few ways to choose the right eye shadow.
1. Eye Shadow Choices for Brown Eyes
Brown eyes range in shade from very light to almost black. Women with brown eyes also have a range of skin tones, from fair to chocolate to black, although their hair tends to be dark. Because of this, there is no one range of shades that is right for brown eyes.
However, women with brown eyes are almost always safe when choosing copper, bronze, champagne, green or pink shades.
2. Eye Shadow Choices for Green Eyes
Women with green eyes often have fiery manes of red hair and fair skin. However, green eyes can also appear with darker skin tones and blonde, brown or even black hair.
In general, cool eye shadow shades such as green, blue, plum, and earth tones such as khaki and taupe look great with green eyes, although some women with darker hair may also be able to wear eye shadow in warmer tones such as copper and gold.
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3. Eye Shadow Choices for Blue Eyes
Women with blue eyes often look sensational wearing cool colors such as green, blue, purple and rose.
Colors that are associated with winter and spring are often a natural match with blue eyes, especially if the woman also has blonde or light brown hair. Many women with blue eyes look amazing with gray and slate eye shadow.
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4. Eye Shadow Choices for Hazel Eyes
Hazel eyes can be more green, more brown or more gray. The dominant color in hazel eyes will also determine what eye shadow colors are right.
For instance, women with green-hazel eyes should favor cooler eye shadow shades, while women with eyes that are brown-hazel may find that warmer eye shadow colors make a better match.
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5. Eye Shadow Choices for Warm Skin Tones
If the veins in your wrist are greenish rather than blue, you likely have a warm skin tone. Likewise, if gold jewelry looks better against your skin than silver, you likely have a warm skin tone.
Many women with brown and olive skin have warm skin tones. If you have a warm skin tone and dark eyes, look for eye shadow in green or gold. If you have a warm skin tone and green or blue eyes, opt for eye shadow in rose or plum shades.
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6. Eye Shadow Choices for Cool Skin Tones
If the veins in your wrists are blue and silver jewelry looks better on you than gold, you likely have a cool skin tone. Many women with cool skin tones have fair skin with bluish undertones, but women with very dark skin may also have a bluish cast to their complexions.
Eye shadow shades such as forest green, and deep blue often look fantastic on you. Cool purple and lavender also work with your complexion.
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7. Eye Shadow Choices Daytime
In general, eye shadow choices for daytime should be somewhat more subdued. This means choosing matte instead of glittery or metallic shades.
You can still wear vibrant colors, but perhaps colors that are somewhat muted: gray-blue instead of electric blue or a softer shade of green. Neutral shades such as gray are almost always appropriate.
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8. Eye Shadow Choices for Nighttime
When you are out on the town, there is no need to feel constrained in choosing eye shadow shades. Go for those electric blues, glittery golds or any other shade that works with your eye color, skin tone and your outfit.
You can even match dramatic eye color with distinctive lip color, even though the rest of your makeup palette should be neutral to avoid creating an unfortunate clown look.
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9. Coordinate Eye Shadow Shades With Your Outfit
If your eyes are blue, your outfit is blue and you have bluish undertones in your skin, perhaps you might want to skip the blue eye shadow, at least for that day.
A better choice may be a complimentary color such as rose or a neutral eye shadow shade. Choosing an eye shadow that exactly matches your outfit may create a matchy-matchy look that gives the impression that you are trying just a bit too hard.
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10. Try Eye Shadow Before You Buy
The number one rule for choosing eye shadow, regardless of your eye color, your skin tone, your wardrobe or any other factor is try before you buy. One manufacturer’s slate blue eye shadow may be quite different from how another manufacturer interprets the same shade.
You may find using cream eye shadow difficult, or powder eye shadow may look too flat for your taste. If one shade doesn’t work, keep trying until you find a shade that does. You may soon find that you have an entire range of go-to eye shadow colors.
Choosing the right eye shadow doesn’t have to be tricky. Follow these tips and you will find what eye shadow color is best for you.1