The Inverted Smokey Eye

This past week, my son has been sick which means that I have been running back and forth to the doctor's and to his school. Because I have fibro-myalgia/chronic fatigue, I get really exhausted and oftentimes, I can only pick a few things to do on any given day. With the extra running around for my son, I have found myself unable to do the things I need to do to take care of myself because I've been too tired to scrape up the energy. On the upside (silver lining to every cloud, right?) I have had a lot of time to sit in front of the computer and scour youtube.

So I found a tutorial by Julieg317 (love her makeup looks) called 'Purple Rockstar Eyes,' http://www.youtube.com/user/julieg713#p/u/54/XRmOCbaqy2s, which is basically an inverted purple smokey eye. I absolutely love Julie's eyes but sometimes, I just don't know if her looks will work out on my eye, being as that my eyes are much flatter and smaller than Julie's. Her eyes are deep-set, which gives all of her multi-dimensional looks even more depth. On my eyes, I have to fake depth or in this case, pretty much skip it. However, I still wanted to try this technique, so I used my Sleek palettes (these are amazing - the colors are soooo silky and pigmented... the only thing about them is that one worries about the colors breaking because the texture seems so soft. But at 10.00 for a 12-shadow palette, there's really not much room to complain. There is a steeper shipping charge, as these are made in the U.K., but frankly it's worth it, especially if you're able to purchase several palettes at once...) I found a really brilliant blue color as the inner focal-point, and experimented with different darker shades of blue to create the inverted smokey effect.

While I was playing around with products, I used my new Nyx crystal glitter liners in blue and black underneath the eye - and was astounded by the beautiful effect. I purchased these on ebay recently when I went to purchase a few more of the candy glitter liners and saw that there were these new crystal glitter liners - so I purchased 3 of them. But I didn't have a chance to try them until today, and I have to say - these liners are amazing. They are unlinke any other glitter liners that I own, and create an unusually pigmented, sparkly and very fine line. Gorgeous.

I also have a buxom lash liner in 'blue velvet,' which is a truly dazzling blue gel/cream liner with glitter particles. I used this on both upper and lower waterlines, and when all was said and done, I really loved the look. I think I'll try and do a tutorial on this look in the next couple of days. It's definitely not a look for the faint of heart (or for those with very close-set eyes.... the inverted smokey eye pulls the eyes inwards where they usually get pulled outward into a cat-eye effect), but the gorgeous colors and just a touch of glitter in the lower lid and the waterlines is really quite beautiful, I think. It's a bit goth-looking, but I could also easily envision this look on the runways. It's a very edgy, interesting effect, suitable perhaps for a club-night, or just for the individual who likes being an individual, unapologetically and unabashedly... and hey- that works for me :)