There are simple ways to make your natural eye colour really dazzle. As you probably know, certain colours complement and enhance other colours. The same theory works with eye makeup and your iris (the coloured part of your eye). You can make your blues bluer, greens greener, and so on. I’ve found that the following basic colour combinations work the best:

Brown eyes

Try: Use eyeshadow or liner in grey, black, navy blue, neutral chocolate brown, or chocolate brown with a hint of red, pink-brown, grey-brown, burgundy, or eggplant. You can also use paler or medium versions of these shades as eyeshadow, as well as light mauve, light pink and peach. You can use gold shadow if your skin tone is not too sallow or yellow.

Avoid: If you have brown eyes and olive skin, skip neutral browns like khakis, taupes, and yellow-browns. They won’t make your eyes look alive and will only emphasize the yellow in your skin.

Blue eyes

Try: Use eyeshadow in fleshy pink, brown-pink, beige-pink, peachy-pink, muted mauve, greys, light dusty blues, turquoise washes, black, or all browns. Use eyeliner in grey, black, brown, navy blue, bronze-gold, or dark purple.

Avoid: If you have pink-toned skin, stay away from shadows that are pure pink. By all means, don’t use strong pinks such as fuchsia, or you’ll end up resembling a bunny rabbit. If you have pure blue eyes that tend not to change colour, you should avoid green eyeshadow and liner. Avoid blues that are too strong because they can overwhelm your eye colour.

Green or hazel eyes

Try: Shadows in peach, light pink, muted pink, mauve, green, bronze-green, grey-green, brown-green, khaki, caramel, gold, any green mixed with gold, and all browns and greys. If your complexion is very olive and your dark circles too yellow-brown and deep, stick to the cool colours like navy blues, slate greys, mauve-greys, bright mauves, pinks, black, or eggplants. Use liner in navy, deep purple, black, grey, gold, or brown.

Avoid: Don’t use any green that’s not subtle. You don’t want to wear bright, vivid greens because they will overwhelm your eye colour. If you want to try a bright colour such as teal or turquoise, make sure to apply a subtle wash so it brightens the eye area without overwhelming your eye colour.

Image courtesy imaxtree.com


Copyright 2006 by Laura Mercier. Reprinted by permission. Excerpted from
the book The New Beauty Secrets: Your Ultimate Guide to a Flawless Face by Laura Mercier, published by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.