The Adventures of My Wearable Basic Eye Makeup

Yesterday morning, I had an early workout which I was totally contemplating blowing off. I'd had a hard time getting to sleep the night before, and when my alarm went off at 6:30, I was not thrilled with the idea of driving to the gym and being beaten into a pulp. But I did it. Hooray for virtue.

Afterwards, I treated myself to a long bath, and then, since I'm contemplating decluttering my eyeshadow brushes, decided to see what I could do in the way of shopping my stash to produce a fully-done-up daytime makeup look with the fewest possible products. This is what I came up with.

Brow color, eye shadow/liner, mascara, and the brushes to do the job.

These are the ingredients:

Anatasia Brow Wiz in some dark brown color (all the writing has worn off mine, so who knows)
An ancient and now discontinued Chanel eyeshadow quad in Demure

For more info on how to use neutral eye shadows, read my (six-year-old!!) post here.

L'Oreal Telescopic Shocking Extensions mascara in Black/Brown
Chantecaille Eye Definer brush--a fluffy brush for shading the crease
Mac 219 pencil brush for shading the bottom lid
Stila Precision Eyeliner Brush #4
Rouge Bunny Rouge Blender for blurring the edges of all my shadows OMG this brush prevents my eye makeup from looking as if a four year old did it with a set of sidewalk chalks, and it's killing me that it's no longer on their website.

OK, remember when I claimed that the transition shades (i.e., crease colors) in most eyeshadow palettes were too dark? Well, believe it or not, the mauve shade pictured above, diagonally across from the dark brown shade, is a good crease shade for me. I applied it in the crease and under the eye. Then I put the lighter of the two light shades on the inner half of my eyelid, with the darker on the outer half. Then I wet the eyeliner brush and traced a bit of the dark brown on my upper lid as eyeliner.

After I took these pictures I blended out a bit of the shimmery shades to tone down the crepey lids. I wish I could say I evened up my eyeliner, but I didn't. I put on my glasses and got on with it.

I ran some errands and headed back to the city. On the way, one of my tires blew out, and I spent about three hours waiting for a tow truck. Some of that time was spent calling AAA, tow truck companies, garages, and my husband, some of which was spent finishing my latest audiobook, and some of which was spent admiring my eye makeup.

Just so you know, my eye makeup held up pretty well afterwards, when my husband took me to the Cape Cod Room at Chicago's historic Drake Hotel for a much needed cocktail and some overpriced seafood.  #winning