Eye shadow as contour: the theory

I'm probably getting really repetitive on the subject of neutral eyeshadow, but Sephora keeps filling my mailbox with catalogs showing models wearing truly outlandish colors--glittery turquoise stripes were featured in the latest--so it doesn't look as though I'll be shutting up any time soon.

So I'll say it again: neutral eye shadows are fantastic on women of a certain age. They do what eye shadow is supposed to do; shadow and sculpt the eyes to make them look bigger, brighter, and more expressive.

They do this by contouring the eye area. Now, it took me a long time to accept the fact that I was going to talk about using eye makeup to contour the eye area, because the old school notions of contouring seem hopelessly out of date.

You know what I mean when I talk about contouring the face with makeup, right? It's a makeup technique where you apply lighter makeup where you want a feature to appear higher or more prominent, and darker makeup where you want a feature to appear deeper or less prominent.

It's frequently used to make noses appear straighter and narrower, or make cheekbones look more prominent. But here's the thing about contouring: it's hard to make it look natural. It was first used in stage makeup, where the audience is very far away from the actors. Then it was used in black and white movies and stills, where you have dramatic lighting and a general aura of glamorous artificiality. But even then, makeup artists had to know what they were doing. Back then--and right now--when you shade and highlight an area, it's all about blending and soft, subtle shades.

As an example of what I'm talking about, take Marlene Dietrich. Her entire face was nothing but makeup and lighting. Here's a photograph of her standing next to Josef von Sternberg, the director who made her a star.

Notice the fairly flat planes of her face. Now look at her with von Sternberg's trademark lighting and a full face of contoured makeup:

I'm not a makeup artist, and I don't know how to do stage or film makeup, but it's pretty clear that Dietrich is wearing way more makeup than even the average Hollywood star of the 1930s--and they wore plenty.

Check out the contouring. I'm no expert, but I can see that a lighter shade of foundation is blended down the middle of her nose, with a darker shade along the side. In the first picture, it looks like she's wearing highlighter under her eyes, and in the second, it's obvious that the artist used rouge to contour her cheekbones (a trick that works very well in black and white photography, but is much less successful in color photographs or real life.)

Take at Dietrich's eye makeup. Her eyebrows are the stuff of legend, so we won't discuss them, except to warn you not to emulate her. Although tweezing her eyebrows off and drawing them on again much higher up did give Dietrich a much larger area in which to apply eyeshadow.

And what eyeshadow! She's wearing a medium shade from the lash line all the way up to the brows, with a lighter shade on the eyelid and a highlighting shade in the inner corner and in a narrow line under the eye. Her crease is shaded much darker. Her eyes are very wide set, and that, added to the increased height of her brow area, means the makeup artist could apply a ton of dark shadow in the U-shaped crease to the back wedge. Her eyes were big to begin with, but the eyeshadow makes them incredible.

And Dietrich was doing this before eyeshadow was commercially available. Instead, she or her makeup artist used soot mixed with baby oil or petroleum jelly.

There, now. Aren't you ashamed that you're not taking full advantage of the lovely, hygienic ready-made shades now available in stores?

Next on The Beauty Boomer: What I Do, or, I know Poppy Buxom, and she's no Marlene Dietrich.


Elsewhere on the web:

For more on makeup in films, see the article on makeup in Film Reference


For how to look more like Marlene Dietrich, go this article in Suite 101

The only eyeshadow shades you need

You know those fabulous blockbuster palettes that everyone comes out with for the holidays? Estee Lauder, Sephora, Walgreen's, you name it. A whole rainbow of colors and so many finishes: matte, satin, frosted, opalescent, glittery. How fun are they?

Great fun. But let's remember eyeshadow's primary purpose. It's not to go all Crayola 64 shades. Eye shadow exists to sculpt, enlarge, and accentuate the eye.

Say hello to the idea of Your Eyes But Better

If you want startling effects, you'll need a range of different colors of eyeshadow. But if you want to do a neutral, pretty makeup job--your eyes but bigger, brighter, more defined and more expressive--you only need three shades of shadow:

1. A light, non-shimmery base color

This shade should be about the color of your brow bone. You'll be applying it all over the eyelid, from lashline to eyebrow. This sets your concealer or primer, mattifies the area, and provides a base for the rest of your eye look.

2. A darker, non-shimmery midtone/contour or transition shade for sculpting

The transition shade should be only a few shades darker than your light shade. This is where fair-skinned girls get gypped. In the average quad, this shade is usually far too dark. You really only want it to be a couple of shades darker than your light shade. Think about the way paint companies show shades on paint strips--the difference in color should be visible, but subtle.

3. A very dark shade for lining and special effects

The dark shade should be somewhere between your contour shade and your eyeliner and/or eyelashes.

To those shades, it's also nice to add

4. A light shimmery highlight color



OK, I realize this comes as news to absolutely no one. I swear, as I type this, I'm picturing my makeup-obsessed internet friends rolling their (perfectly made up) eyes and saying "duh." After all, every eyeshadow manufacturer from Maybelline to Chanel produces a quad with four beige-to-chocolate brown shades.

Except that the companies often act as thought these quads were one size fits all, when they're really not.

Beware of Shimmer

You'll find lots of quads with absolutely gorgeous colors--except the shadows are all shimmery. Shimmery shadows are fine for certain uses, but for this natural, neutral eye, you want to shape and sculpt the lid, browbone, and crease, and you can't do that with sparkly shadows.

Also, once you have even a hint of droopiness, crepey-ness or crows' feet, you have to approach shimmery shadows with extreme caution. (This is because--to revert to my paint metaphor--you don't use high-gloss, light-reflective paint formulas on a cracked surface!)

Work with your complexion

Here's another way in which eyeshadow quads aren't one-size-fits-all: the four shades you select should relate to your complexion shade and tone. I'm not talking about eye color here; this advice holds no matter what color your eyes are.

You're using these shades to contour the area around your eyes, and they need to work with the color of your skin. As a fair-skinned, cool-to-neutral person, I've found many eye quads to be way too dark or too yellow toned. Often the lightest shade is fine, but the midtone or contour shade is the color of Grey Poupon mustard. Nothing against you mustard-colored ladies, but not only is Grey Poupon-colored eyeshadow unattractive, it looks unnatural. On me, at least.

If you're medium-to-dark-toned, you'll have to watch out for the lighter shades. Often the'll be too light, and end up looking ashy and unnatural. And if you're warm-toned, too taupe-y and cool a shade will look muddy.

Ideally all four eyeshadow shades blend together to create a soft, natural, big-eyed look--which is why I call it Your Eyes But Better.

My Recommendations

When you're looking for a set of eye shadows, it's tempting to buy a ready-made quad. But as I've already pointed out, I've never had much luck with that; it's awfully hard to escape shimmer, and the contour shade is too dark and warm a brown.

However, quads can definitely be cost-effective, as opposed to buying four single shades. Bobbi Brown makes amazing shadows, but they're $20 each, so I hesitate to order you to run out and buy four of them. Still, if you click over there to check out the colors, you'll see how soft and subtle they are. That's the look we're aiming for.

There's also the advantage that someone else has coordinated the colors for you, which is helpful if you're a beginner.

Here are my suggestions:

Drugstore Quads

Revlon's Colorstay 12 Hour Eye Shadow Quad in Coffee Bean


Physician's Formula Canyon Classics and Classic Nudes

 

Department Store

Clinique's Color Surge Eye Shadow Quad in Teddy Bear. Spicy and Choco-Latte are also beautiful, and would work well with people with warmer and darker complexions.



Elizabeth Arden Color Intrigue Eye Shadow Quad in Sueded Browns or Neutral Cashmeres.

 

Creating the perfect eyeshadow quad

As you can see, sometimes a quad has one or two or even three gorgeous colors, but it doesn't have everything you need. Once you know the shades that work best for you, it's a great convenience to fill a compact with them.

M.A.C. sells empty four- and fifteen-pan compacts. If you get a four-pan, you could fill it with shadow that work perfectly for you. This is something to keep in mind if you've tried one or two ready-made quads and found you only used two or three of the shades. A custom compact is really wonderful for travel, and it really simplifies life to open one compact and find everything you need.

My favorite eye shadow palette? Glad you asked

OK, this is definitely a case of do as I say, not as I do, because my favorite eyeshadow "quad" has nine shades of shadow. It's Too Faced's Natural Eye Neutral Eye Shadow Collection.


It has a perfect base color (top left) and the all-time fabulously wonderfully perfect crease shade for me (top middle). It also has some great shades to use as eye liner, and some shimmery and glittery shades to use for evening, so it's basically one-stop shopping. It retails for $34, but since you get nine shades, I think it's a pretty good deal.

(Confession time: I've also taken the plunge and ordered a M.A.C. 15-pan palette. Of neutral colors. Heh.)

Coming up soon: how and where to apply your eyeshadow.

Elsewhere:

MakeupGeek has two helpful videos that relate to this post, Makeup 101: How to Apply Eye Makeup, and How to Organize Your MAC Neutral Palette

30 Days to 10 years younger--10 minute tips. Tip 28: Move on

I've been doing the internet beauty thing for a long time, and one thing remains constant; people always find a way to whine about their favorite products being discontinued.

Sometimes a company pulls a line before giving it enough time to find its market segment. Firefly and Dollhouse fans have nothing on the women I know who keened, wailed, and gnashed their teeth when Oil of Olay decided to pull their line of drugstore makeup.

I'm going to sound like Pollyanna here, but honestly, things change incredibly quickly in the realm of cosmetics and skincare. If you take the time to remain informed about what's out there, you'll realize that formulations change. And it's not just due to business reasons. And a lot of the time, a new and improved formula actually is an improvement.

I urge you not to stockpile huge amounts of a favorite product. One of my invisible internet friends did just that with Oil of Olay's discontinued powder foundation. She was convinced that it was the perfect color match and the perfect consistency for her skin. But long before she had depleted her stockpile, fashion and her skin had moved on. What had once seemed perfect now appeared too heavy and matte.

That's because the finish and consistency of makeup changes as fashions change. The foundation that worked perfectly for you in 2003 might be way too matte and too opaque now that sheerer, light-diffusing formulas are in style.

If you're reaching the end of a product that you like, don't automatically repurchase the same thing. Do a little research to see what's new.

For example, there's an exciting-sounding partnership between CoverGirl and Olay that combines the color expertise of CoverGirl with the anti-aging formulas of Oil of Olay.

And I just discovered the world's most amazing foundation (for real, and don't let the other nine tubes and bottles in my bathroom tell you any different) by buying a ridiculous iPod train case from Stila. Stila's One Step foundation is primer, foundation, powder, true love, and fresh-baked cookies in one easy to use pump bottle. A tiny pea-sized bit of this miracle product erases my circles and broken capillaries and leaves me poreless and glowing.

And I'd never know about it if I'd been on auto-pilot and repurchased my third tube of Estee Lauder tinted moisturizer. So do your skin a favor and branch out. If you're wearing a foundation that's been out for 10 years or more, you really owe it to yourself to try something new. You won't believe the difference in the new stuff.

Elsewhere:

To see The Beauty Alchemist's review of Stila One Step foundation, click here.

To see About.com's Top Five Foundations for Women Over 40 click here

For more suggested foundations for mature skin on About.com, click here

If you haven't joined MakeupAlley, I urge you to do so.

30 Days to 10 years younger--10 minute tips. Tip 14: Wear blusher

Whose idea was it to stop wearing blusher? It's been about 10 years now, and it's making me a little crazy.

I read an article once about Evelyn Lauder (maybe Estée herself!) that said she was always trying to talk women into putting on a little more blush. So hey--you might not care that I think you look better with some color in your cheeks, but when the first lady of cosmetics is begging you to wear a little blusher, I hope you pay attention.

Think about it. Pink cheeks are youthful and pretty. Where do you think the expression "the first flush of youth" came from in the first place? This is what makeup is for.

Sure, there are all kinds of more sophisticated looks, but when it comes to your cheeks, I hope you will leave sophistication to 14-year-old supermodels with naturally pink cheeks. We need some color.

The thing is, it has to be the right kind of color. And you have to apply it properly. But honestly, it's not that complicated. Here's what to do:

Pick the right color. At the moment, I'm talking about a powder or cream blusher with some opacity, not one of those super-intense gel blushes. For powder and cream blushes, the correct color isn't a crazy shade of fuschia, red, or brown. The perfect shade will be a nice version of my-cheeks-but-better pink.

And you don't want to pick too icy or unnatural a pink. Even if you're very fair-skinned and used to wear pinks that were almost fuschia or lavender in tone, you don't want to do that anymore. As we age, our skin becomes more yellow toned, so a very icy cool pink will look unnatural. You want to use a nice fleshy pink, one with some coral or brown in it to warm it up a bit.

Find the shade your cheeks turn when you've gone for a nice brisk walk. (Not the beet-red you become when you've been doing wind-sprints.) Or give them a pinch. Or use your MLBB shade of lipstick as a guide.

Wear your blusher on the right part of your face. Maybe you've seen this picture of Maggie Gyllenhaal already.



It's a perfect illustration of what not to do. Her blush is too dark; it's too red, and it goes too far down her cheeks.

Your blush should go on the apples of your cheeks (mind you, Maggie's got a bushel of apples there, which might explain it.)

Madonna got it right.


The cheeks themselves look a bit off, but the blush is perfect

If you don't know where the apples of your cheeks are, imagine a line running across your face under the tip of your nose. Your blush needs to stay above that line. Then imagine a second line going down from the arch of your eyebrow. The center of the blush should be along that line. Blend it out from there.

Want to see some more pictures of blush done right? Check out these pictures of Winona Ryder. God bless her, she gets it right every single time, whether she's on the red carpet or doing something much more casual.



See how her blush is strongest in the center of her cheek? That's how it's done.



Ready for some don'ts? Don't use blush all the way up to the hairline. Do not sweep it up towards your temple. You'll get lamb chop cheeks like the late Pat Buckley.



Also, most celebs apply their blush too far away from their noses and too close to the sides of their faces, creating a pair of pink parentheses (or in this case, orange.)



This is probably supposed to highlight the cheekbones, but it looks unnatural, and is probably the reason blush got such a bad name in the first place.

Also, don't even think using blush to contour hollows. Blusher is not contour powder.

I'll go into the specifics of brands, powder or cream, best brushes, etc., at some later date. For now, I just want you to think pink!

30 Days to 10 years younger--10 minute tips. Tip 10: Lighten up, Francis

When you get to be our age, everyone has one piece of advice about makeup: wear less.

Well, I disagree. I wear much more makeup now than I did in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. For one thing, I wear foundation pretty much every day--I never bothered before. I wear concealer, eye shadow, eyeliner, and eyebrow color pretty frequently, too. But it's not obvious, because I 1) pick the right shades and 2) blend like crazy. I also retouch, check for shine, and fix smears.

These ladies don't. Here's Maggie Gyllenhaal in need of some foundation, but with too much smeary black eyeliner, a startling amount of very pink blusher placed too low on her cheeks, and very bright lipstick.


She looks better here. Her eye makeup is great, and her skin looks beautiful. There's still way too much blusher, though. And it should stop at the bottom of her nose, not go all the way down to her lips.


This is Catherine Zeta-Jones promoting Elizabeth Arden's new Red Door Red lipstick. Where do I start? Too much eyeliner, too much blusher, and basically too harsh a look. Let's just call her Cruella de Lipstick and move on, shall we?

To a different picture of Catherine Zeta-Jones, this time demonstrating that when it comes to bronzers, a little dab'll do you.

Would it be over the top to call her Cruella de Oompa Loompa?

In conclusion, wear as much makeup as you want. But please, emphasize either your eyes or your lips. Limit your blush to a healthy flush. That goes for bronzer, too. And for heaven's sake, keep the eye shadow above the eye.

This advice is for everyone, of course. A 23-year-old needs to guard against a tendency to ladle on the spackle. Makeup is fun, after all. Whee! But you get older, you really need to be careful. Constant vigilance.


Be Joan. Not Bette.

30 Days to 10 years younger--10 minute tips. Tip 8: Make friends with concealer

If you can remember when concealer was pretty much limited to that lipstick-shaped "Erase" stuff you get at the drug store, you're old enough to have the kinds of problems a good concealer is designed to correct, such as under-eye circles, broken capillaries, and age spots.

The right concealer banishes all of these problems. It can also work as an eye shadow base, improving the wear and appearance of your eye shadow. And you can use it instead of, or in addition to foundation.


Right now, I'm using one of two concealers. I keep a tube of Cargo's OneBase in my purse. It's a tube with a sponge-tipped wand. The formula is very versatile. You can apply it with the sponge tip as a concealer, or squeeze the product out of the tube and apply it as a foundation. You can even mix it with your regular day-time moisturizer to make a tinted moisturizer.

It's handy for travel or trips to the gym, and for putting on makeup in the car. (Shut up! At red lights, duh.)



When I'm at home, I use Maybelline Age Rewind. It's very highly pigmented, which means it gives excellent coverage. It also means it's easy to use too much, so a lot of the time, I take the cap off and only use what I find on the end of the tube.

However, I'm having a lemming attack over Revlon's Age Defying Moisturizing Concealer. It's brand-new, and it's supposed to be great for older skin. It's received rave reviews from Makeup Alley. And it has SPF 25, which is fabulous. What better place to have high SPF than a product that is used around the eyes?



I'm super-tempted to pick up a tube of the Revlon, but I don't know that I need to add to my concealer collection. Yet.

Apply concealer here to take ten years off your face:

• To cover under eye circles, apply both below and above the eyes in the inner corners, near the nose. Don't use it on the outside corners; this will emphasize lines.
• Neutralize and brighten your eyelids by applying it across the eyelids, too.
• Pat on a bit to conceal age spots, red marks from healed blemishes, and burst capillaries.

30 Days to 10 years younger--10 minute tips. Tip 4: Curl your lashes

I know this sounds incredibly picky, but think about it.

Ages conspires to bring you down--both literally and figuratively. Think about what it's done to your figure. You still have everything you've ever had! Unfortunately, it's two inches lower down. And the same is true of your face. Just as your body seems to want to move south, your cheeks start to migrate towards your jawline.

OK, I'll stop before I get us all depressed. The thing is, you can counteract this effect by drawing the eye back up. This will de-emphasize your face's journey southwards.

This is why women used to cut their hair short as they got older--to draw the eye upwards. It's why bat wing eyeliner was invented. I suspect it's one reason we all love wearing sunglasses. And for all I know, it's why women used to wear hats all the time.

So do me a favor and at least give it a try. Curl your lashes, and see if it brightens your face--and your outlook.

What kind of eyelash curler should you use? Genuine hard-core fashionistas swear by Shu Uemera's model


which is available at Ulta for $19.00

But I get perfectly respectable results with a Revlon curler, also available at Ulta for $4.29.


How to curl your lashes

1. Start with clean, dry lashes, and curl them before you apply your mascara. If you curl your lashes when you're wearing mascara, you're likely to leave a few lashes behind on the curler. Ouch.
2. Position the curler so that it's just ahead of the roots of your lash line. Close the curler and squeeze firmly for a slow count of five.
3. If you have large eyes, you might want to curl your lashes more than once, aiming the curler towards one corner, then holding it in the middle, then doing the other corner of each eye.
4. Some people achieve a more natural-looking curl by curling their lashes in stages. They curl once at the roots, then "walk" the curler further out along the lash and curl again.
5. If you have stubbornly straight lashes, try heating your eyelash curler first with a hair dryer. (Just don't let it get crazy hot, OK?)
6. If your lashes are simply impossible--the equivalent of a sullen teenager--there are also heated lash curlers. (Which, to continue the metaphor, must be boot camp for eyelashes.) This Japonesque one is available at Ulta for $17.39.

I hope I've convinced you to at least give this a try. Honestly, on days where I'm really rushed, there are times I curl my lashes and skip mascara. The bright-eyed effect of curling my lashes has become more important than the lengthening/thickening/darkening effect of wearing mascara. I know--gasp!--but it's true.


Enough information to make your eyelashes curl:

Seventeen magazine has a short video that illustrates the process--to watch it, click here.

Makeupalley is one-stop shopping for product reviews. If you haven't joined, please do--it's an invaluable resource. Then check here to see reviews of eyelash curlers.