Beach Plum Shadow Tutorial

   As I've gotten older, my skin care routine has gotten more complex, and my makeup routine more simple. I used to wear all kinds of crazy shadows and mascara colors when I was in junior high. At one point I rocked some MAC pink mascara. Not a good look. But towards high school, I became more low key.

  That being said, I work in cosmetics. So, I do need to wear different eye shadow looks every now and then. Usually I just wear a nude shadow with a liquid liner cat eye.

  When I wear eye shadow, other than a nude or grey, I am usually wearing Beach Plum by Clinique. It's the only purple I can wear without it making my dark circles even darker. It is probably the color I apply the most at work, because it comes with a great gold (I wear the almost gold everyday), as well as a pop of color with the purple. I would recommend Beach Plum for people with a gold, or neutral undertone.

  Before I start with the pictures, I want to give huge props to the beauty bloggers out there. It's difficult to do your makeup while trying to take pictures!

 First, prep your face. For me this includes eye cream, foundation primer, foundation, finishing powder and filling in my eyebrows.  Products used from left to right: All About Eyes from Clinique, City Block SPF 25 from Clinique, Everlasting Foundation from Clarins, Blended Face Powder from Clinique, and Brow Tech To Go from Smashbox.

 Prep your lids with some primer. This makes a big difference! It gives your shadow something to stick to, and helps prevent it from creasing. I used Clinique's Touch Base in "Canvas Light." Note to self: tame those eyebrows. 

 Sweep the gold shadow all over your lid, just above your eyeball, but not up to your brow.To do this, I used the Eye Shader Brush from Clinique.

Next, using a contour brush (I'm using MAC's 219 Pencil Brush) place the the purple shadow in your crease. Blending the shadow into your crease, stop when you get to the middle of your eye. Then place shadow from the outside corner towards your lash line. I like to tell my clients to make an inverted triangle, with a point on the outside corner.

Bring a little of the purple to the bottom corner of your eye. I like to apply shadow to only about 1/3 of my eye. Darkness around my eye area is a problem, and too much dark shadow makes my dark circles more noticeable. If this isn't a problem for you, and you want a more dramatic look, bring the shadow halfway, or even all the way if you're feeling crazy.

Should look somethin' like this when open. 

I sometimes like to give my eye a little more definition by taking a darker purple, and applying it to the very outer corner of my eye. I used Clinique's "Midnight Plum" pictured above. For some reason, I don't have a picture of me doing this...sorry! Just focus on the outer corner, blending it into the lighter purple.

Next, we are gonna add a little bit of liner. I used Clinique's Cream Shaper in "Egyptian," pictured above. This is my favorite color eye liner, it's a very unique blend of black, gold and green!

Using one hand to pull my lid outwards, I line my eyes from about halfway all the way to the outside corner. I don't have a very large lid, but if you do you could line your eye all the way to the inside corner. I like to take the liner a little past my outside corner, which makes them look larger.

If you wish, line the bottom of your lid as well. As you can see, I went a little further than halfway.

Now some mascara to the top and bottom. As you can see, I used Clinique's High Definition Mascara in "Black."

Ta da! To finish, I used a bit of Blushing Blush Powder in "Aglow" from Clinique, as well as a a bit of Clinique's Long Lasting Glosswear in "Clearly Pink."