Purple Smokey Eye Tutorial

December 16, 2016

Purple Smokey Eye Tutorial

I have been completely, 100% obsessed with my StudioMakeup On-the-Go palette that I received in September’s Boxycharm. It was full of beautiful warm shades and had every color I needed to create an entire eyelook. Thankfully, word must’ve gotten back to Boxycharm on how much that palette was loved by their subscribers and they decided to include another one in November’s box! I had no idea that there was another On-the-Go palette that had different shades in it, but I was so excited to start playing. I posted a tutorial using the Warm Up palette, so of course I had to do one with this Cool Down palette as well!

To start, I primed my eyes with my favorite Milani eyeshadow primer. This one is great for oily eyelids! Then I used the middle matte cream-ish shade in the top row as my base. This will take away some of the tackiness from the primer to help the other shadows blend out more smoothly. The one thing I wish was different about these palettes was that they had shade names. That always makes things so much easier.

I used the middle matte taupe shade on a Morphe MB23 brush to add some definition into my crease. I wasn’t very careful applying this because we’ll be blending other shades on top of it. Layering this shade down first will also help to create some dimension between the other colors.

On a more dense Sephora Professional blending brush, I used a combination of the two marked shades in the picture below. They both have the same amount of glitter and shimmer in them, but one is more purple-toned whereas the other one is more brown. Having a palette like this at my fingertips, it’s hard for me to not mix shades and customize my own. It’s just so much fun! I placed that on my outer corner and brought the excess that was leftover on the brush up into the crease. I don’t want it too much in the crease, just enough so that you can still see the color when my eyes are open.

To create just a little bit more dimension, I took an Elf Contour brush to apply the darkest matte plum shade directly on the outer corner. I didn’t bring this into my crease at all, I just wanted to create more of a color gradient between all the shades. This brush is great for this purpose because its very dense and concentrates the color exactly where you want it.

I also made sure in between all of these steps to blend with my favorite Sonia Kashuk blending brush. This one is more loose than the other blending brushes I’m using which will create a softer look. If you want a little more depth, you can use a bit of the matte taupe on the blending brush. If you went a little heavy-handed and need to take some of the color away, you can use some of the matte cream.

Taking the same two shades that I mixed to use in the crease, I applied those just slightly under my lower lash line. I used the C513 Pro Detail Crease brush from Crown brush that I also received in November’s Boxycharm. This definitely is not a crease brush in my opinion, but I have really been loving it as a pencil brush. I like how stiff it is, which gives me more control on how much color I’m applying.

When it comes to applying eyeshadow in the inner half of my eyes, my fingers are my favorite tools. You get a faster, more intensely pigmented application with the fingers than you can with any brush. I used the light shimmery blush shade in the upper right corner of the palette and placed it directly on the center of my eye.

Then I took the brightest shimmery shade in the upper left corner of the palette and applied that to the inner corner of my eye. I wanted to stick with the same gradient effect and loved the way these two colors blended together. I like keeping the brightest color on the inner corner of my eye to make them appear bigger. After applying it with my finger, I used a Royal & Langnickel BX-80 brush to clean things up and blend the shades into the crease a little bit.

To catch the light and brighten the eyes even more, I applied the middle matte cream shade on the very inner corner of my eye. I used a small smudge brush from the Sephora Professional collection, but any small detail brush can do the trick. I already had my eyebrows highlighted as per my usual routine, but this shade would work great for that area also.

For eyeliner, I used my current favorite Hikari retractable eyeliner in the shade Raven halfway along both my upper and lower lashes. To set the eyeliner and create a more softer look, I applied the darkest charcoal shade directly on top of the pencil eyeliner with an angled eyeliner brush from Ecotools. If you’d like to know more details about this trick, you can find that in my recent makeup tip post here.

Finishing off with my usual mascara routine...aka a ton of curling and about a billion coats of mascara. The mascara I used in this tutorial is the Benefit Roller Lash. I’ve really been impressed with that lately. You can use the search feature on the right sidebar to see my full detailed review about it along with pictures of what it looks like on my lashes when I don’t have all this eye makeup on.

Here’s a close-up of the final look:

And a quick reference guide for every step that we just did:

I can’t say that I’m loving this eyeshadow palette as much as I did the Warm Up palette, but that’s only because I’d rather use brown shades every day than purple. Although purple is my second favorite eyeshadow color. The quality is still the same on this palette as it was in the last one and I’m very impressed. StudioMakeup did an amazing job on creating these and I can’t recommend them enough!

If you have any questions about this tutorial, please leave them for me in the comments. Also, let me know what eyeshadow color is your favorite to play with! And don’t forget to tag me on social media if you recreate this look, I would love to see it!