Brown Smokey Eye Tutorial

January 04, 2017

Brown Smokey Eye Tutorial

In my last tutorial, we were playing with purples. Although I love the palette I featured in that post, I also mentioned that browns and neutrals are more of my go-to shades even for a smokey eye. Like we didn’t already know that! I have a few more intense eye looks that I’ve done for years when I want something a little darker, but I’ve been playing with the look that I’m sharing with you in today’s post a handful of times and always love the end result. Some of the products are my absolute favorites and ones that I know will do the job without any fuss. Let’s get to it!

To prime the eyes, I’m using a Be A Bombshell Cosmetics eye base in the shade Submissive. I’ve used this before in tutorials and always rave about the quality. It really is amazing and one that I would recommend over and over. It does not dry out! I’ve had it for a few years now and it has the same consistency it did the day I opened it.

Barcelona Beach from Makeup Geek has to be the crease shade I use most often. When I can’t think of what else to use or don’t want to worry about the hassle with other shadows, this is always the one I choose. I’m using this on a Morphe MB23 brush to carelessly create some definition in my crease. Then switching to a more dense blending brush from the Sephora Professional collection, I’m placing that same shade on the outer half of my lid and into the crease. This will deepen that area of the eye and create a beautiful matte brown backdrop for what we’ll be placing next to it.

To create even more drama on the very outer corner of my eye, I’m taking the NYX matte single eyeshadow in Black. Wet n Wild also has a very affordable deep black shade, Panther, that is great quality. I’m applying this with an Elf Contour brush, which is very small with densely packed bristles to help me focus the color exactly where I want it. I don’t want the black to be too intense or obvious, it’s just there for a little extra dimension. Make sure between all these steps that you’re blending with a separate fluffy brush to prevent harsh lines.

In order to keep things from looking too top heavy on the upper lid, I’m taking some of Barcelona Beach on a C513 brush from Crown Brush. This is up to you on how smokey you want to make it under the lower lashes. I don’t like it too dark on my eyes, so I just barely bring a little of it down to complete that part of the look.

Moving on to the rest of the upper eyelid, I’m taking Bliss from Ofra Cosmetics and applying that on the very center of my lid with my fingertip. I will blend it out with a smaller eyeshadow brush later, but I like how pigmented I can get it when using my finger first. This is a gorgeous shade and could also double as your highlight!

You could use Bliss over the inner half of your lid to be faster in completing the look, but I wanted to create even more dimension and brighten the inner part of my eye. I’m using Makeup Geek’s Shimma Shimma, which is another one of my all-time favorite eyeshadows. It’s so bright, pigmented, smooth, easy to work with, and goes with almost anything. Again, I’m applying this with my finger first and then blending it out with a BH Cosmetics #103 Small Shader brush from their Eye Essential Brush Set.

Now that the eyelid is complete, we’re moving on to the very inner corner of the eye. I’m sure you could’ve already guessed this part. I’m using my favorite eyeshadow in the entire world, Ulta’s Naked, on a small smudge brush from the Sephora Professional collection. Since we have so much shimmer on the eyelid, I like using a more matte pearl shade on the inner corner to really reflect the light and make things look more bright.

For eyeliner, you could use a black liquid or a gel but I’m sticking with my usual routine. Using a pencil liner first (Hikari’s Raven), I’m gently lining only half of my upper and lower lash line. Tracing only half with the pencil liner will keep the intensity on the outer part of the eye, making it look bigger and more open. Then I’m going directly on top of that with the same NYX matte black eyeshadow that I used earlier. You can read all the details about this trick in my previous makeup tip post. After focusing the product on the outer part of the eye, I’ll take whatever’s left on the brush to carefully line the rest of my upper lash line. I’m making sure not to go to dark because I want the inner corner to stay bright.

Finishing up with a billion coats of mascara as per my usual mascara routine and then we’ll be done. This is a smokey eye and you could totally add false lashes to this if you wanted. I’m not the biggest fan of wearing fake lashes, but this is definitely a look to wear them with if that’s your thing.

Here’s a close up of the final result:

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

This has to be one of my favorite eye looks ever. I was just playing around one day and when I was finally ready to leave, my fiancé actually complimented my eyes! He never pays attention to makeup so for that to happen, it has to be good! That’s probably why I love this so much. ;)

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you recreate the look or got inspired to do something similar, please tag me on any of my social media. Links are at the bottom of this post as well as on the right sidebar, I would love to see your looks!