Gray Smokey Eye Tutorial

I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day yesterday! ♥ We kept things pretty relaxed, as we usually like to do, and just stayed at home enjoying our time together. Today I wanted to share another smokey eyeshadow tutorial with you. This one is all matte and uses only one drugstore palette! How much easier does it get?! We’re mainly focusing on the grays in this look and I’ll be showing you how to incorporate such cool toned shades when you have a warm undertone. Let’s get started!
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To prime and prep the eyes, I’m first going in with my favorite Milani eyeshadow primer. This is super affordable and keeps the eyeshadow in place all day. Definitely the best eyeshadow primer I’ve ever tried! I tap that in with my finger and try not to let my eyelid crease as it dries. Then I lightly dust a bright shade over it with a big fluffy brush. This will prevent the primer from being too tacky and allow for easier blending of the other shades.
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The palette I’m using in this tutorial is the Elf Mad for Matte palette. They did just release a new one that has more orange and pink shades, but I’m using the original palette with the cool toned grays for this look. I did feature this palette in one other tutorial and if you read my full review that I posted, then you’d know that my biggest complaint about this is that none of the shades are named. The quality is amazing, but shade names make tutorials much easier!

Although we’re gonna be using mostly grays and focusing on the cooler shades for this smokey eye, we need to make sure we keep it grounded. To do that, I’m taking the seventh shade in the palette and carelessly placing that in my crease and outer corner of the eye with a Morphe MB23 brush. This will create depth and add the slightest warm toned backdrop for the cool toned shades we’ll be adding on top of it.
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Going in with the second to last shade in this palette, I’m placing that on the outer half of my eyelid with a blending brush from the Sephora Professional Collection. I’m also taking whatever’s left on the brush and blending that up into my crease so the color can still be seen even when my eyes are open. Don’t forget to go through with a separate blending brush in between each step. If you go a little darker than you want with the color, just use a little bit of a lighter shade on the blending brush, otherwise just blend with it empty.
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To deepen the look a little bit and provide some extra dimension, I’m taking the last shade in the palette on a small Elf Contour brush and placing that just on the very outer corner of my eye. This shade looks black, but it’s not that intense and when used lightly can come off as a dark charcoal gray. This Elf brush really helps during this step because the bristles are dense enough to only place the color exactly where I want it. You really want to make sure everything is blended here because if not, things can look splotchy real quick.
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Bringing some of that color underneath the eye, I combined both of the first two shades we used in the crease. Just a little bit of the tan and some of the lighter gray to blend on my lower lash line with a #105 pencil brush from the BH Cosmetics Eye Essential brush set. This will tie the look together so the colors don’t appear too top heavy on the upper lid.
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You could apply a bright shimmery shade for the inner half of the lid for this step, but I decided to just stick with this palette only and used the first creamy shade. This is the same shadow we used on top of the primer, but now I’m focusing on really packing the color on. I applied it with my finger first to get the most pigmentation and then I’m going back with a #103 small shader brush from that same BH Cosmetics set to blend everything together and smooth out any lines.
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I’m taking the second shade in the palette and placing that on the very inner corner of my eye with a smudge brush from the Sephora Professional Collection. This shade does have the slightest pink tone to it, but it doesn’t show up that way when placed in such a small area. Adding this other color will help create more dimension among the shades and really brighten the inner part of my eye.
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Sticking with the cool tones, we’ll be finishing things off with black eyeliner. I’m taking a pencil first and then going directly on top of that with the last black shade from the palette. Placing eyeshadow on top of the pencil liner will keep things in place all day and create a softer look. You can find more details on that simple trick here. You’ll also notice that I only went halfway along both my upper and lower lashes. That is to keep the darker colors on the outer part of my eye in order to make the eyes appear bigger by keeping the inner part bright.
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Of course an eyeshadow look wouldn’t be complete without a billion coats of mascara, or falsies if that’s your thing. If you want really curled lashes that stay all day, you can heat up your lash curler for just a few seconds with a blow dryer. That works in the same way that you curl your hair with a heated tool. More details and lash tricks can be found in my mascara routine.
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Here’s a close up of what the final product looks like:
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And a quick, more condensed guide with every step that we just did for easier reference:
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As much as I like my brown eyeshadow and more warm toned looks, I still enjoy a good classic smokey eye. This one is just a tiny bit toned down, but you could always make it more intense by applying the shades a little darker and building them up. It would also be beautiful paired with silver glitter bordering the black liner if you wanna get fancy!
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If you recreate this look, don’t forget to tag me on social media. I’d love to see how it works for you. Also, if you have any suggestions for future eyeshadow tutorials, please leave them for me in the comments. Hope you have a beautiful day! ♥

~Christina~

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