Eye makeup for this eye shape?

November 18, 2015 6:44 PM

If one has a fair amount of lid space, and space between the crease and eyebrow, is there a way to balance out eye makeup so it doesn't look like all the makeup is on the lid (therefore making eyes appear almost proportionally smaller)? Further, is there a way to do this with a minimal amount of makeup? Thanks!
posted by Tess to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (5 answers total)

Eyeliner on the inner and lower rim of the eye will make your eyes look smaller.
posted by flying_trapeze at 1:20 AM on November 19, 2015

You can wear darker eye shadow in the crease and a lighter shadow on the lid itself. For this I'd put a light cream shadow all over the whole area from lash line to brow as a base/primer and then swipe a darker matte color in the crease, putting more pigment on the outer end of the crease (you could even extend it to the lash line on the outer end), and then blend it out a bit until you have the look you want. You can also then put a little of the dark shadow on the lash line and blend it out a tiny bit or use eyeliner.

Without a tutorial this might not make a ton of sense but this is kind of what I mean. You can search for "simple smoky eye tutorials" but you'll want the ones that smoke the crease, not the ones that just cover the lid in dark eye shadow. Some smoky eyes will want you to do 5 million steps but you can do this kind of look really simply in a few minutes and with only a few products.
posted by Polychrome at 3:22 AM on November 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh, I may have misread. By "minimal amount of makeup" I assumed you meant a minimal number of products but if you meant "minimal" in terms of not lots of dark eye shadow, you can still do that sort of smoky eye. Just use a lighter shadow in the crease. Light to medium browns and taupes are good for this.
posted by Polychrome at 3:24 AM on November 19, 2015

Best answer: Yeah you'll note in those photos that the "shadow" is placed just above where the lid and eyebrow bone meet. Just choose a slightly darker shade. If I'm trying to go absolutely minimal makeup, I'll just use bronzer or a light grey/brown in the crease and little else other than mascara on my blonde eyelashes.
posted by lizbunny at 8:02 AM on November 19, 2015

if i'm imagining your description right, the eye shape seems similar to mine, and this is what i do in the mornings for daily wear with just one shade of clinique's chubby stick (in bountiful beige; it's a shade lighter than their contouring chubby stick): imagine an incomplete angled triangle without the base, with the top point being the outermost/highest point of your crease*. draw that triangle from halfway of your upper lashline, up to that point on your crease, then down towards the midpoint of your lashline. blend (lower lashline - blend across the lashline and slightly outwards the corner; upper: blend from where you've drawn the colour into your lid, so there'll be a gradation that should mimic more complicated shading). It should leave you with a wash of colour that would be slightly outside and higher than just your lid area without making it look like a big deal but also balances all that space you have between your brows and your lashes.


*to be more accurate, the crease often meant by makeup instructions should be the point when your brow bone dips into your eye socket. it may be slightly higher than where your 'crease' of the eyelid is. if your eyes are more deep-set or if you have hooded/monolid eyes, this would be a more accurate way to place your crease colour without having it being swallowed up by your lids when your eyes are open. figuring out the placement of this crease would go a long way in calculating where to sweep in the colour without leaving it all on the lid, when you want to do simple, one-colour eyeshadow looks.
posted by cendawanita at 10:31 AM on November 19, 2015