A Different Kind of Smokey Eye

  


I once read a quote from a makeup artist that said you should never wear the same color eyeshadow as your eye color because you will look overdone. I call Shenanigans! Brown eyeshadow cannot be place near a lady with brown eyes or else she will look Cracked Out? Um, no. Can it look a bit drab? Sure, but it's not Wrong.

Evidence:

Do I look crackers with green shadow all over my eyes? I think not.

 Now, this is not the exact same color as my irises, but it's close enough for this experiment.

Summery, Smokey, Colorful, and not Insane. Eyeshadows from MAC's A Tartan Tale Holiday 2010 collection.

Things That Shouldn't Work, But Do

Of all the beauty website and blog owners on the internets, Janice from Specktra.net is pretty much the authority when it comes to MAC. So when she insisted the orangey-tanny-colored 'Saffron' eyeshadow from MAC's Surf Baby! collection would work on me, I listened.

I'll admit I was scared. And to scare me away from color is no mean feat, but this just looked so...orange. And I love orange, I have just never entertained the thought of putting it on my eyes outside of October 31st.

Opening the pan, I was immediately transported back to the time David Hasselhoff (I KNOW) left smears of fake tanner all over my white seats when I was working as a tour guide in Hawaii. Not a necessarily unpleasant experience, but I don't think one needs to associate The Hoff with one's eye shadow.

It actually turned out rather well:

It is...not horrifying. In fact, it is rather flattering. In the pan this shade just looks odd to me but on my skin it does actually enhance the color of my eyes (just as Janice said it would).

Saffron is a Satin, which means that it blends and applies very smoothly and has a slight sheen to its finish (like flat paint versus eggshell). 

I blended Saffron with Lancome's Honeymoon (a pale cream-colored shimmer), made a baby cat-eye with Lancome's Le Crayon Khol in Black Ebony, and finished with Lancome's Virtuose Black Carat Mascara. Brows filled in with Anastasia's Brow Wiz in Ash Blonde.