Don’t Be a Makeup Chicken

When I read the eyeshadow_sluts community on Livejournal, it can be a really inspiring thing. It can also make me feel like makeup is only worthwhile if it involves 12 different colors that have all been expertly blended and then accented by fake lashes.

While makeup like that is awesome, it can be really intimidating. When I start to feel like that, I try to remember my very first MAC purchase.

I’d worn a lot of brightly colored makeup before but it had all been drugstore stuff. Loreal had some pigments that I was particularly into when I was in college. But the pigmentation is what separates the good stuff from the drugstore stuff.

So, one afternoon I found myself in the local MAC store and a makeup artsit named Nick did my eyeshadow and set me down a path of bright colors. It was a very simple look. Bitter - a bright chartruese - all over my eyelid, from lashes to browbone, thick black liquid liner, and loads of black mascara.

It was amazing. Especially when I added some Crimson Lipmix.

Wearing bright colors does not require an art degree, fifty blending brushes, and hours of experimentation. Pick one color, a bright one, that you really really love. Grab some black liquid liner (I am so much in love with the Penultimate Liner in RapidBlack by MAC - it’s like a brush marker and is super easy to apply) and yourr favorite dramatic mascara and go to town.

Use a good eyeshadow base. I cannot tell you enough how good the Urban Decay Primer Potion is. I know I say that every time but it’s true! When I bought Bitter, I didn’t have the Primer Potion - it hadn’t been released yet. The Bitter was still incredibly bright but when I bought eyeshadow base and wore it? There was an appreciable difference, y’all.

Last night I bought a color called Blue Calm. It’s like Electric Eel, but with shimmer. I bought it and the Penultimate liner pen and knew they were meant to be together. Which is why tonight, I’m wearing the Blue Calm and the liner and very little else. I added a little Sky Blue to the brow bone - Blue Calm doesn’t sheer out the way Bitter does - as a blendable highlight.

Don’t be afraid of brights! Even if you’re just getting into makeup and you feel like your technique is a little shaky, you can wear them. That’s all there is to it.