Thursday, 30 July 2015

Warm, Cool & Neutral - The Right Eyeshadows For You

Rules?  There are no rules (or there shouldn’t be any) when it comes to wearing your favourite colours.  It’s all about getting the right shade for your skin tone which will then affect one’s choice of foundation, hair colour, make-up, clothes and accessories – all with the objective of enhancing our natural beauty.  Say for instance, you love hot pink but it makes you look peaky, then you need to find the right shade, i.e. a warm or a cool pink depending on your skin tone.

The skin has three undertones: warm, cool and neutral.  There are few ways to determine your skin tone:-
  • Do you tan easily and don’t burn?  The skin’s natural protecting pigment, melanin, is high giving you a yellow to olive WARM undertone.
  • Do you burn, blush or prone to redness?  Melanin is lower which results in pink or blue-ish COOL undertones.
  • Check your wrist veins.  If your veins are blue/purple, you are COOL.  If your veins are blue/green then you are WARM.
  • When it comes to jewellery, which looks better on you, silver (COOL) or gold (WARM)?
  • Hold up a white scarf to your face and then a cream one – which one brightens your face?  White (COOL), cream (WARM).
  • If you don’t have any pink or yellow undertones then you are a NEUTRAL and luckily can wear any colour and any shade.

I am quick to burn in the sun, I am freckly, my veins are purple-blue, silver jewellery and white look great on me so I am Cool (as if we didn’t know that already….tee hee).  I am very sallow and my skin is beige so if I wear beiges, golds and creams, these colours tend to blend into my skin and I look colourless.  I remember with Clarins one summer, we had to wear some golden yellow polo shirts to promote the suncream….well, let’s say some customers asked me if I was ‘feeling alright?’ and I have stayed clear of all yellows eversince and any colours that literally blend into my skin colour.  I need a contrast (see the colour wheel below) and so anything with a blue undertone is better for me and will make me pop.  That reminds me, I must donate my tan biker jacket to charity – it does nothing for me.


 I have brown eyes and find that darker blues, purples, greens and greys suit me.  Put golds and beiges on me and you can’t tell I am wearing anything.  If I do go for the warmer tones then I have to make sure that they have blue-ish undertones.  A good example of this is my Collection Nude Eye Palette (€4.49), which made my Product of the Week a few months back.  I chose the Nude Grey palette rather than the Nude and the Nude Bronze (as the warmer tones would totally disappear into my skin).  There is however, one shade I don’t wear (second one in from the left) as it doesn’t show up on me.


 My all-time favourite colour is a silvery, grey, mink and I’ve noticed that I seem to have a few shadows in this shade.  My favourite is Chanel’s Illusion D’Ombre in Illusoire #3 (€30.50).  To be honest, I don’t actually wear this often – it’s very glitzy – but I do love to get it out of the box and admire it frequently. 



I’ve always been a fan of H&M’s eyeshadows; love their textures and colours (and I can’t wait for their new, revamped make-up due out in a few months).  My favourite colour ever is in their trio palette and it’s the middle shade – a cool, dark taupe.  I’ve had it years and it’s still going strong (it has not gone off).  I use this on my lids and then the darker colour in my crease and outer corners (I don’t use the orange for obvious reasons).  I think I paid under a tenner for this at the time.


On a night out, I will reach for my Give Me Nightmares Palette by Makeup Revolution (£6) – full of greens, purples, blues and blacks (shimmer and matte) – I have great fun with these.  The colours don’t lose their intensity and last the night.




Another palette I use a lot is Makeup Revolution’s Romantic Smoked palette (£4) and this is another example of the minky shades I am drawn to.  Good for a day at work and then glam up at night.



So here’s a guide to colours that will make your eyes pop:-

Brown eyes look great in greys, teals, purples.  Hazel eyes are WARM so contrast them with cool blues, plums and mauves.  Brown/Black eyes benefit from illuminating shades such as ivory.

Green eyes.  As green is a secondary colour (it warms up as it gets closer to yellow and cooler as it gets closer to blue) but to contrast; purples, cranberries and rusty colours are good.


Blue eyes are COOL so contrasting shades that look great are golds, browns and oranges.

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