I’m a lazy girl. Unless I’m going out to a bar, club or nice restaurant, I very rarely wear makeup.  Some lotion and chapstick is enough for me (though I should be wearing sunscreen).  However, I love the look of well-applied makeup, especially eye makeup.  I have a slight obsession with eye shadows and find myself buying them constantly.  I just love owning a little pot of color; it’s like owning a brilliant jewel with no two brands/shades being alike.

As I mentioned at the end of an earlier post, I jumped on the NXY lot sale and got Lot 3 (now sold out), which consisted of 43 of their great eye shadows.  So now I have 43 new shadows to play with, though I admit I probably have used less than 25% of the shadows I already own.  Despite my fascination with owning eye shadows, I don’t often put them to good use.

I think this is because I am never quite satisfied with how eye shadow looks on me.  Unlike my three younger sisters, I have monolids, also known as single lids or what one would consider typical “Asian eyes.”  Eye shadow is usually applied on the upper eyelid, but that’s pretty pointless for me because you can’t see my upper eyelid when my eyes are opened.  My eyelids disappear underneath my fatty epicanthal fold.  So, if I want to actually wear eye shadow and have the color be visible, I have to apply it higher than my natural eyelid area; I have a lot of visible space between my opened eye and eyebrows.  It’s like a big blank canvas with no guidelines.  I want guidelines dammit! A lot of traditional instructions for applying eyeshadows use your upper eyelid crease and browbone as a guide for where to apply color.  Well, I don’t have an eyelid crease and my browbone is pretty flat, so it’s not easy knowing where exactly to put the color and what “shape” to apply it in.

So many possibilities; with no crease to follow, what does one do?

There are tutorials out there for single lidded Asian girls, but they don’t really work for me.  Even though I’m monolid, my eye shape is rounder and larger than those in the tutorials:

I like how my eyes look here, but want to jazz them up with some color.

Also, a lot of tutorials don’t get very specific about what exactly they’re doing, especially video tutorials.  It’s very easy to take for granted something you yourself already know how to do (guilty!).

Well, I finally found two detailed tutorials that work for me.  One of them actually draws guidelines to help me determine where to shade:

Guidelines for monolid eye shadow

Christine wrote a great tutorial at Asian Beauty Blog, which you can read here.

I followed the steps earlier and was very happy with how it came out.

I also found a detailed video by mulzana on YouTube with a different technique especially good for creating a smokey eye:

So now that I’ve found a couple techniques that work for my eyes, I hope to actually use all the eye shadows I have!  In addition to having quality shadows, I’ve also come to realize that good brushes and a primer are important tools for great eye makeup.  I use Urban Decay’s Primer Potion, a small brush for applying precise color and a larger brush for blending colors.  Black eyeliner and mascara are key too!

I’m also wondering how to achieve the eye looks in the following two pictures.  Any thoughts?

Love this, but thinking maybe you need this exact eye shape for this look?

What a gorgeous, deep smokey eye!