By Elizabeth Siegel, Allure
(Photo: Delphine Achard/WWD)
Dark, smoky eye makeup is going to make you look either really sexy or really tired. Here's how to pull off the perfect nighttime look without looking like you've been out all night.
Sharpen your pencil. If you don't line your upper inner rims, you might as well stop right now; it's what makes a smoky eye look polished. Use a black eyeliner, like Jane Iredale Mystikol Eyeliner in Onyx, and don't put it down just yet--trace your upper and lower lashes. OK, now you're done with that part.
Smudge the liner. Soften up the black pencil by running the dense end of a brush--like one that's in the Urban Decay Naked Smoky palette over the line. With the same brush, skim your lower lash line with slate-gray powder shadow, followed by a matte black (use Dagger and Black Market from the palette as well). A little bit of the gray should show under the black so it looks like you spent time blending the two shades together.
Cheat a wing. The secret to a clean smoky eye is a piece of tissue folded in half: Hold it at the outer corner of your eye, angled up. With a fluffy brush, dust that gray shadow over your lid, up just past the crease, and out to the tissue. Blend the black shadow through only the crease.
Make it shine. Dab a shimmery gray shadow (like the Smoky palette's Armor) over the center of your lid and the inner corner of your eye to give your smoky eye some depth. Finish with intense mascara, like the superdark L'Oréal Paris Voluminous Butterfly Intenza.
Get creative. Use this same technique with other shades in the palette, too. We love replacing the gray with deep-purple Smolder, or doing a bronzy smoky eye with Dirtysweet and Radar (in place of gray and black, respectively).
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