If you are wondering why you can't seem to get the results from your makeup that the rich and famous seem to be able to achieve, don't fret too hard. You don't need an expensive professional to do your makeup for you. All you need is one simple little tool. You need a brown eyeshadow pencil. These little pencils are just about as handy as having a magic wand in your makeup kit.
The brown eye shadow pencil can be used easily and quickly for shadowing. Once you have your makeup foundation on, you use the pencil to draw lines on your face, then blend the lines into the makeup foundation creating a shadow effect in the area you lined. How you do this might take some practice but the results are definitely worth the time to learn. There isn't really much trick to it.
Once you have your makeup base on, take a look in the mirror. What features do you want to diminish? That is where to start. By drawing brown lines on your skin and then blending those lines into your makeup base, you are doing what is known as “shadowing”. Shadowing makes the area you darken recede and puts the accent on other areas of your face. You will need to work with the pencil a bit to know exactly how much coloring you need to achieve your results without going overboard. For a first example, start with your eyelids.
Do your eyelids have a puffy appearance or do your eyes appear a bit sunken? Draw brown lines on your upper eyelids and then blend the lines into a shadow that make your lids just a bit darker than the rest of your skin. You don't want them to look made up. If you can see that there is makeup on them, you have gone too far and need to blend some of the color out. Do one eye at a time and look at the results. Amazing? Even if your eyes are not puffy, this trick can put an incredible accent your eyes themselves and make them look deeper and more seductive. Now try other parts of your face.
If your nose appears too wide, draw the lines down either side of your nose and blend so that the sides of your nose are shadowed. Again, do one side at a time and you will be able to see how the shadow thins that wide nose. If you have a bump the bridge of your nose you want to minimize, draw your line there and blend. If your face seems too long you can use the pencil at the bottom regions of your chin and jaw and if your face is too wide, use the pencil to shadow the sides of your face. Even cheekbones can be accentuated by drawing a line under them then blending the lines into a shadow.
Once you have shadowed an area, stand back from the mirror several feet to see if that is the effect you want to achieve. Always remember when shadowing that people will usually be standing further from you than you are seeing yourself in the mirror while applying your shadows. You need to get some distance to check that what looks good from a foot away also looks good from 10 feet away.
Shadow pencils are not expensive and you can get started with one that costs as little as a dollar. You don't need an extremely dark pencil but it does need to be several shades darker than your own skin. Make sure the pencil is a basic brown and not a coppery color that will look like makeup on your skin. Buy inexpensive pencils to start with until you know which color you prefer and how to apply them correctly.
With a little practice you will find all of the best areas of your face to shadow and will be able to quickly achieve professional results in just a few minutes every time you do your makeup. Once you have it right, you will probably find you won't ever be without your shadow pencil again.
?2007 Sally Taylor: Sal is an avid gem and treasure hunter, explorer, writer, and natural health researcher. She is an owner of http://www.rockhoundstation1.com and author of Secrets of Beautiful Skin and Hair Revealed:
http://secretsofbeautifulskinandhair.com/revealed.html