Now that we all have a basic understanding of color theory in makeup, it’s time to talk about how to use it. Unless you haven’t read part one of this series, in which case you will have no idea what I’m saying and you should READ THAT HERE first. We’ll wait right here for you until you’re done. All finished? Ok cool, let’s talk about eyes.

When people talk about “makeup for green eyes” or “makeup to make blue eyes pop!” basically they are giving you the makeup equivalent of complimentary colors. For example if we’re talking about blue eyes they might say to try copper. The reason being that orange is the “compliment” to blue, but orange eyeshadow isn’t the most wearable look to pull off (although it can look super cool) and copper is a more wearable, orange based color. Makes perfect sense.

But I think it can be more fun than that. Most eye colors are made up of little bits of different shades that equal mostly blue, mostly green or mostly brown, hazel etc etc. So instead of looking at it like what makeup color is the rule for your eyes, why not look at it as what color can you use to bring out and play up a certain part of that color?

For example, my eyes are a dark hazel-brown. So I can choose to use colors that make the amber/yellow tones pop, or I can bring out the greens in there depending on my mood. Someone with blue eyes who has hints of green can choose to bring out the blue or the green, to suit their fancy.

So instead of rules about what colors work for your main eye shade, I’m going to list the shades and shade families that bring out certain tones and then you can play with it however you want!

Blue Tones: Orange is the compliment (opposite) of blue so oranges, coppers, bronzes, and warm orange-browns will bring out blue.

Green Tones: Red is the compliment of green so red, burgundy, warm purple, plum, berry, red-browns, red-copper, red-bronze will all bring out the green in an eye color.

Amber/Yellow: The opposite of yellow is blue, so to bring out the yellow/amber in your eyes you can use basically any shade of blue. There are so many to choose from that there is no point in listing them out, but teal-blues or blues that lay closer to green on the spectrum will not have as much of an impact. Conversely dark navy blue makes yellows and ambers pop like crazy. Although nobody really has yellow eyes, there are many eye colors that have yellow in them. Many people with brown, hazel and green eyes have flakes of amber of yellow in their peepers, and sometimes even blue eyed folks.

So have a good look in the mirror at your eye color to see what different components are in there and then try playing around with different colors and see what different effects you can achieve with your eyes!

CHECK OUT PART THREE HERE