Tips For Ethnic-Style Eye Makeup

If you've always admired exotic women and their creative makeup, perhaps you should try enhancing your features using their style as inspiration. Although many exotic or ethnic makeup designs use bright lip and cheek colors, the eyes remain the focal point. The secret for creating such a look is to combine a variety of bright, sparkly hues. Even if you like keeping your makeup on the conservative side, you can still try these guidelines that give you a modified ethnic effect you can wear for special occasions, if not every day.

Instructions

1.Groom and define eyebrows. A strong brow is essential in creating an ethnic-inspired look, so tweeze away strays under and in between your natural brow line. If your brow hairs are on the long side, you may trim them or simply hold them back with a brow gel, which is applied after brows are filled in with color. With a stiff angled brush dipped into brow powder, enhance the shape of your eyebrows using feather-soft strokes. You may stick with the shade you use on a daily basis, or add a little intensity by going a notch darker. Fill entire brow in, giving extra attention to arches for subtle drama.

2.Smooth foundation onto clean, dry eyelids. Make sure to include the area under the eyes to banish any darkness in that region. Apply an eye makeup primer on lids to create a base for eye makeup that is long-wearing and fade-resistant. From lash line to brow bone, sweep on a nude eyeshadow to prepare the eyes for color.

3.Use an eyeshadow brush with a flat head to stipple on a shimmery, light and bright eyeshadow from lash line to crease. The stippling motion helps pack the color on so that it shows up clearly on your skin. With a small brush, lay down on the crease a highly-pigmented deep-toned eyeshadow that complements the first one. For instance, if your first eyeshadow is lavender, you can use a royal blue on your crease. Soften any hard lines in your application with an eyeshadow blending brush.

4.Moisten an eyeliner brush and dip it into a bright pigment that complements the eye makeup you already have on. Using the previous example, a violet pigment would work with lavender and royal blue. Tap off excess before swiping above top lashes to create a neat line of medium thickness. The line should gradually thicken from the middle of the eyelids outwards. Wing edges out for a cat eye effect. Dip the eyeliner brush back into the pigment, but make sure it is dry this time for a softer look. Tap off excess and run the brush across lower lash lines.

5.Add depth to lash lines by working a creamy black pencil in between the lashes on both top and bottom eyelids. You aren't creating an actual line, just making your lash lines appear thicker. Curl lashes. Run a thickening mascara in black through top lashes. Define bottom ones by lightly touching the tip of the mascara wand to each lash. Finish by dabbing a highlighter on inner corners of eyes and brow bones.