Easy Cotton Candy Eyes

Hey!  It's Caroline and there's no doubt about it..... I'm crazy.

I love to wear vivid colors on my eyes, and sometimes in ways that make others wrinkle their brows in confusion.  But I can't not do it.  It's like painting for me, since I'm a horrid painter.

So today I'm going to do a quick pic-torial on how to do blue and pink cotton candy eyes.  The picture that I took of the final look is poor, but I had no time... just keep in mind it's a lot more vivid and prettier than this picture.

This is the basic gist:

The colors in real life are far more bright and noticeable.

I used these two palettes for the color.

Before you begin, prime your eyes.  This way, the color will last all day without creasing or sliding around.  I use "Too Faced Shadow Insurance" from Sephora.  You could probably order it online as well, or get it at Ulta.  It's pretty pricey, but absolutely worth it.  It lasts than Urban Decay Primer Potion, although that's also a very good one.  But if you use vivid colors, this is your best bet.

Next, pick your brushes.

When you use bright colors, the cheap sponge applicator sticks that you get with palettes won't do.  They don't blend well.  So, from left to right, I used a smudger brush, a blending brush, a small concealer brush, a liner brush, and a crease brush.  The first two are from Sephora, the third is... well I just can't remember.  And the last two are from E.L.F.

Now you're going to start "painting!"  Pat a vivid pink all over your lid, up to your crease.  Don't put it on past your crease.  You can do as many layers of this as you want, depending on how bright you want it be.  Use the smudger brush; a densely packed, short brush is best for patting on eyeshadow without having color fall out onto your cheeks.

This pink from the E.L.F. palette is so pigmented and bright, I only had to put on a few pats.

Next, take your crease brush.  Fill the crease with a vivid, sea-blue, and bring it down from the outer edge of your crease so it touches the lash line.  Don't re-dip the brush in the blue, just use the leftover on the brush to blend that blue inwards a little.  Refer to the picture above so you can see the shape.  You can tell how the blue fades into the pink; blend until it looks like that.

Again, this E.L.F. blue is very vivid.  In order to tamp down the extreme color, take a lighter blue with the blending brush and run it over the crease and the blue eyeshadow in small circular motions.  This helps shadow from falling onto your cheeks and also makes the blend look more natural.

After you blend, take the small concealer brush (these are great for eyeshadow) and smoke out a little black eyeshadow on the lower lashline and the upper lashline.

Don't go overboard with this.  Too much black will wash out the color and your eye color.  Now get your liner brush and a deep colored cream liner and do a thin line along your eyelashes.  

I used the L'oreal High Intensity Pigments in a deep plum color.  The formula of this product is fantastic; very creamy and it doesn't dry up.

After that, you can apply false eyelashes, but I just left mine natural.  Put on some mascara, and I recommend Maybelline "The Falsies" mascara, because it really does thicken eyelashes without having to wear too much mascara.

Plus, like Emilyann said, Vaseline helps.  For about nine months I've put it on my lashes every night, and it's made them amazingly thicker and longer.

Enjoy!  I'll try to get a tutorial video up at some point, but this was the best I could do with time constraints.  

Go forth and play!