Lucie Loves... Beauty // It’s a Mad Mad World but here’s how to create the perfect vibrant-smokey eye with a little help from Benoit Dumont at NARS

When we think about our spring/summer wardrobe it is easy to overlook a wintry looking make-up bag. Give it an overhaul to ensure that it’s not just your wardrobe that is brimming with SS13 colour.

When it was my turn to have my make-up done by the lovely NARS Make-up Artist, Benoit Dumont, I decided to be a bit adventurous and play with the delightful Mad Mad World colour eyeshadow duo, or at least I let Benoit play around with it and show me how it’s done.

I’ve got quite a selection of eyeshadows at home. They range from nude-cream shades up to deeper chocolate-browns, plummy-purples, and some more vibrant hues like yellow and orange.

But…

I rarely venture outside of my taupe-brown-gold comfort zone, so I was excited to see what Benoit could do that wouldn’t make me look like an 80s throwback - all blue eyeliner and pink lips - yes, mum, you know the pics… hehe.

I learnt that to create a *vibrant-smokey eye, (*Sounds like a bit of an oxymoron doesn’t it?) you need to create a base of smudgy black kohl eyeliner and then gently layer your colour of choice on top of it. Benoit used the NARS soft-touch shadow pencil Andy Warhol in Empire black before applying the highly-pigmented and very vivid cyan blue eyeshadow from the Mad Mad World eyeshadow duo.

The trick is to ensure that when you apply the eyeshadow, you use a brush with fairly stiff bristles (I think he used the NARS eye shader brush) and then push the brush into the eyeshadow to coat the bristles in pigment, tap gently to remove excess and repeat before gently patting the colour on top of the black base you’ve created on your eyelid.

Now open your eyes and look in the mirror at where your eyelid meets your eye-socket - just below your brow bone - add a dusting of shadow so that when you open your eyes the colour gently peeps above the crease to add a little drama!

Blend, blend and blend some more to ensure you dont have a harsh line of colour in the socket.

Benoit finished the look off by lining my waterline with the NARS Abbey Road blue Larger Than Life eyeliner and a touch of Sex Appeal (yes, honestly, that’s the name of the colour) blush to the apples of my cheeks.

Fancy a confidence boost?

Read Benoit’s little tip for the ladies:

“Don’t spend all your time scrutinising your face for imperfections and making yourself feel bad when doing your make-up. Take a step back, about 50cm - 1 metre away, from your mirror and admire the overall look. See the bigger picture.”

It makes sense.

After all, how often do we stand nose-to-nose with someone when talking to them? Now that’d be uncomfortable…

Photography © Lucie Kerley

(with special thanks to Roz Brabner at Urban Retreat and her lovely Assistant for taking extra photos for me when I was having my make-up done)