Eye of the Day: Weeping Cherry Blossom

This is one of my very favorite looks for spring nights out; the vibrancy of the pink is a nice change after all of those deep, dark winter hues, but at the same time, the matte finish, bold liner and semi-cut crease really step up the drama. Not into pink? Use any other light-bright shade to customize it!

First, use a skin-toned primer on your lid from lash to brow- today I used Urban Decay Potion Primer. Next, using a short, dense paddle brush (MAC 239) brush a mid-tone bright matte pink shadow (Kryolan Flamingo) along the entire lash line, blending up and out to just above your natural crease.

Next, line your eye with your favorite liquid liner (I used Lanome Artliner in Noir). Lining before you contour your crease is essential- the wing has to end at the natural crease of the eye- trust me, it makes it look! To determine the correct angle, imagine making a line from the outer corner of your eye to where it would meet the end of your eye brow.

After lining, load a small smudger brush (my beloved, Lancome #10, has been discontinued) with a deep, matte eggplant shade (MUFE 160). Starting at the outside corner of your eye, where you ended your liner "wing", use light sketching strokes and follow the underside of your brow bone in, stopping at about the center of your lid (above the pupil). A lot of tutorials show this step with a pencil brush like MAC's 219, but unless your lid space is huge, I think a small smudger is lots easier to work with here.

After you've got your crease "cut" you can lightly begin blending your eggplant line up in the outer 1/3rd of your eye, working toward the brow. I stick with the smudger brush for most of this process, wiping excess shadow off before I start to blend.

When I'm relatively comfortable with the fade of the plum shade, I do turn to my pencil brush; using it clean at first. Use a windshield wiper motion to blend the deep crease color into the skin below the brow bone. Next, add just a tiny amount of your matte pink (the same shade you used on the lid) and blend over the top edge of where your plum has faded out. Make sure you're working on top of the eggplant shadow- if you put the pink on bare skin you won't get the subtle gradient we're looking for. Since I don't have a lot of space between my lid and brow bone, I like to leave some space to make the area look larger, so I stop shy of taking the pink up to the brow.

Next, go back to your small smudge brush & pick up a little bit of matte black shadow (I used the one from my Sleek Acid Palette). With a light hand, work the black in the corner V to give some depth to the look. At this point, I lined my water line (all the way) and lash line (just the outer half, tapering off at the pupil) with Makeup For Ever Aqua Eyes pencil in matte black, and smudged over that with the black shadow left over on my brush.

Of course, you could stop here and you'd have a very eye-catching cut-crease look, but I wanted something just a touch softer. Grab your pencil brush once more and place it, without applying additional color, in the crease just inside where your liquid liner meets the crease color. Keeping it in place, move the brush in small circular motions. You're basically using the motion of the brush to bring a little of the black and eggplant into the outer corner of the eye. If you need to, you can add the tiniest amount of eggplant to your pencil brush, but keep it super light- you don't want to blend away the defined crease.

To finish, add a bit of white shimmer to the inside tear-ducts and under the eye brows, blending into the pink slightly. Top it off with mascara and you're done!