#EyeMakeup101: Here’s What Every Shade In Your Eyeshadow Palette Does

Scrolling through your Instagram feed obviously gives you a lot of make-up envy. Especially, when you see all these pro eye make-up looks by make-up artists and your favourite influencers. But not all of you know just how versatile an eyeshadow palette can be. When I talk about eye make-up to friends, there’s some fun things that come up. Like this friend I spoke to said when she’d just started applying make-up, she thought to mix all the colours together in an eyeshadow palette was the way eyeshadow needs to be applied. Honestly, I thought something similar too. While it is true that when you buy a bigger palette there are so many looks that you can create with it, but each colour in your palette has a role. So here’s what your eyeshadow palette really looks like!

Which Eyeshadow Palette Should You Use?

Well, if you are just beginning with your eye make-up, use a simple quad, which has 4 colours. If you’re investing in eyeshadows for the first or the second time, stick to neutrals if you can.

Basic Brushes

Ideally, your eye makeup kit should have 3 brushes to begin with.

Flat Brush: Eyeshadow application.

Fluffy Brush: To blend the lines in.

Angled Brush: To apply eyeshadow closer to the waterline and lash line.

Terminology Tales

Before we begin to tell you about what each pot in your eyeshadow palette does, here are a few terms that you should know so you can understand eyeshadow application a little better.

Lid: Refers to your eyelid area. You usually place one base colour all over your eyelids.

Crease: Is the part (crease) of your eye that folds when your eyes are open.

Corner: This is the outer corner of your eyes, where you would usually concentrate the eyeshadow.

Inner corner: Your inner corner is your tear duct area.

Brow Bone: Your brow bone is the bone under the arch of your brow.

Lashline: Is the area closest to your eyelashes on the eyelid.

Waterline: That’s the area near the lower lash line on the inside of the lashes, closer to the eye.

Your Eyeshadow Palette

A regular quad, that is, a four-shade eyeshadow palette has four colours, meant for four specific areas of your eye. This basic rule applies even when you move to bigger palettes. A 12 pot palette will have three of each shade. The more pots you add, the rule of four continues.

Highlight Shade

This shade would be the lighter of all shades and might have a shimmery vibe to it. This shade can be used to highlight your brow bone as well as the corners of your eye. You can apply most of the colour on your inner corner and then blend it outwards. For this, you could use a flat brush or even an angled brush.

Mid-tone Shade

This is a shade darker than your skin tone. It is a shade that would be spread across the majority of your lid. Use your blending brush to apply this shade, in your crease starting on the outer corner bringing it in over your lid.

Contour Shade

This shade would be 2-3 shades darker than most shades on your palette, but wouldn’t be the darkest. Using the flat brush again concentrate this shade on the outer corner of your eye, moving inwards and stopping a little before the middle of your eyelid. Then take a blending brush and lightly go over this application and blend the shade into your crease.

Darkest Shade

This shade is used on the outer corner of your eye with the angled brush and also on your lash line to highlight the eyes and bring the whole look together.

Here’s a basic tutorial to break things down.