Tutorial: Inspired by Solenn's Eye Makeup

Tonight's tutorial is inspired by a magazine cover girl. Loving how clean yet sultry the makeup looks, I studied it for quite a moment and a eureka moment popped into my head. Why not make a tutorial right? So here's my tutorial inspired by Solenn Heussaff's makeup in her recent FHM cover shoot.

Solenn isn't a stranger to everyone. You see her in billboards along EDSA and C5 as she endorses a clothing line or channelling Hillary Swank in a soda ad. Of course, there's Survivor where despite being cast away in an unknown island devoid of makeup yet she still looked gorgeous and her tan just made her look more gorgeous. Aside from being the pretty face you see on TV or in print, she's also a painter, a makeup artist, and a stylist. Oh and she sings.

Clad in a simple chocolate brown bikini, her hair pulled back away from her face, I like how her makeup looks clean and fresh. Her cover makeup was done by industry bigwig Jigs Mayuga, who highlighted her best features making her look like, well still her.

So here's my tutorial to get the sultry, subtle, taupe-y smokey makeup.

Since the eyes are heavier, I used a different technique of doing the eye makeup first before anything else. What I did was to prime my eyes with a skin tone primer like MAC Paint Pot in Painterly from lashline to browbone for the colors to hold. Since we're using a blend of earthy colors here, I think skintone colors for the base would be best here. To catch any shadow fallout, I dabbed loose powder under my eyes.

After that, I did my lid color. I chose a satiny taupe color for the lid color. The best color here though would be well, MAC Satin Taupe, if it's still available but a good alternative, the one I used here, is MAC Dirty Plum.

I used a 239 brush to deposit color on the lid before blending it up.

The crease contour used warm brown eyeshadow like MAC Espresso with a fluffy crease contour brush and I swept this from the outer corner inwards blending it in.

Browbone color of course, and I always use my staple, MAC Ricepaper.

Now it's time for a bit of dimension. I blended some Amber Lights on the contour color so it's not all out flat. On the outer V, I used a matte black eyeshadow with a tiny contour brush to give more definition. It's not necessary to create a distinct winged shape. Just deepen the crease.

To give eyes some smoke, I lined top and bottom lashlines with smudgy soft kohl eyeliner before setting this with black eyeshadow powder. Setting is important so creamy products don't travel.

The shine and highlight on the inner corners of the eyes are highlights. I used a shiny color here, like MAC Nylon brushed and blended on the inner corners with a 219 pencil brush.

Now what did I miss? Brows! I defined my brows with my all-time favorite Make Up For Ever Waterproof eyebrow corrector in 0 and filled it in with MAC brow set in Girl/Boy. This step is followed by mascara before brushing away the loose powder.

Here's an eye detail so you know how it looks like more or less. Remember that I'm doing only guesswork and approximation and inspiration so it's not expected to be 100% identical with the one in the magazine.

The rest is actually easy. It's time now to clean up strays and smudgies before applying concealer, foundation, and powder as usual. Then, you could contour the face to create supermodel bone structures.

For lips, it's always the rule-of-thumb on focal point, which is to focus on eyes or lips, never both. Since the eyes are quite smoldery, lips have to be neutral. So, I used a natural colored lip color (TBS #42) before topping it with gloss for shiny and kissable lips.

Now it's time to pull the hair back to show off the makeup! Here's my take on the makeup tutorial.

The easy thing with this look is that it's not too precise on the wing or anything. All you have to do is just blend and make sure the colors look great.