Text by Sabs Hernandez

A lot of morenas have asked me if smoky eyes would suit them, and the answer is YES! Anyone can pull off the smoky eye as long as you choose the right colors and application techniques!

The "smoky eyes" look refers to a variety of eye shadow styles that both make the eyes look more deeply set, and create a dark but soft frame around them. Most morenas already have naturally well defined eyes, so we don't need to darken the eye socket so much as to create a soft, but deep frame for them. To do this, we should use artistic contrast.

For morenas with a cool complexion (like Angie on the picture), a glittery black adds a bit deeper shadow without looking sooty. This black should be somewhat sheer, but a quality brand of powder that you can use a watercolor technique to line the eyes.

Mildly metallic dark silver is a good median color, but for contrast, a lavender or somewhat rosy purple is best. What we're going to do is to use the median color as the balance between them in some places, but the light purple will make the black look darker without having to add more eyeshadow.


♥ First, lay down your colors. Line your upper lid with a somewhat narrow line of the darkest color. Add a thicker streak in the fold of the lid. Put some of the medium color in the middle of your lid. Then another narrow line of the lightest color just above and mildly overlapping the narrow darker line. Then dot the outer arc under your brow with the lightest color.

♥ Now soften it up by blending the shadow on the upper lid outwards from the center. Smear the lightest and darkest colored line horizontally. You just want to soften them.

The dark shadow at the fold should be blended upwards into the arc of your eye sockets, and the lightest colored shadow under your brow should be blended around and somewhat inwards. You want the shadowy part and the highlight to seem to fade into one another.