Confession: I’m wildly intimidated by eye shadow. I’ve been wearing makeup for close to two decades and can navigate foundation, blush, and highlighter with the best of them, but when it comes to eye shadow, I’m way less confident. A single wash of colour is no problem, and I’ve even got mad liquid-eyeliner skills, but the second I’m trying to execute a smoky eye or anything more advanced that requires traditional powder eye shadows, I start to feel out of my depth.
As an avid lover of makeup, I just need to be able to follow the creative whims that crop up in my head on a daily basis. To this end, I’ve been unwinding at the end of my workday by applying a full face of makeup, simply for the sake of practice. In a recent EOD makeup session, I found myself playing with an old favorite product, the Laura Mercier Caviar Stick Eyeshadows (£25). I was stunned at the pretty eye shadow look I was able to create using them and have since been using them for everything from shimmery sheer lids to smudgy, smoked-out looks. They’re soft, super-pigmented, and so dang easy to use. My fingers are the only tools I really need to spread and blend the hues, but going in with a couple of brushes to smooth the colours together and really carve out my crease has worked like a charm every single time.