As easy as makeup is to purchase, understanding the basics of applying it can be bewildering  - especially if your skin has been sensitive to most cosmetics for much of your adult life.

While exploring a few YouTube channels, we came across a channel titled “TheMakeupChair,” and we immediately fell in love with her easy tutorials for applying makeup. No matter how familiar you are (or aren’t!) with your cosmetics collection, her videos will give you easy-to-follow instructions. You can follow her channel here.

For our post today, we’ve pulled some of her best basic tips from one of her videos, “Beginner Eye Makeup Tips and Tricks.”

Tools You Need For a Basic Look
Primer: This is applied to the eyelid first, and allows an eye shadow color to look more vibrant and to last longer. You can also use a concealer as a base, and set it with a little bit of powder. 

Eye shadow Shades (3-4): You’ll want a few shades to get started with a basic look. The first is a highlighter shade, which is typically one shade lighter than your skin. The second is a matte mid-tone shade, which would be 1-2 shades darker than your skin tone. Lastly, you’ll want to use a contour shade, which is 2-3 shades darker than your skin tone. Bonus: if you’re feeling adventurous, a matte black shade is always a good shade to finish up your look with a little bit of detail.

Brushes: In this tutorial, the makeup artist recommends having 2-4 brushes for a basic eye look. These include a flat brush, a small smudger brush, and a blending brush (to see examples of these brushes, watch from minutes 1:00 – 1:30 in the video).

Tutorial
 Applying the highlighter shade: Our artist recommends beginning at the inner corner of the lid (where you want concentration of the product to be) with the flat brush and the highlighter shade. Dab the color here, focusing on the corner and the half of the eyelid closed to your nose. You’ll then want to add a little more highlighter color and brush just under your arch lightly.
Applying the midtone shade: Switching to your fluffy blending brush, dab the midtone and begin to blend the color lightly, starting above the crease and applying the color to the eyelid, between your highlighter shades. Always blend inwards, using brushing strokes moving from the end of your brow towards your inner eyelid arch.
Contouring: Using your smudging brush, add your contour color (2-3 shades darker than your skin tone) to the very tip of your brush. Start from outer corner and blend into the crease on the outer half of the eye. For an example of this, hop to minute 2:40 in the video.
To soften your color, use your clean midtone blending brush to brush over the colors you’ve applied (you shouldn’t need to apply any additional color).  To complete the eye look, mix midtone and contour and apply just under bottom eyelashes to meet the highlighter color.
And, if you’re feeling adventurous, take the matte black and apply it on the outer edge, as close to the base of the top eyelash as possible.
We love these eye makeup beginner tips and tricks, and it’s a great start for someone who wants to end up with a beautiful blend on their eyelids. To watch the full video and see how she applies each shade and with what technique, you can visit the post here.