The Best Eye Makeup Shades For Your Eyecolor

As much as makeup is about personal taste and preference, there are some scientific principles that tell us how our eye perceives color harmony, balance, and accentuation. Knowing a little bit about this "science of color" and color perception can really help in determining which of the many colors out their will flatter us the most. Nowhere, I think, is this more helpful in picking out the right colorful eye makeup to accentuate our own eyecolors.

To determine which colors will emphasize each eyecolor the most, it is helpful to look at an image of the Color Wheel. The Color Wheel is an illustration of a circle that shows the relationships between the main categories of primary and secondary colors. The Color Wheel can be used both to find color harmony by looking at closely-related colors in both color and undertone, but it can also be used to find color contrasts. To make the eye color "pop" or stand out with our makeup, we want to find the colors that contrast with the eye color to set it apart from the field of all the colors we are working with in our makeup.

Blue Eyes: Blue eyes are the easiest of the eyecolors to find opposites for. On the color wheel the opposite color of blue is orange. This makes blue eyes especially emphasized by tones of copper, coral, pink, and peach. If you lean towards cooler tones to your skintone or prefer them eye makeup, it might seem that none of these tones will fit in with your preferences , but consider that brown is nothing more than a dark shade of orange. Working with browns with a gray base or taupes or mauvey pinks. will add some of the contrasting elements of orange while still giving an overall cool-toned look.

Green, Gray, and Hazel Eyes: The opposite of color to green on the color wheel is red. While the thought of wearing straight-up red shadow on your eyes can can be a bit intimidating, especially for any everyday look, burgundies and rich plums easily offer this red tone in a way that is much more subtle way. Since eyecolors in this category tend to have a mix of many different tones within them--some leaning more blue while others more yellow-- green gray, and hazel eyes also are particularly accentuated by metallic shades of silver and gold. Playing with these metallic shades will draw out different tones within your eye color, making it all the more vibrant.

Brown Eyes: As brown is a variation of orange, brown eyes are especially accentuated by blue eyeshadow, however, this does not mean that brown eyes will only shine when paired with the bluest of the blue shadows. Since brown eyes are often warm in undertone, they often contain subtle hints of green within them, making purples and even some redder burgundies other options for great contrasting shades. Green itself is another color tone that also plays well with brown eyes because green, having presences of yellow within it, is simply a warmer or more neutral version of blue.

The combining and blending of colors is a matter of artistry, and truly, there really are no rules. That said, knowing a little bit about how each color relates to one another can be a kind of secret weapon to finding the colors that make you-- and your eyes-- sparkle and shine the very most. To learn a bit more about colors, you can also check out my article, "How to Determine Your Skin's Undertone" for some tips on how to find YOUR best version of your eye-enhancing shade.