Last Saturday night, I was reminded of my apparently low tolerance of wearing a smoky eye or a more colored, dramatic look with eyeshadow. Because we were going out that night, I decided to do something fun – a subtle smoky eye with Burberry Midnight Brown eyeshadow, a beautiful chocolate shade, finished with black liner and mascara. But once I stepped away from the mirror, I looked like I was punched in both eyes. Therefore, I took it all off, and went back to my signature only black liner and super neutral shadow look.

For someone who loves beauty products so much, you would think that I like trying out different eyeshadows – shimmery, a fun color, or dramatically pigmented. Especially for someone who used to pack on the purple in high school! But in reality, my comfort level for my eyes is black liner, nude eyeshadow, mascara, and sometimes a little highlighter under the brow and inner corners of my eyes. It’s no surprise that I have quite the little collection of black eyeliners, as evidenced above – my favorites right now are Urban Decay 24/7 liner in Zero and NARS Larger Than Life liner in Via Veneto.*

It’s kind of like how my girlfriends told me they don’t like to wear lipstick… perhaps lipstick is outside their comfort level. For me, I’m comfortable with wearing bright red and pink, and even a dark plum. But I guess not with strong eyeshadow, unfortunately. Don’t get me wrong, pretty-colored or strong eyeshadow shades are great, and I love using them on my friends when I do their makeup. But I think it just looks good on them, and not me! Maybe it’s just something that is in my head, and hopefully one day I’ll get over it.

* The Urban Decay liner isn’t in the photo because since I use it so much, it’s down to a length of an inch. So it didn’t really fit with the photo!