Black and gold eyes

I often try to match my eye shadow to my outfit.  It's not necessary, it's just a habit that I've gotten into.  One night recently I was wearing black leggings and a top that was white, black and yellow.  I'd never worn black and yellow eyeshadow, but I've worn black and yellow/gold shirts very often, living in Pittsburgh, PA. (For those of you not into sports, all of Pittsburgh's teams share the same colors - Black and Gold.)  I decided to try black and yellow eye shadow and see if I could make it look good.  Being a fair-skinned blonde, I actually don't own any black eye shadow.  I have dark gray, which has always been close enough for me.  Also, I suppose I could have worn gold eyeshadow, but all gold shadows that I have are sparkly, and I wanted to do a matte look.  So, I used yellow shadow from NYC and dark gray shadow from Laura Mercier.  Those combined with a black eye pencil came out looking very nice, in my opinion.

Here's the finished face, and after it, the finished eye.  And then the step-by-step photos.

Here are the products I used:
Urban Decay primer potion
NYC eye shadow in Yellow
Laura Mercier eye shadow in Smokey Gray
Urban Decay 24/7 eye pencil in Zero (black)
MAC eye shadow in Chill
Maybelline Falsies mascara
NARS lipstain/gloss in DareDevil (no longer available)


First I put my eye primer on.  Once it dried, I brushed on NYC's yellow eye shadow.  It took a few coats to get it to cover well, and even then I still missed a few spots.

Next I brushed the gray shadow into the crease of my eye and a little on the inner and outer corners

Then I lined my upper eye using Urban Decay's waterproof eye pencil

Then I put matte white shadow under my eyebrow to highlight the eye

Then I blended the shadows with a big fluffy brush

Then I smudged the black liner with a smudge brush from Laura Mercier

I lined the lower eye with the pencil, getting it inside the lash line

If I had stopped there, here's what the line would look like.  Not bad, but I like a smudged look best.

In addition to smudging the pencil liner, I also brushed some of the gray shadow on top of the liner.  This makes the whole eye look so much better, in my opinion.

The last step for my eye was curling my lashes and applying mascara to the top and bottom lashes

That finished the eyes.  Here's how they looked closed

And open

And here's the complete finished look.  If you're a fan of a Pittsburgh sports team, you can wear this the next time that you go to a game.  Otherwise, just try it one day when you feel like doing something a little different.