Beauty School: Smokey Eye

It's now easier than ever for women to connect with and learn from each other. My absolute favorite technology innovation is how many women are uploading make-up tutorials. It's an extension of an idea that I've been toying around with for years - what do you do if you don't have an older sister or a gay best friend to take under their wing and show you the beauty ropes? For many women, the alternative is to check out YouTube for make-up tutorials. Here's a great article from CNN on self-made beauty stars.

One of the most famous make-up video stars today is Lauren Luke. She went from posting videos on YouTube to starting her own cosmetic line at Sephora. I love the democratization of beauty! I don't think Lauren would have had as good a shot at starting her own make-up line ten years ago. Or at least it would have taken her twenty extra years to get to that level.

As a baby make-up artist (as my mentor likes to call me) and a lazy make-up artist, I need to get up to speed very quickly on some basic and not so basic looks. I could spend money on going to make-up school, but alot of people who've gone to make-up school have let me know that it wasn't worth the investment. So I've decided to take one-off classes from manufacturers like M.A.C. and Bobbi Brown, classes at Naimie's Beauty Supply Store, classes at trade shows and finally, watch free video tutorials online. Did I mention they were free? Yeah, that's totally the best part. I love free education!

Here's a tutorial that Lauren did on a basic smokey eye. What I find fascinating is that she didn't spend a crazy amount of time blending. The crease and the lid color are very separate. Blending is one of those things that I've had to work on as a make-up artist. But maybe I don't need to stress too much!


Here's a more dramatic smokey eye. I love this look. I practiced a smokey eye once on a friend and did something like this. My friend thought it was too dramatic. I think I'm all about the drama though since this look appeals to me much more than the first smokey eye.



Here's a really extreme dramatic smokey eye. Lauren calls it her "Kim Kardashian" look. Maybe it sounds silly to reference pop culture, but I've had more than a few directors (who are typically male) use pop culture short cuts like "I want a Real Housewives of OC look" to let me know what they are going for. So thank you Lauren and your video tutorials for helping us recreate the look of celebrities. Plus I think the snoring pug in the background of some of her videos is charming! I can see why she has such a tremendous following.



If you want to follow Lauren on YouTube, here's her channel "Panacea81". I'm making a goal of watching 30 minutes of videos a week and blogging about it so check back here for more tutorials from Lauren and other video make-up stars that I find!