In today’s blog post I will be sharing four different beginner eye makeup for brown eyes with step by step. If you’re a beginner with brown eyes and looking for eyeshadow inspiration, you’re in the right place. I myself have brown eyes and have compiled three of my favorite eyeshadow looks to wear with my brown eyes. All three looks include video tutorials walking you through step-by-step how to complete the looks.
Now, today’s looks are great for brown eyes because they utilize colors that pair well with the color of your eyes. These looks feature both neutral shades as well as color theory using complementary shades. Which means using shades that are opposite of each other on the color wheel.
Shades like purple, teal, and blues look lovely on brown eyes as they are on the opposite ends of the color wheel. However earthy tones, maroon, warm shimmers and red also look lovely on brown eyes. A lot of what looks best is also personal preference. I personally don’t always like all shades of blue eyeshadow on myself. You really need to play around with pops of color to see what you enjoy best, but I’ll share some looks that are a great starting point.
Tools
Primer
If you’re just starting out with eyeshadow, I would recommend some basic tools to start out with. The proper tools will make eyeshadow application much easier.
First, you need something for your eyeshadow to stick to. I’d recommend using an eye primer or a concealer. Which one you choose is a personal preference and depends on how oily your eyelids are. I alternate between both depending on how long I’ll be wearing my makeup that particular day.
An eyeshadow primer I could recommend is the Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer, and for a concealer, I’ve really been enjoying the Natasha Denona Hy-Glam Concealer and the Pacifica Beauty concealer.
Eyeshadow
For an eyeshadow palette, I recommend investing in something simple that you can use for every day and slowly work in fun colors. Wether that be cool tone vs warm tones, shimmer vs matte, or cream vs powder or maybe you prefer one brands formula to another.
Brushes
Next, you’ll need some brushes. I think you can get some great eyeshadow brush sets from both Morphe Cosmetics and Luxie Cosmetics. I also have a couple of detail brushes I got at Hobby Lobby in the paint department.
Mascara and Eyeliner
You’ll need some mascara and eyeliner, I’d start with black mascara and either black or brown eyeliner. I typically find gel liner and pencil liners to be the easiest to work with as a beginner. Maybelline makes a great gel liner, some great pencil eyeliners are the Too Faced Killer Liner, the Laura Mercier liner, the NYX Cosmetics Liner, and Hard Candy liner.
If you’re ready to try a liquid liner, I really recommend the Too Faced Better Than Sex liner. It comes in shades black and chocolate. I love this formula for drawing on my inner corner wing, I have a whole blog post about that here.
For mascara, I have a few favorites right now. I kinda rotate around as far as my favorites, I typically apply falsies and go light on the mascara. You might also want a lash curler for this step. I really love the one from Velour Lashes.
Some recent favorites are the L’Oreal Telescopic Lift Mascara, the Revlon So Fierce Mascara, and Too Faced Naturally Better Than Sex Mascara. I also love the Too Faced Better Than Sex in the waterproof formula if I need a mascara to hold a stronger curl.
False Lashes
Last but not least and something you really don’t need to use right away is false lashes. I have really short lashes, so I love using them. I’ve really been loving the Velour Lashes in the style First Love and Minimalist, Ardell Naked lashes style 421 and 424, and I’ve also really been loving DIY lash extensions when you apply them to the underside of your lashes.
Look One
For our first look, I’ve chosen this easy everyday eyeshadow look using all Drugstore products, it’s very beginner-friendly. This look is great for brown eyes and features some wearable brown eyeshadow in the outer corner, a shimmery taupe shade on the lid, and a brown winged eyeliner. I finished this look off with a light coat of mascara as well as lashes, overall a very simple and easy look to follow. Check out this video tutorial that will walk you through step by step on how to recreate this look yourself.
Look Two
This next look is using purples, which falls into the complementary shade range I mentioned above. I really love soft pastel purples on my brown eyes. For this look, I created a super soft wearable look that utilizes soft purples and shimmers. I find this look very beginner-friendly because the shades are not as intense as say a dark brown or black, so it’s a lot easier to blend out. It can be a bit more forgiving. I also created a wing with a brown eyeliner for this look, which I found paired well with the eyeshadow.
Look Three
For look three, we have a soft smokey look playing with some light green colors. I did choose mostly light shade so it’s wearable and more of a natural look even though it’s colorful. This one has a very unique blue wing on the inner corner of your eye, I kinda snuck that in as an extra pop of color. It’s so subtle you don’t really notice it’s there. I love adding an inner corner wing to connect and blend the lower lashes and the upper lash line of the eye. You can use the structure of this look with any other colors as well. Swap them out for some soft purples or blues if you have a preference.
Look Four
Last but not least, I love a dark smokey eye makeup, and this look is a super easy and glam look with no false lashes. Smokey eyes always get a bad rap for being difficult and raccoon eye-looking, but it doesn’t have to be. I think smokey eyes really make brown eyes pop because you are framing them in a beautiful way.
The biggest tip I have is to work slowly and control the darker shades and blend out slowly. My second tip would be to have a transition shade, that is a slightly darker shade than your skin tone and lighter than your smokey shade to blend the three together: your skin, the transition, and the darkest shade.
For this specific look, I used a cream eyeshadow as the base color and transition and then went in with a grey eyeshadow on the lid. I have more tips and tricks in the video below which shows you how to create the looks step by step. I don’t use false lashes in the look so make sure to go in with a couple or more coats of mascara to have your lashes stand out.
That concludes my four beginner-friendly eyeshadow looks for brown eyes. Brown eyes are the most common eye color but I will create a post for other eye colors in the future as I have some looks with colored contact lenses. I hope you enjoyed the looks and had fun watching the tutorials. Always have fun with your makeup and never be afraid to add a little bit of color. I hope you enjoyed each makeup look. Search up some color wheels on Google for even more color inspiration.
Looking for some lipstick inspiration next to pair with these eyeshadow looks? Check out this post sharing 4 nude lipstick looks and swatch videos.
