Foiling Your Eye Shadows

I’m having so much fun with foiling my eye shadows right now. The possibilities are just endless. From deep, dramatic colors to fun, light pastels, you can foil year round. It really makes the eyes POP too! You can see below where I swatched some BFTE Cosmetics minerals. Look at the difference when it’s foiled vs. not foiled. By foiling it makes the color stand out and look so vibrant. But I must warn you once you start foiling it will be hard to stop! Now, pull out those pigments and let’s get started.
You will need the following:
1) Loose pigment or mineral eye shadows – use metallic as matte colors do not foil well. Hence the name, foil (shiny).
2) Eye drops or a mixing medium – any eye drops brand will work. It doesn’t have to be expensive.
3) Brush – you will want to use a short, stiff, flat brush. Example: MAC’s #239
4) Eye Shadow primer – my 2 favorites are Too Faced Shadow Insurance and Urban Decay’s Primer Potion.

Steps for Foiling:
1) First you want to apply your eye shadow primer all over the lid. Primer is very important and should always be used before eye shadows. It just gives that smooth palette to work with and helps your shadows stay on longer and avoid creasing.
2) Now, it may take a few times to get the right consistency of the powder and mixing medium but don’t give up. It really is easy! Put some of the pigment in a separate container or you can use the lid of the pigment. I really prefer to use a totally separate container so I don’t ever have to worry about moisture getting in my pigments. Take a drop of the eye drops and put it on the back of your hand. Take your brush and dip it in that drop. It may take a couple of drops the first time but you don’t want your brush to be soaked, just nice and wet. Now put it in the pigment and move the brush around to get a nice pasty consistency. You want the powdery looseness to be gone and it to be pasty. Now start applying it to your eyelid in a pressing or should I say patting type motion. If you get a lump of it on your lid you can blend it out so it’s smooth. If it doesn’t blend easily, you may not have enough liquid. If it runs or isn’t bright in color, you may have too much liquid. You’ll get the hang of it!
3) You only want to apply this to your lid and not all over the eye as it will look way too shiny! I also recommend if you are going to do a crease color with the outer “v” that you only apply this to the inner ½ of your eyelid because if you start blending other colors, it looses the foiled look.

Here are some brands I highly recommend for foiling but try whatever loose pigments you have. Experiment and most importantly, have fun!! RECOMMENDED BRANDS: MAC, NYX Cosmetics and BFTE Cosmetics

Any questions or comments, please contact me... Would love to hear from you!