The Chic Parisian Eye

Since I've writen my post about finiding the perfect parisian red lipstick, I've had a few request to blog about the parisian eye makeup look that my friend explained to me.  The basic idea of the parisian eye is to create brightness and open up the eye in a natural way vs creating shadows and depth with the smokey eye techniques.  The parisian eye is about creating a gentle, effortless, timeless and elegant look, using colours that are lighter, almost white to open up the eye!  I decided to re-create this look and explained how I achieved the bright eyed, youthful effect:

Here are the key steps that you need to achieving this look:  Start with a neutral base, add a light brown/taupe shade to the lid into the crease, use a very light/almost white shadow to highlight in the following areas: inner tear ducts, blended into the lower lasline and under the brow bone.  Then use a black or black-brown liner 'only' on the outside corners of the eye, creating an inverted 'v' shape and use a similar shadow shade to smudge ever so delicately into the liner - the look should be soft, not obvious.  Last but not least, a few swipes of black mascara (after your curl your lashes of course).  Here is a list of the products I used:

Basic face: primer, foundation, concealer, powder

Cheeks: Tawny as contour (Bobbi Brown), Laura Mercier Violet Orchid blush, light pink highlight

Eyes: From Too Faced Naked eye compact (In the buff as base, Like a Virgin lid to crease, blended well, MAC smolder liner smudged in Stiletto) - I then used Make Up For Ever Diamond shadow #301 to highlight and brighten the eye - I used it in the tear ducts, above the brow bone and blended into the lower lash liner. I used black mascara to finish off the 'parisian' eye look!

Lips - NARS Cruella