A Makeup Artist’s Trick To Enhance Your Shimmery Eyeshadow

To start, Hughes takes a shimmery, electric blue number and sweeps it over her lid. The result? Pretty, but sort of faded—not the expected result from this metallic dream of a shadow. “It goes on really beautiful and soft,” she notes. “However, I want it to be really intense.”

Here comes the simple hack: She sprays the eyeshadow brush with a makeup setting spray (this Glass Skin Veil Mist is a personal favorite) before dipping it into the shadow. Then, when she presses it onto her lid, the pigment is much more striking—a dense, look-at-me shade of aqua. 

You can either stop there, or you can do like Hughes and buff the shadow into your crease with a dry, fluffy brush—this creates a diffused look with most of the pigment concentrated in the center (a nifty trick that actually helps your eyes look bigger). She then adds “a little bit more intensity” by pressing some extra shadow into the outer corner of her eye with a dry brush. “I like to only wet one corner,” she notes, as it gives the entire look more dimension. 

Finally, she cleans up the fallout with concealer and finishes off her lashes with a few coats of mascara. And there you have it: A high-impact makeup look that’s (surprisingly) minimal.