Simple Soft Smokey Eye

TGIF everyone!  I must apologize for being so intermittent lately.  I've got more of a workload this quarter at school.  Boo!  But I've also been making more jewelry sales.  Yay!  This does mean less blogging, however, but I promise things will pick up in June while I'm on summer holiday. :D  Anyways, I thought I'd do a simple tutorial on how to achieve a soft, smokey eye today.  99% of the time, I just can't seem to go without my definitive, black winged eyeliner.  I guess it stems from my previous self-consciousness with having small, almond-shaped eyes...I try most of the time to make them look bigger, to stand out more.  I thought it would be a mini challenge to find a complimentary way to apply eye-makeup without a hard, black line.  This is what I came up with:

It's great for a daytime smokey look because of the softness, but can easily be amped up in the evening by adding winged liner and false lashes.  So let's get started!  As usual, I begin with primed eyelids:

For the sake of convenience, I'm going to use my Coastal Scents Original 88 Palette.  You can use any other palette you prefer, all you need are similar colors with the same shade values. :)  I'm going to start by applying a slightly shimmery, pale sandy shade to my entire upper lid:

Next, I'm going to highlight my brow arch with a soft ivory shade:

Then I'm going to take black pencil eyeliner and apply it to the outer corners of my top and bottom lash lines:

With a deep, espresso brown shade, I'm going to smudge and blend out the eyeliner to create a smokey look along the outer corners of my eyes:

Then I'm going to use a medium-brown shade to soften the dark corner shadow:

Curl lashes and apply mascara to finish:

All set!  This is a quick, easy method for impressive-looking eyes without the hard black liner.  I used neutrals because they're versatile, but you can really achieve this look with a variety of colors, as long as you have a light, medium, dark, and highlight shade.  It's also really simple to transform from day to night if you don't have the time to redo your makeup before going out for the evening.

Hope you guys found this useful and have a fabulous Friday!

Hugs,
Cat