just to get a taste of the new, surrounded by shades I'm used to seeing and wearing well. I might add a light olive shimmer to the center of the lid in an oranges/warm brown look. Or flashing a mid-toned olive on part of my lower lash line, blended into a go-to matte in another color that looks great in that location. Maybe it's adding a deep olive green to my outer corner only, and otherwise just wearing my favorite brown look. Integrate the color into just one element of my brown, gray, or favorite 'basic' looks. When working with a new color family, I do three things to work my way into loving it on my eyes: Note: some brand color 'stories' are just random shades thrown together, so look to brands whose other color stories you trust or know hang together. I do look at eyeshadow palettes featuring the color that interests me, to see how various brands think it might be combined with other colors. Once you get the hang of that range, you can spread into the larger olive diaspora with some better ideas about how to get the most from them also. So understanding your complexion can help in finding initial colors along the spectrum that might work most easily while you're experimenting with that color segment: in your case here, olives. Even primary colors can be warm or cool-toned, or neutral undertone.Īs a very cool-toned person, I wear blue-purples much more easily than warm-purples/magentas. It also shows colors that look more yellow on the eye, in the presence of other yellows. This flatlay of yellow singles shows some that are darker than others, some that are warmer vs neutral or cooler. All colors can be warm, neutral, or cool undertone. But you can make many colors work once you know how to pair them or where to place them around the eye. your hair, eye, and skin tone are relevant in learning which kinds of colors are easiest to complement your features, especially at first. This advice has been posted before, by myself and others, but I'll include it here as I wish I'd known this when I was doing makeup without social media to help:

I was a taupe brown eyeshadow wearer for half my life before I discovered that other colors could look good on me, and once I got comfortable with how to wear them, I never looked back. In my case, it led to reds (my all-time favorite) and then every other color on the spectrum. Like you, I fell for cool toned purples and ocean blues.

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