Rookie

It’s fun to feel like a real-life holiday angel, isn’t it? Gold, silver, and ruby red are always the go-to looks for the season, maybe because they complement the tinsel, ornaments, candles, and other various seasonal decorations. When I saw this picture in Glass magazine, I instantly became obsessed:

It’s a fresh take on festive makeup—a little bit darker, and more fitting for a holiday demon. So I thought I’d try and copy it, and here’s how you can, too.

You’ll need:

• Sugarpill’s Loose Eyeshadow in Goldilux
• Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics’ Loose Colour Concentrates in Triptych
• Milan’s Eye Tech Extreme Liquid Eyeliner
• Urban Decay’s Glide-On Eye Pencil in Perversion
• Nars’s Bronzing Powder in Laguna
• Estée Lauder’s Stay-in-Place foundation
• Portland Black Lipstick or OCC Lip Tar
• Urban Decay’s Eyeshadow Primer Potion (optional)

Step One:
Base makeup, as per usual. Choose a shade that matches your skin tone. The model’s face is flawless and poreless (probably because of Photoshop, but whatever), so I used full-coverage foundation with a matte finish. I applied it using a traditional foundation brush (Real Techniques are my favorites), but you can also do this with your fingers—it’ll warm up the foundation and make it easier to blend.

Step Two:
Prime your eyes. Technically this is optional, but I consider this an important step, because it’ll help eye shadows and pigments stick to your lids. Primer also brings out the vibrancy of the makeup. I’m using Urban Decay’s Primer Potion, but if you’re going to be applying heavier glitters or loose pigments, I suggest Too Faced’s Glitter Glue, which is a lot tackier. Apply the primer all over, from the lash line right up to the eyebrows, and around the eye as well.

Step Three:
Eyeliner balances out the look so that it doesn’t appear too messy. You want to shape the liner in a way that flatters your face. I’m not fond of eyeliner that tapers upward, because it makes my eyes look rounder, so I followed the natural shape of my eye, elongating it slightly. If you’re new to eyeliner, I did this tutorial for Rookie a little while ago.

Step Four:
Get your gold eye shadows out! I used multiple ones for this look: OCC’s Triptych and Sugarpill’s Goldilux (which I really love and mentioned above), and also an Inglot yellow matte and Urban Decay’s Half Baked. Play around with different golden shades, mixing dark and light, depending on your preference.

Now you want to apply the makeup from the inner corner of your eye, near your tear ducts, to the far side of your pupil (if you’re looking straight ahead), so that it covers about three-quarters of your eye area. Use a thin-but-dense brush for this, so the shadow doesn’t spill everywhere and you can focus on applying the pigment to only your liner.

Step Five:
This is also optional, but I wanted to make this look more dramatic and true to the inspiration photo, so I created my own fake eyelashes. Check out Hannah’s mod-eye tutorial for more thorough instructions. I used a liquid liner rather than gel, and basically just made little outward brushstrokes.

Step Six:
Go over-the-top. I used a blending brush to apply a mix of all the gold shadows I used, but again, really play around. It doesn’t have to be symmetrical; I just kinda smeared the pigment wherever I felt like it belonged, basically in an exaggerated cat-eye.

I left my eyebrows untouched, because I didn’t want them to overpower the look, or seem too perfect and coordinated. I’m already gonna blow all the babes away with my general existence, I don’t want my utter perfection to give them a heart attack, ya know?

Step Seven:
Contour time. I applied the bronzing powder directly above and below my cheekbones. If you’re not sure exactly where those are, suck in your cheeks to help find some definition.

Step Eight:
The lips!!! Ironically, I had NONE of my black lipsticks with me for this tutorial, so I improvised and used one of my black eyeliners. (This means dry lips, but oh well.) Now, you can use lipsticks in shades of gold or copper if you have them, but I didn’t have any, so I used the same makeup that I did for my eyes. To do this, apply the pigments with a flat brush, rub your lips together, and apply more. Keep doing this until you get the look you want.

And voilà! I hope this helps you look as cool as me. I’m kidding, of course, and ho ho ho. ♦