Sherry Hafassa is a 53-year-old, French makeup artist and beauty expert who has trained at the prestigious Steiner beauty school of London, appointed by the Queen.
During her career, she has worked as a makeup artist for Bobbi Brown cosmetics in London and Dubai, and now is a freelancer in the UK and France.
Sherry is frequently complimented about the glow of her skin, and wants to share her beauty expertise and makeup tips with other FabOverFifty women. Today, she’s bringing us tips about choosing and applying eye shadow. Although she believes that less is best when it comes to applying color to our eyes, it doesn’t mean that we can’t use a wide range of lovely warm, golden, frosted colors, she explains.
1. Your eye color should be taken in account when choosing eye shadows, Sherry says. Try not to use a shadow on the lid in same color as your eyes, or choose a slightly different shade for the corners of your eyes.
Most of the quality makeup brands have all these shades available in palettes.
Bobbi Brown is Sherry’s favorite brand because “it offers an amazing range of color for women of our age group.”
2. Use an eye primer base prior to applying your shadow to help blend your makeup and avoid creases and a wrinkly look, Sherry recommends.
Primers come in different shades that blend with skin tone, and they give shadow staying power and protect the eye lid from shadow pigment. White primer is often used to make eye shadow shades more vibrant.
Apply your eye primer lightly onto the whole top eyelid if you’re going to have a long day or evening out so your eye makeup will stay neat and clean.
Chanel’s professional eyeshadow base is one of Sherry’s favorites because it includes subtle, light-reflecting pigments. NARS eye primer contains beeswax and castor oil, ingredients which are beneficial for sensitive skin.
3. Next, apply a neutral and matte base eyeshadow, using a flat makeup brush or your fingertips. Start by applying the shadow all over the upper eyelid, from the outer corner of the eyes to the inner eyelid, in circular movements.
4. Last, lightly apply a darker color to the outer corner of the upper eyelid.
Make sure to avoid overly strong colors, such as electric blue and green and strong orange tones, that are more suitable for fashion runways. Build the color, step by step, by blending it in a little horizontal V shape in the outer corner, then lightly color the crease of your eyes. When finished, add a bit of matt eye shadow base under the eye brows and blend gently to give a subtle look.
5. For evening, you can compliment your eye shadow with well-defined black eyeliner.
You also can enhance your makeup for evening by adding a light sparkling eye shadow. Illamasqua Gold is Sherry’s favorite because this one color can help you achieve any soft or strong look. (It is currently sold out!) She also likes Sleek’s Oh So Special IDivine palette, which includes light peach, gold, pastel blue, soft taupe and cream colors, and can be used for day makeup or stronger for the evenings.
