Let's Talk Color

In any sort of design—fashion, makeup, hair, interior, etc.—color is a central theme. You wouldn’t paint one wall magenta and another wall lime green. It just doesn’t mesh well together. Being knowledgable about color and how it works is essential in any of the previously mentioned careers. Since not everyone can afford to take art classes, this entry will cover the basics on color theory and how to apply it to makeup.

Let’s break colors down:

PRIMARY COLORS-Primary colors are colors that cannot be made by combining colors together. Primary colors consist of YELLOW, RED and BLUE.

SECONDARY COLORS-Secondary colors are colors that are made by combining two primary colors. Secondary colors consist of GREEN, ORANGE and VIOLET.

TERTIARY COLORS-Tertiary colors are colors that are made by combining a primary color with the secondary color adjacent to it. 

Tertiary colors consist of RED-ORANGE, YELLOW-ORANGE, YELLOW-GREEN, BLUE-GREEN, INDIGO, and MAGENTA.

Now let’s break down a few details:

SHADES-Shades occur when you mix a color with black.

TINTS-Tints occur when you mix a color with white.

NEUTRAL COLORS-If you drew an invisible line down the middle of the color wheel, through purple and yellow, that consists of your neutral colors.

WARM COLORS-Warm colors consist of yellow, red, orange, and violet.

COOL COLORS-Cool colors consist of yellow, green, blue, and violet.

You may have noticed that yellow and violet fall into cool and warm colors. This is because they are neutral colors and have an equal balance of those warm and cool colors.

The best way to make eyes stand out is to go with a complimentary color. For example, if you have blue eyes your complimentary color (the color directly across on the color wheel) would be orange. The closer the colors are to orange the more your eye color will pop. Here is a chart to help when deciding what colors are best to use with your eye color:

I hope this entry helps you when picking colors for your eyes. If all else fails, experiment! Your eyes are custom to you, so it never hurts to have a little fun!