Le Smoky Eye Made Simple By Le Métier
Ivan Castro
For a company with such a French name, Le Métier de Beauté has a surprisingly straightforward approach to makeup application. You really don’t have to be a makeup artist to apply their products like a pro. One of Le Metier’s specialties is making that “red-carpet smoky eye” accessible to every woman, of any age. National artist Ivan Castro explained the process, step-by-step.
Ivan starts with Le Metier’s Dualistic Eye Pencil ($36). This eyeliner pencil contains an ingredient called Nylon 12, which enables the formula to stretch and move with the skin, for all-day wear that doesn’t fade or crease. He makes short strokes all over the eyelid, from lashline to crease, then uses his fingers to blend those short strokes into an all-over base for eyeshadow. It’s indicative of Le Metier’s quality that the pencil doesn’t tug at all, and can be smudged into a perfectly even base layer. And if you’re short on time? Feel free to run out the door after this step, confident that you look put-together.
For the full, finished look, you’ll add eyeshadow. Le Metier sells eyeshadows individually ($30), but they also sell “Kaleidoscopes,” four-color towers of shades designed to work together perfectly. And using a Kaleidoscope ($95) could not be simpler: you just apply the shades from top to bottom. Ivan used the Splendid Frost Kaleidoscope, a limited edition still available through stores, to create the look shown here.
Splendid Frost Kaleidoscope
He used Le Metier’s Eye Shadow Brush #1 ($40), a paddle-shaped eyeshadow laydown brush, to pat each of the colors onto the eyelid, from lashline to crease — right on top of the pencil base. He started with the top shade (which, in every Kaleidoscope, is a flattering, feminine neutral). Then he added the second shade, a contrasting neutral, to add depth and complexity. Then he patted on the third shade. There was no blending — Le Metier’s quadruple-milled powders make blending unnecessary.
There was also no jargon about the eyeshadow placement, no possibility for confusion. Ivan never said the words “crease color,” or “outer V” — he simply patted each new color on top of the one before it, all right on the movable part of the lid. Ivan called this technique couches de couleur, the layering of color.
Ivan used just one other eyeshadow brush: a flat “tightlining” brush (Le Metier’s Flat Liner Brush, $40). He applied the fourth Kaleidoscope shade — using the flat of the brush — close to the lashline, to add definition.
With eyeliner and mascara, every woman was red-carpet-ready in as little as fifteen minutes. But most importantly, each one felt absolutely confident she could recreate the look herself.
Shop Le Métier de Beauté.
Meet LMdB president Joanna Vorachek Austin at Dallas NorthPark on May 6.
