The Most Comprehensive Breakdown of Different Eye Makeup Looks/Techniques you could ever Find, Want, or Need!

1. The Gradient Effect: This is probably the easiest and most popular smokey eye. It is very easy to do, and is my own personal go-to. The look basically starts with one color and goes from light to dark, from the inside corner of the eye out. There's a really gorgeous gradient effect that happens with this type of eye makeup, and it just looks chic and amazing.

2. The Cut Crease: This is for the advanced makeup enthusiast. The Cut Crease is a technique in which the crease is "cut" sharply with a contrasting eye shadow color to give it that really dramatic defined crease. There is usually always dramatic sharp liner to go with it, and the makeup is very angular.  

3. Light on the lid, Smokey in the Crease: This isn't as graphic as the Cut Crease, but it is similar. The Cut Crease is different because it is a specific sharp cut between the two colors, and it is angled in a certain way. This is much more blended and smokey. You see this look with a lot of matte colors.

4. The Graphic Shape: Graphic shapes are also for the adventurous makeup lover. This makeup is just really cool. It's eye makeup that has a huge focus on shape, and really has a pronounced cut. This type of look is usually a combination of really well-done, sharply drawn eye shadow and eyeliner. Sometimes it is just eyeliner.

5. The All-Over-Smoke: This look is smokey everywhere, with a focus on just one color.

6. The Black Smokey Eye: Self-explanatory. The Classic Smokey eye.

7. Dark on the bottom, light on top: Gossmakeupartist says there are really only two types of Smokey Eyes. One that goes from light on the inside to dark on the outside (the gradient effect) and one that is dark on the lid and blends upward to nothing. That's this.

8. The Eyeliner Overload: This is basically intense eyeliner. It really makes the eyes look striking, and the variations are endless. The examples here show really smudgy sultry thick black liner, a bit of an all around winged liner, and really messy black liner.

9. The Double Wing: This is your classic top liner, but with a twist. This involves the bottom eye shadow or line winging out to parallel the top liner. There is usually a light color between the two in order to emphasize the juxtaposition. 

10. The Sharp Angle: This is an eye shadow shape that ends very sharply. It adds a lot of drama and is commonly used in Arabic makeup or Arabic-inspired makeup. This look is often achieved using the tape method.

11. The Hilary Duff: The Hilary Duff is what I like to call the thick smoked out bottom shadow look. It's Hilary Duff's signature look, and it really adds a sexy smokey bedroom look to the eye.

12) The Lily Donaldson: The Lily Donaldson is what I call Lily Donaldson's favorite eye makeup, or at least the makeup look makeup artists most like her to wear. It's a look that goes all the way into the nose bridge area. There's a lot of detail work going on in the socket, and the shape is much more oval. There is also a lot of eye shadow rimming the bottom line.

13) The Adele: Everyone seems to love seeing Adele wear flicked out eyeliner. Literally every magazine cover she is on has her wearing some variation of that look. She looks absolutely gorgeous in it, so I have no complaints!

14) The Victoria's Secret: The Victoria's Secret is a look that is so effortlessly beautiful, sexy, and angelic. The look focuses a lot on complexion, but in terms of the eyes it's all about doe-eyed lashes and lots of them, gentle mid-tone contouring in the crease and socket area, gorgeous light champagne gilded-lids, lots of highlighting in the inner corners, and perfect brows. The best Victoria's Secret Makeup I have ever found on YouTube is featured in the third example, and her name is Alli from Makeupbyalli. She is so beautiful she honestly looks like one of the VS Angels.

15) Foiled Again: This eye shadow technique is all about making your lid look glazed over and gorgeous. Foiling is a technique in which you wet pigment with either water or mixing medium and apply it to the lid, thus achieving a "foiled" look. Not all these examples are strictly "foiled", some of them just have fine shimmer or glitter, which creates a similar look.

16. Glitter Gorgeous: Jam-packed glittery eye makeup.

17. The Bold and the Beautiful: Color! Gorgeous neon hues somehow come together nicely in these brazen looks. The Queen of Color, xsparkage, is featured several times in the following examples.

18. Cat's Eye: There seems to be some disagreement about what exactly "cat's eye" eye makeup is, because when I did my research I came across a fairly broad spectrum of images. So let's just call this the wing/flick eyeliner/eyeshadow look shall we? 

Special thanks to every person who contributed an image to this post. It would take me way too long to try and track down the source of all these images, but I really don't mean to lift images or steal other people's property. Clearly I did not make any of these looks. If you happen to stumble upon this blog and want credit, please leave your name and tell me which image(s) are yours and I will be happy to include that information. Thanks to the gurus who I watch everyday, several of whom are featured in this blog. Off the top of my head, they include:

Goldiestarling

Pixiwoo

Pixi2woo

Julieg713

Makeupgeektv

Petrilude

xsparkage

MakeupbyTiffanyD

Jessica Harlow

Beautycrush

Queenofblendingmua

Kuuipo1207