The Eyes Have It

The World of beauty is one that is full of history. Eye make-up can be traced all the way to the days of Egypt where Kohl was created to make lines above the eyes to decorate the royals. In the Egyptian way, this use of makeup was a way to emulate the gods. In fact, if you look at any of the depictions of gods and goddesses of Egypt you will see the modern cat-eye look across all the olden depictions. It isn’t just Kohl that has been shown across the centuries in the world of makeup.

For years’ different colors of eye shadow has been brought forth. Some are skin tone colors and others are hues of bright colors in every specter of the rainbow. Metallic bright colors that make eyes glow and sharpen a girl, or as is the modern-day, man’s physique. There were the bright colors of the fifties and the sixties. The bold look of the seventies, and who could forget the blue and pink eyeshadow look of the eighties. The eighties were full of bold colors that sometimes made girls seem much older than they were, often brightening a girl's face, or making the gothic looks that are still around today.

The nineties were full of double-layered eye makeup, and bold lines that curved around the lid. The eye shadows of this time were often bold and creamy, often full of sparkles, and mixed with other colors making sunshine and moonlight designs. The nineties were also full of longer lashes, the extension of eyelashes making its comeback with mascaras of blue and black that sharpened the eye colors of a person. The beginning of the nineties and the Two-thousands brought into the year of sharpening and shaving the eyebrows, even coloring the lighter brows.

The way this author grew up she saw makeup palettes all over the house, Mary Kay powders surrounding her mother’s boudoir. Eventually, Mary Kay went out of business, and the days of Cover girl and Revlon began with creamy and glossy colors and even some sparkly colors. In High School, I began my own collection of colors, creamy browns, and bright golds. Reds, greens, and violets. Occasionally, even blues and blacks made the roster of colors. The shadows of eye makeup have been so decorative over the years, now in the two-thousands era, the colors of eye makeup have been upgraded from the regular application of shadows to different ways of putting it that combines blending two colors together, in interesting ways.

There have been ways of applying makeup that make it look like a work of art or a way of replicating a design we’ve seen on film and TV. Makeup is different depending on why it’s put on. Our day-to-day makeup is often done lightly in skin tones, depending on the jobs that we work. Back when I had a regular day-to-day job, my favorite looks were gold-toned shadows and dark-lined eyelids. With slight mascara. When it came to going out, whether it was out on the town or to a family get-together, the makeup would be slightly bolder with colored mascara, a curvier line on the lid, and bolder colors often with a slight sparkle.

While makeup isn’t just about the eyes, it is the eyes that people generally see first or second. The eyes are the windows to our soul. It shows whether we are happy or sad, angry or furious. The eyes have it, as they say, is a real saying. Quite an astute one, if you look at how makeup frames the eyes and can make it brighter and bolder, sometimes lighting up a usually sallow face, or even making it look more normal on a person that had too little sleep the night before. Makeup is a way of expression, of showing the world the person we would like the world to see.