Smoky blue eyeshadow is the season’s cool-girl shade and this TikTok makes it look so easy

Blue eyeshadow is everywhere. Well, not everywhere, it’s mainly on people’s eyelids but everyone from makeup artists, and Instagram’s it girls, to JLo seem to have fallen under its spell. It’s not any old blue eyeshadow either, it’s a smoky blue eye, which just so happens to work perfectly heading into party season if you want something dead sultry, but a little bit more unexpected than neutrals.

And, if it’s good enough for JLo, naturally, we’re about to dig out our big guns eyeshadow palette and give it a whirl. But, here’s a question though, how easy is blue eyeshadow to pull off IRL?

No, really.

Anyone who’s been burned by Insta makeup before will know; Instagram smash hits are a lot harder to get right than they look. A haze of mustard yellow shadow might look utterly effortless on someone else’s grid, but completely mortifying in the cold light of day. So, blue – yay or nay?

The good news is, it’s just makeup. It washes off. Even if you look like Widow Twankey on a bender, you can use your face cloth to erase the lot and pretend like it never happened.

But, makeup pro, Muriëlle van Schaik, shared how she makes the shade work in a TikTok video. Her secret? If you’re doing a smoky take, ground it in a more classic base. She starts by creating the smoky wing shape with a more traditional black shade from the Morphe X Ashley Strong Artistry palette which she takes across her lid and halfway under her eye before applying the shimmery dark blue shade on top, in the centre of her lid and over the black shadow under her eye.

To give her eyes a mini sparkly glow up, she dots some shimmery highlighter on the inner corner of her eyes, then for some extra definition, she runs some navy blue liner (LH Cosmetics Flash Crayon in Atria) along her top and bottom waterline, winging it out at the outer edge.

For a simpler take that’s smoky on its own without a lot of legwork, we love actress Aissa Maiga’s glitz midnight eyeshadow, created using Violette_Fr’s Yeux Paint in Bleu de Minuit.

Or for something a little more off-piste, we love this painterly matte blue shadow created by makeup artist, Tannia T.

As with everything, the best blue for you will depend on how bold you want to go.

We’ve rounded up some more of our favourite blue lewks, complete with difficulty rating, so you know what you’re up against whether you want to dip your toe in or dive in the deep end.

8 more ways to wear blue eyeshadow…