How to create a softly smoky look in minutes

What’s a smoky eye?

A smoky eye uses two or three eyeshadow colours to create a smoky effect on the eyelid. The colours should be complementary and in the same shade family, spanning from light to dark. When you think of a smoky eye, sultry, deep shades of black and grey may spring to mind, but this doesn’t have to be the case – especially when creating a softly smoky look. Once you’ve nailed your eyes, finish off your look with a soft wash of colour on your lips.

How to master the softly smoky look

Softly smoky makeup has an unfair reputation for involving lots of tricky blending and countless eye shades – but it doesn’t have to be like that. In fact, creating a softly smoky look only takes a handful of products and a matter of minutes – there’s no wonder it’s one of Trinny’s favourite looks. Armed with a few staple hues of our Eye2Eye cream-based eye shades and Lip Love for a creamy, metallic lip, Pro Makeup Artist John is here to talk you through how he creates Trinny’s softly smoky look.

Using a matte shadow as your base helps carve out the final shape your smoky eye will take. “I start off with Eye2Eye in Wisdom, because it’s a beautiful matte taupe and I was able to get my structure and how I wanted the shadow to look,” explains John. Once your base shade is on, you can start building up and smoking out your eye. “In the outer corner and in the crease I used Magician, and then to get that extra bit of depth and drama I used Faith,” John explains. “On the bottom lash line there’s Universe, and it’s also very, very slightly in the lash line at the top”.

To finish off the look, Trinny loves to wear a pop of colour on her lips that doesn’t overwhelm the eyes. In this look, John applies a wash of Lip Love in Sacha, a metallic peachy pink with golden flecks. And ta-da, a softly smoky look that hasn’t taken hours (or involved countless eyeshadow palettes).