The beauty of eyeshadow is that it allows you to express your creativity. You can play with gorgeous cut creases and cat eyes, or you can keep the shape simple and try your hand at thinking up color combinations. Today, we’re focusing on the latter. The eyeshadow colors you pair together can upgrade your look, complement your eye color, and show off your personality. You can experiment to find new eyeshadow combinations or stick with foolproof ones that always serve up style. Here, we’re sharing how to choose eyeshadow color combinations and revealing five of our forever favorites.

How Do You Choose Eyeshadow Color Combinations?

There is a multitude of ways to pick eyeshadows to pair together. You can look through your shadow collection and pull out whatever shades that suit your fancy, but if you want to avoid trial and error, there are certain tips that can help.

Choose complementary colors. Understanding the color wheel can elevate your beauty routine in more ways than one. It can help you choose color-correcting concealers, pick makeup shades that flatter your eye color, and find eyeshadow combinations. One of the best ways to pick a combo is to select two complementary colors. Green and red, blue and orange, or purple and yellow. These shades really pop when worn together and will call a lot of attention to your eyes.

Try different shades of the same color. You can’t go wrong with pairing similar shadows together—a dark purple with a light purple or a bright blue with a softer one. The monochromatic look is seriously on trend and makes it easy to pick out shadows.

Pair cool tones with cool tones and warm tones with warm tones. The law of attraction—like attracts like—doesn’t only apply to science. You can use it to pick eyeshadow, too. Wear either all cool tones or all warm tones, and having a winning look is a sure thing. Greens and blues pair beautifully together because they’re both cool tones. A rusty orange with a peach shadow is equally pretty—because they’re both warm.   

Match any shade to a neutral. Think about the rules of fashion. It’s a given that your colorful tops will work with a pair of jeans or black pants because those are neutrals. Apply the same idea to your eyeshadow. If you have one colorful shadow, you can always wear it with a neutral one. Black, brown, nude, and navy shadows will complement every other shade.

Rock contrasting hues that break the rules. Beauty rules are meant to be broken. If there are two colors you think could be fun together, try it! Colors that contrast with one another make for great eyeshadow combinations because they’re so eye-catching and unexpected. Think: orange and green or red and purple.

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