Suqqu, Simply

Owing to my recent focus on the back to basics stuff of skincare, base, brows and lashes (posts on base and lashes yet to come), and trying to take my time to apply those more mindfully than is my usual slapdash rush so-can-I-play-with-the-colours-now? wont, I've mostly been wearing pared-down, simple (rather than minimalist) colour looks.

I've been on this kick for a while -- longer than my usual flirtations with plainness -- I think because these looks work so well as palette cleansers in a season of obligatory excess. Being an immature contrarian, my usual penchant for sparkly green eyeshadow is slightly dampened by the fact that for this month, sparkly green eyeshadow is expected.

So when I saw Sara's genius layering of the sparkly forest green with the copper-peach from Suqqu EX-19 Touryokuzora, to make a very understated TAUPE, of all things, I needed to get me some of that immediately.

natural light

A layer of copper-peach, a layer of forest green, and one more layer of copper-peach on top produces a deliciously complex, murky gilded taupe -- it reminds me of the the sandy-ashy bottom-most shade in Guerlain 2 Place Vendôme [Karla Sugar's swatch], which I ditched a few years ago, as one killer shade out of six wasn't quite good enough, but this is even BETTER. Because Suqqu textural unctuousness aside, look at what happens when direct sun hits the swatch:

full, direct sun

This layered shade looks warmer on me than on Sara, unsurprisingly, considering my cooler, paler skintone (compare my original swatches with hers) -- if you try this, I'd love to hear how it reads on you and what order/how many layers you most prefer. :D

On the eye, I applied my triple layer sandwich all over and used a fourth layer of the forest green to darken the outer v and lower lashline:

indirect natural light

direct sun *squiiiiint*