Every girl needs to know how to do a smoky eye. It just goes with everything. And it’s guaranteed to make you feel super hot, or super elegant — and all the boys love it! However, too much smokiness and not enough eye can make you look goth instead of great. So here are seven pointers that will have you looking absolutely smoking:

1. Start with identifying a light, a medium, a dark and a black. For example, the classic smoky eyes look is part black and part brown. As such, use a palette of soft vanilla-esque white (light), camel-caramel beige (medium), chocolate brown (dark) and true black. The hue of these four eye shadows can change according to your desires, but they must be a subtle and glorious gradation of colour. For example, for a smoky purple, use a pale cool pink (light), a warmer quartzy pink (medium), an aubergine (dark) and a black.

2. Once you have these neatly laid out in front of you and you are in good, even light, start by putting the medium in to your socket line. Fade the colour upwards along the line towards the brow and on to the lid a little. Channel your inner Twiggy and make it pop. Use a soft rounded brush for this.

3. Once your socket is looking all sexy, do your black liner, a little thicker than usual, almost double. Cover half ofthat liner with your dark colour. Then apply a strip of the dark above, then a weaker strip above that. Keep applying the dark shadow like many strips of slowly fading liner, till you reach the medium of your socket.

4. These strips can be achieved best with a wet brush. I like to work with paintbrushes, and if you go and buy yourself a watercolour brush (say a size four or six), then that should help you to achieve the required strips of colour. Once these strips dry, you will be impressed with how professional your make-up looks — and you have the added advantage of keeping the colour on your eye all night as opposed to it settling on to your cheek! Water acts like a make-up sealant that even humid weather can’t break through.

5. Now that you are done with the hard part, swish your light colour on to your brow bone and into your inner corner. Drag a little of your dark colour onto your under eye, but only go as far as your little lashes last. Add a rich black kohl and concentrate hard on your mascara. Your eyes are done!

6. If your eyes are the main focus of attention, please down play your blush and lips, unless you are trying out for a role in Chicago. Keep it in the same colour family. A good rule is to try and mirror the medium and light tones in your eyes.

A warm chocolate-brown smoky eye on Tanya Shafi Khan’s smiling face. Photo: Bina Khan

7. Once you have mastered this technique, you can apply it to any number of colours: a smoky green, a smoky blue. The only rule is that your medium on your socket line needs to be a pink, bronze, or beige — in short, anything that could be a lipstick or a blush — as it should be a complimentary colour to the colours on your lid. For example, for a smoky blue eye you would use a pale pink (light), quartzy pink (medium), dirty royal blue (dark) and black. A green eye would fade to a bronze medium and so on.

Armed with this information, your imagination is your only limit. But always practice and perfect a look ahead of time, before an important occasion. That way there is no pressure, and repeat performances are always smoother. It would not be cool, for example, to keep the whole screaming wedding baraatwaiting while you frantically try to work out which medium would work best. The odds of you dancing to “Rang Barsey” at your brother-in-law’s wedding sporting a look worthy of Marilyn Manson could get pretty high! Yikes!

For a speedy version of the smoky eye click here.