The Colors of Figure & Fitness by Linda Cusmano

Sometimes it can mind racking to figure out what colors of eye make up to wear in compliment to your competition garb.  The suits are so gorgeous that you have to make sure your face does to fade behind it.  Stage lights and extreme body and face tanning color means you have to really dip into the stage make up and wear colors beyond your everyday nudes. 
Some competitors find it easiest to pick a set up of cosmetics and wear that for the whole contest day where as other ladies prefer to change it up per suit or per class entered if they are doing more than one category.
Personal opinion and taste will mean there is no standard and no matter who tells you what colors go best with what outfits; that opinion is theirs and although you may agree, it does not mean it is the set standard rule for those color combos. 
Although you are colored with tan product during contest, even those who are naturally darker skinned tend to use competition color to even out the tan, you still may vary in tone depending on ethnicity so this also affects how a color will present itself on your personal shade of skin tone and tan product combo.
Burgundy, deep to mid tone purples and hues in that spectrum can work well for many gals but if you are the wrong match to that color, it will simply make you look like you have a black eye or tired bags!  It can cause the eye to seem too deep for those who already have deeper eye sockets.  These hues will work well with lighter suits in the blue, pink and purple pales or baby hues, especially with the blues and greens.
Pale hues and baby color eye shadow may look too light if you are very dark yet depending on your suit it may still work so you have to test it out and see.  Usually you would use lighter tones for the highlight, inner lid and inner eye socket area as well as the outer corner of the eye.
Bright colors in blue, purple or greens seem to work well with darker haired girls but only as an accent, not as a whole lid cover.  Going with a lighter color on the inner lid, even lighter one on the inner socket by the nose and then a darker bright color on the outer lid will give you very sleek and sexy eyes.  Combine the above light tones with a crease color of mid to darker tone then a highlighter on top and your eyes will pop when matched with the lighter inner lid tones.  Accent with a lighter tone near the lower liner area and outer eye also helps to give some glimmer.  Some gals will even use body stones or glitter in the inner and outer point of the eye and in some cases all along the top lid liner. 
I find for red suits that classic fall colors seem to work best.  Metallics, browns, bright yellows & oranges and greens all work well when applied in the right order and place on the eye.  This photo shows a daytime everyday version, go heavier on the color and you will have a much more showy result by using more coppers and browns layered and applied heavier than shown here..  This is just to show you how well the colors blend and bring out the eyes.  This is very flattering on most eye colors but especially brown, greens and hazel eyes.

This color combo can also work with most nature colors in greens, browns, tans, yellows, khaki, reds and black.  So if your suits are all in this color range you can keep the same eye make up throughout the contest day, making things easy for your round timing as well as convenient. 
Blue, teal, green and turquoise type suits including royal and pale blues plus lilacs do not need a lot of the same color on the eye so in contrast you would use pinks, light yellows and frosts.  You can use a teal, vibrant green or blue on the outer lid just for a small pop but the inner lid should be the frost color with a more noticeable pink in the crease and highlight pink on top.  Frost on the inner eye socket and outer eye corner also add an angelic flair.  There are a million hues in these colors which you can choose to offset the suit without having to match it exactly but you can match the outer lid color to your suit for great results.
Very light suits go nice with dark smoky eyes, using a metallic black and some frost plus silvers.  The black would go on the outer eye lid and maybe crease as well, with the frost as highlight and silver on the inner lid.  Darker blues also work well on the outer lid for lighter suits.  Use these colors with a royal blue, teal, jade green or copper glitter eyeliner for a wild effect.  This MAC promo picture shows glitter eyeliner used to it’s fullest stage potential, this look being good for a selection of costume and bikini choices.

If you are wearing a dark suit but want to be daring, you can use a nice red on your eye combined with coppers, metallic and white frost colors.  The red can vary from brick, to crimson, to a blood or candy apple red and would be on the outer lid with care not to get any on the crease or inner lid.  This little hint of red is very daring, combined with a black, gold or metallic crease and lighter inner lid with highlight.  You can even use a dark green in the crease if you really want to be a shocker!  I would not suggest that for lighter hair or complexion types.  Brown eyes work best with this daring red look.
Lighter and bright citrus colors also go great against black as shown in this picture of Christina Aguilera from her MAC promo pics..  With her darker hair here or even if she was blonde or red haired this look works with them all.

Now we do not need to break the bank here to get some great colors and pigments are even better solutions since they are concentrated so you need less yet they really show up on stage and are usually shimmers.  MAC has great pigments but so does Bobbi Brown, True Colors and some other brands.  Some of the lesser known brands may not last as long or show up as vibrant but you can get samples of pigments for a fraction of the cost through E-bay.  There are many nude and other shades of pigments which are great for everyday use but for stage I suggest MAC because they have the nicest selection of stage quality colors with very high quality pigment which won’t wear off as fast even during a sweaty fitness routine!
There are also some great glitter liners from MAC but I like to use pigments wet with a small brush and you can then use that for your liner suddenly adding more blast to the eyes cuz then you can use some of their wilder colors like Teal or copper and get a really great overall blend.
In the end, be creative and test out the colors.  You can even make an appointment at the MAC store and bring your suits, they can help match you with the right colors and make up by testing them on you so you buy the right ones.  Also bring the tan product so they can see how dark you will be.
Another option is a make up artist, they have many colors they can test on you and help with color combos then they can help suggest which to buy or may be able to sell you some pigment samples of a ¼ teaspoon which would last any normal gal a year!  It is hard to get the make up artist to come to the show due to backstage regulations but having a make up artist do your face is something you can do before you arrive and just recheck with the make up artists in between morning and night.  Go with your own comfort level on that.

MAC promo pictures are MAC copyright.

Back to Issues