I know that in the beauty and fashion world, we’ve come to a point where shades and styles are almost season-less: we wear red lips in Summer, shorts in Winter, and bronzed skin year-round.  But I still associate certain color palettes with particular seasons, and pastels and Spring just ‘go’ together for me.

Though for most of my beauty-loving life I’ve favored rich, deep, jewel-toned shades in makeup and nails, lately I’ve been loving pops of bright color.  Every shade I’m drawn to these days are some happy forms of orange, or pink, or blue, and my stash, previously devoid of these brights, is slowly showing some change.  My starting point for make up came from MAKE UP FOR EVER with three perfectly pastel shades: Chartreuse (#57), Light Blue (#118), and Pearly Orange (#25) ($23CAD ea.).

Pearly Orange is described as an ‘apricot orange sheen’ and I think this is pretty accurate.  You can wear this shade on either eyes or cheeks – I find on eyes the shimmer is less noticeable than on cheeks.  It provides a more sheer veil of color and is a great way to wear this year’s color of the year (Tangerine Tango) in a soft, subtle way.

Chartreuse, another sheen, is not as yellow as some shades with the same name – it’s more wearable than those versions and gives a soft veil of color to the lids.  I think this color would look particularly lovely on someone with blue eyes!  The sheen in this shade is quite subtle.

Light Blue is described as ‘vibrant’ and that is the case with this sky blue shade.  Though it doesn’t specify online, I think this shade is a matte – there is no discernible shimmer to my eye that I can see.

MAKE UP FOR EVER eyeshadows/blushes are pigment-rich and wear ages even without a primer.  I did find that the two ‘sheen’ shades had less density and I had to build the color up a bit.  On a more fair skintone, this probably won’t be much of an issue.  A tip Dany (MUFE creator) suggests for darker skin is to first apply a light-colored base shade so that the following shade shows up better and allows for more dimension.  I haven’t tried this trick yet but I see it being quite effective.

Top to Bottom: #118 Light Blue, #57 Chartreuse, #25 Pearly Orange (sunlight)

Top to Bottom: #118 Light Blue, #57 Chartreuse, #25 Pearly Orange (with flash)

I found that the more sheer nature of these shades actually suited quite well, as pastels worn as a wash of color look perfectly pretty and romantic.  I’ve tried each of these colors and all wore all day without primer and with only slight fading.  I tried #25 Pearly Orange today as a blush and it was a little bit shimmery for my taste, but in the evening I think it would be lovely.

Another great way to wear these shades is a technique suggested by MAKE UP FOR EVER:

1) Apply a nude shadow from lash line to crease
2) Sweep a pastel eye color from inner corner of eyelid to the outer corner of the eye , extending just above the crease while keeping outer corner open
3) To add an extra pop of color, try also applying shadow to lower lash line
4) Add mascara!

I have yet to try out this technique, but will do so this week and post pictures!  I think it will look really fun

What do you think about pastel shades?  Have you tried them before?  How do you wear them?

*Products in this post were provided by the PR / brand for my unbiased consideration*