How To Make Natural Eyeshadow At Home

Over the years I have developed many natural makeup options. While I’ve already shared some of my easy eye makeup recipes here, this article has more details on how to make your own natural DIY eyeshadow in a variety of hues!

Make your own natural eyeshadow

These recipes use herbs, clay, and real food ingredients. You can also add some mica for a little shimmer if desired. There are many pigment options, but I’ve stuck to a few of the most common. If you feel like experimenting, try one of these homemade eyeshadows.

Top: Make sure everything is ground very finely.

• Purple-blue – Freeze-dried blueberry powder
• pink – Freeze-dried raspberry powder, hibiscus powder or beetroot powder.
• green – Spirulina or Moringa powder
• Orange yellow – turmeric powder
• Brown – cocoa powder
• White – Kaolin clay
• Dusty rose – rose kaolin clay
• Light green – French green tone

Shimmering mica

I add a little mica to products like lotion bars and tinted face moisturizers. Mica looks just as good in eye shadow. This mineral is found naturally in rocks and has a layered structure that catches the light and makes it sparkle. If you don’t have one on hand, you can just leave it out. Mica alone doesn’t really add color, just a bit of sheen.

Ultramarines are another common ingredient in eyeshadow products. Naturally obtained ultramarine pigment is made from ground lapis lazuli and has been used for thousands of years. Due to their nature, natural ultramarines can contain high levels of lead and other heavy metals. Most cosmetics today use synthetic ultramarines, which are made from clay and sodium carbonate. Plants aren’t as alive as synthetic dyes, but I feel better when I have them on my skin.

Why skip normal eyeshadow?

I think you know the exercise now. Mainstream beauty products are full of ingredients I’d rather avoid. Some of them also test on animals. The harsh chemicals in some eyeshadows can cause irritation, redness, itching, and peeling. According to allergist Purvi Parikh MD, someone can use makeup multiple times or even for years only to cause problems.

While a colorful palette is easy to resort to in the beauty aisle, making your own is easy enough!

DIY eye shadow safety

Spices like cinnamon and ginger might smell amazing, but they contain irritating essential oils. You can find cinnamon powder in these coconut flour apple cinnamon muffins and even this pumpkin spice face mask recipe. But I don’t use cinnamon in my eyeshadow!

As hard as we try, it’s easy to touch our eyes or sweat and get eye makeup in the eye. With a thickness of only 0.3 to 0.8 mm, our eyelids are the thinnest skin on the body and require special care. Pumpkin spiced eyeshadow may look (and smell!) Great, but it’s not worth the risk of stinging your eyes.

We also don’t add any oil or essential oils to the DIY eyeshadow recipe. While oil made the powder stick better to the skin, in my experiments it made the eyeshadow lumpy. And not in a good way. The easiest option I’ve found is to smear a light layer of a fast-absorbing carrier oil over the eyelid first. Then apply the eye shadow powder. This method gives the eyeshadow some durability without becoming oily or lumpy.

I use a lot of essential oils in skin care products like deodorants and lotions, but they don’t work that well on eye shadow. This coffee eye cream uses a tiny amount of lavender essential oil, but neither does it apply to the eyelid itself. Essential oils in the eye can cause stinging, redness, and general irritation.

What’s in a Natural Eyeshadow Recipe?

Like most of my homemade makeup, it’s an art and a science. I often measure my makeup recipes in drops and pinches, but this DIY eyeshadow recipe is a little more specific. Feel free to play around with the colors until you get the shade you want.

• Arrowroot powder gives a little slip and serves as the basis for the pigments. Most herbal powders on their own are a little too coarse to hold on their own. The arrowroot smooths things out and blends them together.
• mica (as mentioned earlier) adds a little shimmer but not a lot of color. Feel free to skip it if you prefer.
• Clays are light and powdery and add a soft color. Like the arrowroot, they help the plant pigments mix better.
• Natural dyes like cocoa powder, turmeric, and beetroot make this DIY eyeshadow recipe colorful.

Where can you buy natural eyeshadow?

If you don’t have time to do it yourself, here are healthy, natural eyeshadow options from Toups Organics:

Which natural colors do you like best for eyeshadow? Do you wear other homemade eye makeup? Leave us a comment and let us know!