Body & beauty

Perfect your natural eye make-up with Jo Fairley

Our columnist reveals her favourite natural make-up for expressive eyes

Eyes, they say, are the windows to the soul. Well, I don’t mind admitting that mine appear to be very tiny windows indeed, a combination of having blonde lashes, almost invisible brows and very pale blue eyes.

Thankfully, a small arsenal of pencils, shadows and mascara mean that I can go from ‘Where’s Jo?’ to ‘There’s Jo!’ pretty quickly. To be honest, though, it hasn’t always been a breeze to find natural eye make-up that matched the performance of ‘mainstream’ brands. I’ve kissed quite a few frogs: shadows that creased, mascaras that flaked, pencils that went all panda-smudgy by lunchtime. But just in the past couple of years, I’ve completely revised my opinions on natural eye make-up – and this month, I want to open your eyes (or, perhaps, your ‘windows’?), to some great discoveries.

Pure Ananda Mascara

This scored an incredibly high mark in the 2022 Beauty Bible Awards, notching up over nine out of 10 across the panel of 10 testers, grabbing the gold award and beating many incredibly familiar household names. The mascara itself offers a curved wand, for volume and curl, lash-conditioning waxes and a choice of shades including a rich, eye-framing black.

Lily Lolo Laid Bare Eye Palette

Every make-up kit needs a multi-shade palette that can take you from day to night, packed with flattering neutrals and some smokier tones for night-time drama. Great options aren’t so easy to find in the natural beauty universe, but this showcases eight shades to flatter every skintone, with a mix of mattes and shimmers.

Ilia Natural Brightening Eye Primer – On & On

Eye primer makes a huge difference to eye make-up staying power. Not only does this option deploy mineral pigments to smooth out the appearance of lids and create a flawless base, but it also delivers hydrating, puffiness-reducing aloe, rosehip and arnica, to condition skin – so that make-up glides on more smoothly.

Aveda Petal Essence Eye Definer

I’ve been using Aveda’s Eye Definer pencils for several decades, actually. Chocolate brown (914/Cacao) delivers a waxy, blendable finish and it’s great for a quick smoosh of lid-shading on a busy day, while the black shade (920/Black Orchid) works brilliantly as a liner if I keep the tip sharp. Eye make-up doesn’t get any easier…

Odylique Mineral Eyeshadow

The shadows from this Brit brand are created entirely from mineral colours and skin-friendly plant oils, in a range of shades. I like to blend a whisper of the glimmering Gold shade onto brow-bones and the centre of the eyelid – much more flattering than a one-dimensional, ‘flat’ eye make-up look.

Jo Fairley is the co-founder of Green & Blacks and author of The Beauty Bible. Head online to see her latest projects at josephinefairley.com