What to do when that shimmer just isn’t as blinding as you’d hoped?

Use the shadow wet! You’ll do this by dampening your brush, also called foiling your brush.

Okay, let’s get right to it.

Here’s how to use eyeshadow wet:

1. Get some eyeshadow pigment on your brush
2. Use a spray bottle to lightly dampen your brush (maybe two spritzes) with water or another eye-safe, watery liquid, like a setting spray.
3. Apply the wet pigment on your brush to your eyelid.
4. Repeat (but only respray your brush when it isn’t damp anymore).

A Few Details

Here’s a few final things I want to cover about this technique.

• This technique is usually used on shimmers, not mattes. But feel free to experiment!
• To wet the brush, you can use a setting spray like MAC’s Prep + Prime Fix+, a sprayable water like Evian Brumisateur Natural Mineral Water Facial Spray, or—my favorite—just a misty spray bottle filled with tap water. Again, be careful not to saturate the brush, though!
• You don’t want to run the brush under a flowing tap or soak it in water. It will get too wet and make your application less than ideal.
• Conventional wisdom says to save this technique for eyeshadow that specifies it’s wet/dry or baked. Otherwise, you may be dealing with some hard pan or even a ruined shadow. That being said, I’ve used a wet brush on regular shimmers with no repercussions. Do as you will, but maybe test a small area of the pan when wetting your very favorite eyeshadows.
• Alternatively, if you want to use this foiling technique on regular shadow, you can use a new brush every time you apply instead of dipping the damp brush back into the shadow.
• Make sure you clean your brush after using this technique. Wet brushes breed more bacteria than dry ones.

That’s it! Happy foiling!