Beauty Care: The Colors of Opals + Tourmalines: 10 Eyeshadow Color Combos for October

October has two birthstones: opal and tourmaline. Opals are known their play-of-color, which creates a range of color in a pattern that contrasts against the background color of the opal. They often look almost like an iridescent rainbow; there are a lot of varieties of opal, but the more popular types are white opals, black opals, fire opals, boulder opals, and crystal opals.

Tourmalines includes a variety of types, so the color really depends on the type of tourmaline as the color range of tourmalines is massive–from hot pink to bright yellow to magenta to blue to black. There are even bi-color and tri-color tourmaline stones.

I’ve focused my opal-inspired choices to duochromes and multichromes, while favoring pink/red for tourmaline (one of the most popular to buy) and aqua/teal (a popular alternative to pink/red). I’ve used some of the other hues tourmalines can come in as accent colors.

About This Series

Each look idea is centered around a “quad” of four shades with the expectation that one might bring in the appropriate brow bone or additional transitional shade based on skin tone. Consider these ideas a jumping off point with four “core” colors that can inspire your next look. For reference, based on how I usually apply makeup, I would consider applying the shades in this order: inner lid, middle of lid, outer lid/crease, and crease/above crease or lid.