The first day of spring is tomorrow, and like always, the changing of seasons brings some great things with it. Nature is flourishing, bluebonnets pepper the sides of the roads, and pastels line the shelves of beauty stores.

Sure, pastels are beautiful to look at, but most people don’t want them anywhere near their faces in fear of looking like they just stepped out of an 80’s Madonna music video.

I’m determined to make pastels wearable — the beautiful, new spring beauty collections can’t possibly only be good to look at.

Runway models and magazine editorials make unusual makeup look so appealing and effortless with the help of professional makeup artists and Photoshop, but what about us everyday makeup wearers?

So, I decided to put one of these spring colors to the test on my own face. As many of you may have heard, Pantone has announced that the “color of the year” is Radiant Orchid, so naturally, the shelves and counters of stores have been lined with shades of purple. Purple is actually easier to work with than most people think, as many purple-y shades can lean towards a neutral realm and look great on girls with brown eyes.

The trick to wearing pastels is to keep your other face makeup simple, which prevents you from looking like you experimented with the most colorful colors in your makeup stash, especially when it comes to the eye department. The shadow I chose to work with is an eye palette by E.L.F, which is perfect not only because it was $2 (perfect in case I hate purple eye shadow on myself) but also because it comes with 4 different shades of purple. And I like to keep my options open. In the end I decided to go with the second lightest purple shade from the top, as I was initially attracted to that color and thought it could suit a lot of different skin tones.

To keep my purple shadow looking modern and fresh, I prepped my skin with a good moisturizer and some concealer to keep it dewy. After that, I swept the color lightly over my lid with a fluffy eye shadow brush, making sure to tap off most of the product before I applied in order to avoid any fall out or too much product. I kept the rest of my face very clean – no bronzer, powder or highlighter. Just a sweep of rose colored cream blush is all I felt I needed, and then I applied a bit of lip balm and loads of mascara.

What do you think? Are you willing to try out a pastel shadow? Let me know your thoughts via Twitter @KatieC_Brown!