MUA Hannah Martin recently talked me through her quick-and-easy three-step method to create a simple smoky eye make-up look, and I’m totally converted
It’s not every day that you get the chance for one of the beauty industry’s top make-up artists to do your make-up, so when I worked with Hannah Martin – who counts the likes of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and Hannah Waddingham as clients – on the fabulous shoot for her 2025 advent calendar, created in association with OK! Beauty Box, I knew I couldn’t pass up the chance to ask her her top make-up tips.
Excitingly, Hannah offered to talk me through how to easily create a subtle smoky eye look – complete with my number one beauty nemesis, false eyelashes – using a few hero products from her calendar, first by doing it herself on one of my eyes, before letting me try myself on the other eye.
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The products she used are Rodial Dragon’s Blood Eye Gel (usually priced at £75), Hildun Silk to Set Kajal Liner in the shade Spiced Pecan, L’Oréal Paris Paradise Big Deal Mascara in Black and Ardell Naked Clusters 438, all of which you’ll find inside Hannah’s 2025 Beauty Advent Calendar, which contains 30 products altogether, an impressive 19 of which are full size.
The contents of the calendar are worth a huge £600+ but it costs you £99 to buy, saving you over £500. I don’t imagine this will be available for much longer though, especially as pre-orders sold out within hours, so you haven’t got long to shop if you want to get your hands on it, reports the Mirror.
As someone who’s utterly hopeless at applying my own eye make-up, I was over the moon when Hannah showed me how to use three of the products inside the calendar to create a simple, smoky, winged eye look – and I picked up some fantastic tips along the way.
After prepping my eye area with the Rodial eye gel to prevent make-up creasing and transferring, Hannah explained that eyeliner application doesn’t have to be perfect. Hildun’s soft, bronze-coloured crayon can be dotted onto the lash line using lots of little strokes, then gently smudged out.
Next, after curling my lashes, came mascara, and I also adored Hannah’s tip here: use the brush to pull the outer lashes out towards the end of your brow, the middle lashes up, and the inner lashes in towards the nose, to create a full fan effect.
For maximum impact, my smoky eye look was topped off with a few of Ardell’s individual false lash clusters – and, honestly, this was the step I was most apprehensive about. Applying false lashes is a challenge for many, but Hannah showed me how, once you’ve applied glue and waited a few seconds for it to become tacky, look down into a mirror and, once you’ve angled your hand properly, you can just drop them into place. Easy peasy!
While my side wasn’t quite as flawless as the one Hannah had done, I adore the finished look and will definitely be replicating some of these tips in the future with these products.
While beauty advent calendars have been flying off the shelves since late August, there’s still a chance to snag one for yourself or a loved one. Some of our team’s favourites this year include Charlotte Tilbury’s Beauty Treasure Chest for £175, Liberty’s Beauty Advent Calendar for £275, and Sephora’s Favourite Advent Calendar for £255.
