Despite being a fairly new brand to the region, this homegrown makeup brand is all the rage and we’re about to tell you why. Naturally, at the beauty event of everyone’s dreams aka Cosmotel, we decided to get makeup advice from those that are killing it in the beauty industry. Kroma Drama, an up-and-coming makeup brand slayed and boy, did they slay hard! Their regional makeup artist, Olivia Jacob, taught us how to perfect not one, not two but three whole makeup looks all in the span of one masterclass.

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First up, we had a day look! Perfect for your everyday makeup routine to the office. Simple, soft yet stunning. As always, we can’t start a makeup look without priming your face and Olivia recommends using a conceleaer or any primer to wipe out any veins or discolouration. And here’s a little insider tip from the MUA queen herself: Leave the base sticky and don’t apply any powder or try to set it. It’ll catch more pigment of the eyeshadow making your eyes *pop*!

Olivia used the Kroma Drama Stay Golden Girl palette to achieve a natural yet contoured look. And while we’re used to contouring our faces, Olivia’s all about contouring the eyes too! She used the lightest shade to contour the eyes and bring back the definiton that we wiped away while priming/conealing the eyes. She then reached for the Kroma Drama All You Need Is Faith And Love palette (sidenote: how *cute* are these names) to use ~warmer~ tones and darker shades to create natural shadows. 

And for all my kweens whose cardio is blending, we’ve got another exclusive tip for you that might just change the way you blend forever: Put the colour/eyeshadow where you want it on your eyelid and once there’s no more colour left on the brush, just buff the edges out!

While Kroma Drama have the most dreamy eyeshadow palettes, if you’re ever looking for more – another great thing about them is that their face palettes are super multifunctional. Olivia secretly lurves to use the contour shades from the Kroma Drama Never Blend In palette as eyeshadows.

And since it already ~blends~ in with the other colors, it doesn’t require much work. Talk about a win-win situation. And since the contour has an incredibly buttery formula, it makes for the most creamy *impactful* eyeshadow. 

Olivia also recommends using the smaller eyeshadow brush to contour under the eyes and of course, to apply a lil highlight to the inner corner of your eyes.

What not to do: A common mistake people make is finishing their eyelids and forgetting about the under eye area. If you want it to look more natural, you need to go back and add some more definition to your under eye. 

While it’s probably as hard as choosing your fave child, we had to ask Olivia her personal fave palette and brushes, ya know, just for research purposes. And she chose the Kroma Drama Never Blend In palette since it can be used in literally *any* way and her top three brushes are the biggest one, the shaded one and the blending brush.

Speaking of brushes, if you’ve ever been stuck wondering which one to use, Olivia gave us the lowdown. The lighter the colour, the bigger the brush. This is because smaller brushes give you more definition and bigger brushes allow you to transition shades well. Huh, who knew it was that simple?

Another pro-tip she shared with us was not to swipe when applying makeup, specifically contour or blush. Instead, just lightly tap on the skin to allow the product to blend well *without* wiping away at any of the products used underneath.

For the night look. Olivia went off of her day look, keeping it real for the ladies who get home from work and aren’t going to take off a full face of makeup but instead just ~build~ on it.

She used the Kroma Drama All You Need Is Faith Palette and reached for the *darkest* shade to create a wing. Yes, we mean like winged eyeliner but with eyeshadow instead. Crazy, right? Well, a great thing about using eyeshadow instead of eyeliner is that it’s easier to clean up any mistakes making it perfect for beginners. 

A mistake that a lot of us (myself, included) have been guilty of is doing our makeup with our eyes shut. Olivia told us the trick to a flawless eye makeup look (besides steady hands) is to do your makeup with your eyes open, so you know what to expect. It can look weird when your eyes are closed, but it’ll look just right when your eyes are open. Woah, I said eyes a lot there.

Something else to add to the long list of reasons we’re loving Kroma Drama is the fact that they have *zero* fall out. Yes, ZERO. 

Also, something I was afraid of (and still am, TBH) was going too far up with my eyeshadow to my brow bone. Well, in a surprising turn of events, it seems as though that’s exactly what you should do. Olivia told us to go all the way up with our colours and not be afraid to bring it out either. One of the reasons why it’s great to apply your eyeshadow all the way up to your brows is because when you pack on a little highlight on your brow bone, it’ll mix with the eyeshadow – making it the perfect hue of a mixture between the highlighter and the eyeshadow. 

She added a lil pink shimmer to the look and recommends using your fingers to apply any shimmers or pigmented shades to your eyes. Hashtag life hack. No wonder all the MUAs on YouTube love swatching glittery pinks.

Olivia added some golden shimmers on top of the pink to even it out a little, but if you love the pink (like we do at Cosmo) you can just leave it as is.

Another huuuuge makeup tip that she shared with us was that you should just tap between the lines where you’re transitioning the glitter and matte shades, if you blend, you’ll mix the colours and it’ll take away from the actual look.

And if all this talk is freaking you out a lil because you’re a beginner, fear not because we’ve got your backs too. We asked her what the best palette is for beginners to start out with and she recommends the Stay Golden Girl.

For our last and final look, the Kroma Kraze, it was alllll about the colours. And while the star of the show was going to be colourful eyes, Olivia always likes to keep balance. If she does a lighter eye, she’ll go for a darker lip and vice-versa.

In order to really make the colours pop this time, Olivia primed the model’s eyes with white concealer and while we admit, it looked a lil crazy, we saw just effective it was.

She covered the entire lid with white concealer to take out *every* colour in the skin. Olivia reached for the Kroma Drama Stay Classy palette and chose a bright orange shade, perfect for summer. And while there are no rules in makeup, she recommends straying away from different textures when doing a bold, bright look. Just so you’er not taking away from the actual colour and intensity of the look.

Something super… different and interesting and also kinda genius that we saw Olivia do was spray her MAC Prep + Prime Fix+ directly into one of the red eyeshadow pots in the palette and mix away! “Mix it unitl it feels like it’s creamy and you’re happy with the colour,” she said. “It makes it so much easier to apply because it’s cream[y].”

She used the creamy red to create a winged liner that was super pigmented, fierce and bold. And while this look was just two steps, it stole the show and was a crowd-favourite. And that just goes to show that some of your best makeup looks may be the quickest and easiest to do!

Do yourself a favour, grab a Kroma Drama palette (or two, or ten) and go crazy. Have fun!