5 Sizzling Summer Eye Makeup Trends

At age 14, I succeeded in persuading my mother to use my allowance for eye shadow. She insisted on a very pale, almost invisible baby blue. As a young girl, as I carefully shadowed my eyelids, that purchase symbolized glamour, glitz, and all those girly glories. And I've been addicted since that early experience to the magical world of possibilities in eye makeup.

This summer, why not treat yourself to one (or all!) of the alluring eye makeup trends that are hot this season?

Here's what's sizzling now:

Accentuate the positive with purple. Got brown or hazel eyes? Highlight with lilac shades, then refine with deep, sensuous dark violet for a night on the town. Using lilac complemented with royal blue or purest purple can play up your eyes if they're green or blue.

Makeup palettes featuring eye shadows with other products qualify as one of the top "must-try" trends this year. One of the new E! "Live From the Red Carpet" products comes from Stila Cosmetics, with cleverly packaged palettes that are fun to use '" and fabulous to wear. Included are instructions by a celebrity makeup artist on how to recreate your favorite red carpet looks. My "glamour goddess" palette No. 2, for example, includes six eye shadows coupled with an all-over shimmer and convertible color lip and cheek cream.

Make mascara a must in your eye makeup kit! Even sparse, pale eyelashes can score if you take the time to apply one of the many different lash extending products available. Do experiment with different varieties: some women prefer a curved brush, while others find mascara easier to apply with a straight brush.

In a perfect world, we'd all have eyebrows as beautifully arching as Julia Roberts. Not so - but we do now have some "helpers" so that we can achieve our own beautiful brows. It Cosmetics Brow Power's Universal Brow Pencil Duo provides the answer for those of us with, ahem, challenged eyebrows. Easy to apply, these eyebrow pencils are designed to match all hair colors. Particularly appealing for those of us who also have sensitive skin: they're fragrance-free and also free of other ingredients that can irritate your skin, such as sulfates, while containing ingredients to condition your eyebrows.

From crayons to pencils, eyeliners have blossomed into endless artistic possibilities this past year. The challenge: you can get so carried away by acting like a Hollywood makeup artiste that you overdo it. Use that rule of "less is more," particularly for daytime.