Winter - Nifty Shades of Gray

I just love grays.  I know that the color is usually associated with sadness or gloom, but it's actually a pretty cool shade.  It's a neutral with the unique ability to make most fabrics it graces to look softer, more cozy.   And silver reminds me of icicles and tinsel... things mostly associated with winter.  So let's look at a few items in these two colors, shall we?  Let's start with makeup...

Need a dark color for contrast on your eye, but don't want to use black?  Lorac's Starry-Eyed Baked Trio in Movie Star has a dark, sooty, granite gray that would be a beautiful substitute.

Movie Star is super soft to the touch, unlike a lot of baked shadows, and yielded quite a wallop of color with very little effort.

The swatch above was applied dry, however, to make it more intense and give it more of a "foiled" look you could use it wet like most baked shadows.

If you're in the mood for a little more drama than gray can offer, why not try a great silver?  MAC offers one called Electra.

Electra is a silver-gray eyeshadow with a frost finish.  It has excellent color payoff and is very easy to work with. 

Speaking of silver - if you want the benefit of its sparkle, but would prefer not to have it on your entire lid, why not line your eye with it?  Ulta has a silver liner that may pique your interest.

This eye pencil from Ulta is a silvery white with small chunks of silver-white glitter.  It was a little hard to swatch and did not glide on as smoothly as I would have liked. 

After a few passes, it did yield a fair amount of color and the glitter was fairly noticeable.

You don't really hear too much about gray eyeliners, but they do exist.  If you're so inclined to buy one, I have one that would be worth checking out.  Prestige makes a pretty one called Storm.

Storm is a lovely rainwater gray with subtle shimmer.  I had no problems at all swatching this; it was soft enough to deposit a sufficient amount of color without much effort.

We've indulged in options for the face, but now what to wear?   I've got some ideas...

How about an adorable, heather gray, babydoll knit dress?

Or in lieu of leather, why not rock a textured, charcoal wool handbag?

And top it all off with a great set of earrings...

So you see, grays don't have to be the "Debbie Downer" of the color scale!  And with a slew of shades to choose from, there's bound to be a gray that would totally suit your tastes as well as your wardrobe.  They, along with silvers, are just perfect for rocking during this cold winter season.