Eye Shadow Palette Generator

Pick four anchor colors for the corners of the palette and this tool automatically blends the remaining five shades between them — giving you a seamless, cohesive 9-color eye shadow palette. No makeup expertise required.

Build Your Palette

Click any of the four corner squares to pick an anchor color. The five center squares fill in automatically as you choose your corners.

Quick Presets

Pick color

How the Blending Works

The generator uses color interpolation — the same math used in CSS gradients and design software — to calculate the exact midpoint between any two colors. Here's the step-by-step process:

Start with a 3×3 grid

Nine empty squares arranged in a 3×3 grid. You'll only fill in four of them directly — the tool handles the rest.

Pick your four anchor colors

Click each corner square to choose your anchor colors. These four values anchor the entire palette. Choose colors you love — the blended shades between them are often just as beautiful.

Blend horizontally

The top-center square is calculated as the exact midpoint between the top-left and top-right colors. The same blend happens for the bottom two corners. The result is a smooth horizontal gradient across each row.

Blend vertically

The same midpoint calculation runs vertically: the middle-left square blends the top-left and bottom-left corners, and the middle-right blends the top-right and bottom-right.

Fill the center

The center square is the midpoint of the two horizontal midpoints (top-center and bottom-center). Mathematically, this is identical to averaging all four corners — every path leads to the same center color.

Adapting Your Palette

Using 6 colors instead of 9

If 9 shades feels like too many, it's easy to trim the palette down without losing harmony. Remove any one full row or one full column and the remaining six colors still form a perfect gradient. Popular approaches:

Drop the middle row for a flat 2×3 eyeshadow palette
Drop the middle column to get a stronger contrast between left and right
Keep only the corners + centers for a bold 4-color look

Choosing effective anchor colors

The anchor colors you choose have the most influence on the final result. A few strategies that work especially well:

Light-to-dark diagonal — place a highlight color at one corner and a deep shadow shade at the opposite corner
Warm-to-cool gradient — anchor warm tones (gold, copper) on one side and cool tones (taupe, gray) on the other
Monochromatic — pick four shades of the same hue for a seamlessly blended look. Use the monochromatic color generator to find your four starting shades

Eye Shadow Color Theory

Understanding color relationships helps you build palettes that feel intentional. The same principles that guide graphic design apply directly to makeup:

Complementary Contrast

Colors opposite on the wheel create the most striking contrast — think purple liner with gold shadow, or blue with copper. Great for a dramatic, eye-catching look. Use the complementary generator to find contrasting pairs.

Analogous Harmony

Neighboring hues on the color wheel blend naturally and create a "wearable" look. Warm autumn tones (rust, gold, brown) or cool femme tones (pink, mauve, lilac) are classic analogous eye looks. The analogous generator gives you 5 neighboring hues at once.

Monochromatic Depth

One hue in multiple tints and shades creates a sophisticated "tonal" eye look. Use a pale blended shade on the brow bone, a mid shade on the lid, and a deep shade in the crease. This generator is perfect for this approach — choose four shades of the same hue as your anchors.

The Smoky Eye Formula

A classic smoky eye uses a very dark anchor (black, charcoal, deep navy) blended into a lighter neutral. Set Top Left and Bottom Left to near-black and Top Right and Bottom Right to your highlight shade. The left column becomes your outer corner, right column your inner corner.

Warm vs. Cool Palettes

Warm palettes (reds, oranges, golds, browns) tend to make brown and hazel eyes pop. Cool palettes (purples, blues, silvers, cool pinks) are especially striking on blue and green eyes. Try a diagonal from a warm anchor to a cool anchor for a palette with tonal variety built in.

Skin Tone Pairing

For fair skin tones, muted and pastel anchors often read more naturally; deeper jewel tones work particularly well on deeper skin tones. Regardless of skin tone, always include at least one neutral (ivory, taupe, or matte brown) somewhere in your palette for blending and transition shades.

More Color Tools

Once you have your palette, explore these related tools to dive deeper into color theory or generate entirely different kinds of palettes:

Complementary Color Generator — find the exact opposite of any anchor color for maximum contrast
Analogous Color Generator — discover 5 neighboring hues that naturally flow together
Monochromatic Color Generator — build a tint-to-shade scale from a single hue — ideal for tonal looks
Color Contrast Checker — check how readable any two palette colors are against each other
Random Color Generator — generate unexpected starting colors for inspiration
Color Name Finder — find the official CSS name of any color in your palette
Image Color Palette Generator — extract a palette automatically from any photo or inspiration image