Thanks for the replies and support, ladies. As far as the lighter (inner eye) to darker in the crease, I've seen on this site that that's not necessarily the standard formula. There are multiple ways to place shadows on the lid, for example:
one shade all over the lid
another shade on the bottom half of the lid
another shade in the crease
another shade on the corners
blend blend blend
and somehow it comes out looking great!
When I try this, I end up looking like a hot mess! Sometimes it ends up looking like I have one one or two colors when I've tried to layer four!
@ Retro-Violet - don't worry, I stand out too from time to time. There's this purple/pink/smokey look that I like to try, and to me, I think it looks good (after about 1 hour of effort). And when I say I stand out, I mean all of the way OUT! Then I'm like, is it me or them who don't have a clue? LOL.
It must boil down to the shape of my eyes. I try pretty hard to achieve the cat-eye look on the corners, and it's just not working for me. I blend up and outwards, and still, it's hard to get those corners to go up. *sigh* practice makes perfect. I won't give up yet, I'll just keep on practicing and hopefully things will get better.
Which leads me to ask: for those of you who are good at this, how long did it take before you officially knew what you were doing and could achieve a good look/concept consistently?