There's always a temptation to wear vivid eyeshadow colours.

The rainbow-bright pots on make-up counters act as vials of temptation – luring us all to believe that, like the model in the poster, we can rock a bright-blue-and-green combination.

In reality, colourful make-up (eyeshadow or otherwise) is a bit of a mystery to most of us. What do we do with it? How do we apply it? Why does it make us look like David Bowie, after a messy night out, circa 1972? The questions are endless, the answers elusive.

Make-up artists tell us it's easy to "apply a pop of colour to your eyes", as though there is a universal definition of the word "pop". So we try: we sweep our brush over some bright-green eye number and steadily apply it to our lids, blending as we go. Yet still the results look like something a child created with a set of pre-school paint pots.

So what's the alternative? Beige, though easy to wear, is not the most exciting colour. Browns and greys are also wearable, and less likely to make you look like Coco The Very Scary Clown. This autumn, though, I'm planning on having a gold adventure. Perhaps it's got something to do with all the medals Team GB won at the Olympics, or the make-up spotted on some of the autumn/winter 2012 catwalks (Christian Dior opted for fluttering long lashes and a spot of gilt-edged shadow), but gold will be my new colour.

Here are my favourite golden eye products: Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay-in-Place Shadow Creme in Golden Sands (£17.50); Illamasqua Pure Pigment in Incite (£15.50); Tom Ford Eye Colour Quad in Golden Mink (£62); and Stila Eye Shadow in Prize (£12).