The fall 2026 makeup trends arriving from New York and Paris runways share one clear directive: choose your strongest feature, amplify it, and let everything else quieten down. Whether that means a swipe of bold colour on bare skin, sculpted lashes over a clean face, or a wash of mineral shadow across the lid, the logic is the same. Pick your superpower. Commit to it.
What the Runways Are Telling Us About Fall 2026 Makeup Trends
The backstage story is as instructive as the editorial direction. At Saint Laurent’s autumn/winter 2026-27 collection, Numéro reports that under the guidance of Pat McGrath, models’ faces were emphasised with smoky eyes and a sensual, carefully drawn mouth: two features in deliberate contrast, each given its own weight. Over at Collina Strada, artist Dick Page took a more restrained approach, according to Coveteur: a little silver placed only on the curvature of the cupid’s bow, accentuating the bow-lip shape without flooding the face. Precision over volume.
The Connor Ives show went further into archive territory. Dominic Skinner, director of makeup artistry for MAC UKI, drew from femme fatales of the ’60s with an ’80s twist, applying what Who What Wear describes as garage-door eyeshadow, generously applied all over the lids and up to the brow bone. Bold, structural, and unapologetically maximalist. And at Sergio Hudson, models arrived in two parallel cat-eyes that added dimension and edge without relying on a single trace of lip colour.
Across these collections, the common thread is intentionality. Nothing is accidental, nothing is simply habit.
The Techniques Behind the Key Looks
On the lips-only front, Los Angeles makeup artist Sarah Walsh saw the look throughout fall and winter runways. ‘Skin was left almost bare, just a bit of coverage, a little dew to highlight the high points, and some mascara,’ she says. ‘It’s a high-contrast look that exudes confidence and power.’ The colour direction is open: a bright poppy red for presence, a deeper shade for something more guarded. New York City makeup artist Christian Briceno favours berry stains over opaque darks, noting that ‘the stain category has evolved. Newer formulas come in oils, serums, gels, balms, and soft-matte textures. I like that the person’s natural lip colour participates in the final result.’
Briceno’s prep for a deep stain begins with exfoliation and a thin layer of balm, blotted before application. ‘Deep stains can collect in cracks, around the inner rim of the mouth, and on any area that is drier than the rest,’ he says. Apply at the centre of the lips and move outward, then wait. ‘Many stains become noticeably deeper as they settle.’
For eyes, the mineral wash is the quieter alternative to a full smoky build. ‘A smoky eye is usually built through several shades, depth in the crease, and darker definition around the lashes,’ Briceno explains. ‘With a mineral wash, one nuanced colour creates the entire mood.’ Slate, pewter, mushroom, greige: one shade applied across the mobile lid, blended upward, skin still visible beneath. Palm Beach makeup artist Tim Quinn broadens the palette slightly: ‘Think espresso, chocolate, olive, plum, and charcoal, and everything blended, so there are no harsh edges.’
On lashes, Briceno describes a shift in thinking: ‘The lash is becoming a design choice rather than a standard final step.’ The effect is either bare or highly sculptural, with negative space doing as much work as product. A first coat of mascara lengthens and defines without weighing; the wand tip then places additional product to create deliberate groupings, joined at the ends with clean tweezers.
Balmy sheen replaces allover glow. Briceno describes it as ‘a fresh, conditioned-looking complexion with moisture and reflection placed only where it benefits the face.’ The cheekbones, temples and outer planes catch the light; the forehead and the sides of the nose do not. Atlanta-based makeup artist Tisha Thompson puts it plainly: ‘This looks and feels like real skin because you’re cheating balance and dimension.’
Blush is replacing contour as the primary tool for facial structure. New York City-based makeup artist Joseph Carrillo sees berry, rose, nude and soft terra-cotta tones being blended higher on the cheeks and diffused outward: ‘You can create shape with blush. It gives the face structure without looking overly sculpted.’ And the skin-first approach, championed by New York City-based makeup artist Priscilla DiStasio, asks the same question Dick Page posed at Collina Strada: where does coverage actually earn its place? ‘You can see freckles. You can see dimension. You can see actual skin,’ DiStasio says. ‘The complexion is even and polished, but it doesn’t feel masked.’
The detail that unifies the Saint Laurent drama and the Collina Strada precision is the same one running through every tip above: one considered decision, executed well, is more arresting than a full face applied without intention. That is the season’s actual brief.
