By Trisha Chawla
The wedding season calls for lots of colour and glitter, and we know that you always turn to the runways and your favourite celebrities for some inspiration. The makeup trends for the best time of the year are all about taking tried-and-tested methods up by a notch.
Keep reading to find out the new way to wear your eyeliner and incorporate pink eyeshadow into your look, even when it’s not your school’s annual fancy dress party. We promise you, these trends are going to be all over your social media feed real soon, so get ready to rock them first.
Pedal to the metal
Hold your eyeshadow brushes! This season, the smoky eye gets a glistening, futuristic upgrade with extra colour and shimmer. Made popular by Pat McGrath—celebrated makeup artist and the ‘mother’ of makeup—the new-age take doesn’t involve the chunky glitter that you’d wear to Coachella. It’s all about shades that glide on like molten metal and leave a foil-like sheen on your lids.
Get the look: Apply your eyeshadow as you would for a regular smoky eye—a neutral colour as the base and a darker shade on the outer corner of the eye. Pick a metallic eyeshadow in gold, silver or cobalt blue and use your fingertip to apply it to the centre of the lid for a halo effect. This will also ensure that you get maximum payoff and opacity with the pigment.
Spin your eyeliner around
We’ve traditionally been covering up and taking the attention away from the under-eye, but this runway-favourite makeup trend wants you to do otherwise. Spotted at Dior, JJ Valaya and Tarun Tahiliani, the underliner requires flipping everything you know about eyeliner upside down by creating a cat-eye on your lower lash line. Yes, you read that right - think of it as an edgy take on kajal that helps cover up the effects of your late-night K-drama binge with massive statement-making power. Are you sold on it yet?
Get the look: Use a smudge-proof kohl pencil to draw the line and layer it with a powder eyeshadow in the same shade to keep it in place for longer. Start safe with neutral colours like grey, black or brown or experiment with bold hues of emerald and cobalt - let your creative and experimental side out!
Stay in the pink
From style icons like Shay Mitchell to millennials like Khushi Kapoor, beauty-savvy celebrities all over the globe have a new favourite colour. Barbie pink is back in style, but the contemporary version is a far cry from its dainty, feminine cousin, à la Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. 2021’s pink is a symbol of power: sweep it across your cheeks, eyes and lips all at once. The more, the better.
Get the look: Apply a salmon or dusty mauve blush on your lids with a fluffy brush. To intensify the colour further, you can also prep your eyelid with a concealer that’s lighter than your skin tone to make the colour pop. Apply a generous amount of the same blush on your cheekbones and finish with lipstick in a similar colour. There you have it – a easy pink monochrome look!
Leave them on red
From non-sticky gloss to vintage brown pouts, this year has been all about bringing back nostalgic beauty trends. And the classic red lip is no exception. Instead of a perfectly lined crimson pout like Taylor Swift, try a worn-in look that is diffused around the edges. Powder matte or souffle textures that give your lips a cushiony, soft look will be your go-to to ace this trend. And don’t be confined to true blue reds–bricks, corals and tangerines are all part of the new lip norm, so go ahead and experiment a little. We know you want to!
Get the look: Apply your lipstick on the centre of the lip and smudge with your fingertips or a lip brush in an outwards direction for a diffused look.
Glow up with cloud skin
‘Cloud skin’ is where dewy meets matte to create a soft, diffused texture that mirrors Instagram’s Paris filter in real life. By using a mix of hydrating skincare and layering makeup products in velvet and luminous finishes, the skin appears in soft focus sans any harsh lines. Now you’ll always have selfie-ready skin, in real life too.
Get the look: Start by prepping your skin with a hydrating moisturiser and follow it with a glow-boosting primer. Then, layer with a velvet-finish concealer or foundation. Apply a finishing powder on the high points of your face to get that blurred effect with a pearlescent glow.