Every fall brings a new mood to the makeup bag, and this one is darker, messier and far more fun. I hope you are packing away the peachy blush and glossy pink lips, because this season has other plans for your face. The smoky eye changes its wine list, blush either slides down the cheek or loses its pink entirely, and the lipsticks we borrowed from 1990s sitcoms are back in rotation. Here are the thirteen looks worth trying this autumn, from the easy wins to the ones that take a little nerve.
Photo: Olga Dann, Katie Daley
Burgundy Smoky Eyes
The smoky eye has spent years in brown and black, and this fall it changes its wine list. Burgundy is the shade of the season, blended across the lid and into the crease the way you would build a classic smoky eye, with a deeper berry pressed along the lash line for definition. The color warms up brown eyes, makes green and hazel eyes look almost luminous and gives blue eyes a striking contrast. If a full burgundy lid feels like too much, start with your lashes.
Photo: Polina, Tatev Saghyan, Ebrar Dilan Akkaya, Pinterest
Windswept Cheeks
For several seasons, blush climbed toward the temples in pursuit of a lifted, snatched effect. The brand new placement starts on the apples of the cheeks and blends down and outward. The look began with Margot Robbie‘s Wuthering Heights weather-beaten flush in red and berry tones, and the internet quickly named it Brontë blush.
Months after the film’s release, the trend has reached its peak, and makeup artists such as Vilde Feste and Hannah Rosie Bennett have made the downward flush a regular feature of their work. Choose a cream formula in red or berry, press it onto the cheeks with your fingertips and let it look a little undone.
Content: Vilde Feste, Tania Rat Patron, Pinterest, Vilde Feste
Aussie Girl Glam
For anyone who is not ready to say goodbye to summer, Aussie Girl Glam is the perfect makeup. Popularized by Australian makeup artists including Tanielle Jai, the look is built almost entirely on bronzer, which warms the perimeter of the face, sweeps across the lids in place of eyeshadow and even softens the lip line. The result makes you look sun-kissed and lets your own features lead. Keep the base sheer, conceal only where you need to and choose a cream bronzer that melts into the skin.
Photo: Tanielle Jai
Brick Red Is Back
One lipstick defined the 1990s, and it is back for fall. It sits somewhere between red and brown, leaning warm toward brick and rust rather than cool berry, and it looks most at home against a camel coat and falling leaves. Jennifer Aniston has said that MAC‘s Paramount, a reddish-brown she described as a “browny brick,” was her go-to shade while filming Friends, and Courteney Cox’s Monica leaned into deep wine tones throughout the series. Friends makeup artist Robin Siegel reportedly paired Aniston’s lipstick with MAC‘s Spice lip liner, which remains one of the most copied combinations of the decade.
Photo: Pinterest, Landyn Alexa, Pinterest, MUA Nata
Smudge It Like Gucci
You know how we do a smoky eye these days, with skin-toned transition shades, a soft brown underneath and nothing that strays above the brow bone? Yeah, no, forget all of that. This version uses black and only black, smudged around the eyes and finished with a heavy coat of mascara. The look comes straight from Demna’s first Gucci show for Fall/Winter 2026 in Milan, Italy, where makeup artist Sam Visser sent models, including closer Kate Moss, down the runway with sooty black eyes.
Your makeup should look like Kesha waking up in the bathtub, the morning after a night that clearly went well. Run a kohl pencil along the upper and lower lash lines, smudge it out with your fingertip and press black shadow on top without blending it into a gradient. Leave the edges uneven, because the messier it looks, the more it belongs to this season.
Photo: Elcheva Karina, Courtesy of Gucci, Courtesy of Gucci, Tanielle Jai
Brown & Aqua Combo
Think of it as mint chocolate chip ice cream for your face. Brown, the neutral of the season, meets cool aqua, and the two balance each other perfectly. You can blend them together on the eyes, with a soft chocolate smoke through the crease and aqua liner along the lash line, or split them up by wearing aqua on the eyes and a brown lip to ground it.
Photo: Polina, Pinterest, Charlotte Roberts, Tashi Rodriguez
Arabesque Eyes
Inspired by Arabic eye makeup, the arabesque eye is all about drama drawn with precision. Line the inner corner with a fine wing, extend a second wing beyond the outer corner and frame the eye with full, sultry lashes. Finish with a wash of shimmer across the lid, ideally in gold, so the eyes catch every flicker of candlelight. This is the look for autumn weddings, evening plans and anyone who believes eyeliner is a love language.
Snake Makeup
This trend takes its cue from nature’s most iridescent surfaces, such as beetle shells, dragonfly wings and snake skin. Duochrome eyeshadows, glosses, liners shift between two colors as the light moves, flashing from green to purple or from copper to teal with every blink. Apply duochrome shadow with a fingertip for maximum shift, or trace a single line of duochrome liner along the upper lash line for a subtler flicker. Keep the rest of the face quiet and let the color change do the talking.
Photo: Pink Mint, Pinterest, Aleksandra Kosygina, Pinterest
Saturate Those Lashes
This fall, lashes arrive in saturated shades of teal, turquoise and electric cobalt, often paired with a matching line along the lower lash line or the waterline so the color frames the entire eye. Makeup artists heading into the season are already pairing liner with mascara for a monochromatic finish. The trick is to let the color do all the work, so keep the lid bare or washed with a sheer neutral, skip black liner entirely and coat both the upper and lower lashes generously until they look bold and slightly separated.
Anti-Blush Trend
If pink cheeks have started to feel like a uniform, this is your way out. The anti-blush trend, which took over social media in September, retires the classic pinks and peaches in favor of grungier, more niche shades such as beige, taupe, terracotta and toasted brown. You do not even need a blush to try it, because a matte eyeshadow, a sculpting powder or your bronzer can all go on the cheeks instead. Skipping cheek color entirely counts too. The only rule is that nothing on your cheeks should be pink and sweet.
Photo: Vilde Feste, Tanielle Jai, Klaudia Jozwiak, Pinterest
The Twilight Filter
This fall’s coldest palette lives somewhere between fog and frost. Picture gray melting into blue, gray deepening into plum and gray blooming into violet and lilac. Imagine that your makeup has the filter from Twilight laid over it, muted, cool and slightly haunted. Wash a cool gray across the lid, deepen the outer corner with plum or violet and keep the skin pale and luminous so the shadow looks like weather rather than decoration.
Photo: Pinterest, Mica Salgado, Kim Naylor, Pinterest
