70s Makeup Looks That Work Right Now | Sequins at Noon
Vertiginously effortless summer beauty looks
Coral Heat
The color that looks like you’ve been somewhere very, very warm.
Copper at the lid, amber at the crease, a lacquered lip the exact shade of a ripe nectarine — this is not a subtle look, darling, and it was never meant to be. Sweep a warm copper shadow across the entire lid with your fingertip — fingers are warmer than brushes and that’s exactly the point. Press a deeper rust into the crease and smudge outward without mercy. The lip is the payoff: choose a gloss one shade darker than your skin looks in July, and press your lips together just once.
Stardust & Satin
When the dress does the talking, the face has to match every word.
Long, clean waves. Skin like a lit candle. And a body draped in something that catches every light in the room — this look is about restraint in all the right places and abundance in all the others. Keep the eye bare and luminous: a swipe of champagne shadow at the lid, nothing more. The drama is in the hair, in the gown, in the way she carries herself past the bar without looking back. A nude lip, barely-there mascara, and skin so moisturized it practically sighs.
Fern & Flash
Somewhere between the garden and the disco — and dressed for both.
This green has no business being this glamorous, and yet. It starts at the lash line in a deep, almost-wet fern and builds toward the brow bone where it softens — just barely — into something lighter, something that catches the light when she turns her head. The flash comes from a single press of gold at the very center of the lid: one fingertip, one dab, directly on top of the green while it’s still fresh. Line the upper lash line in black, smudge it. Rosy blush swept upward, nearly to the temple. And a lip so neutral it’s almost an absence — because the eye is already saying everything there is to say.
Malibu Blue
The only thing hotter than the California sun is the woman lying underneath it.
Pacific blue — not shy, not soft, not safe. This is the color of the ocean at noon packed onto the lid, pressed right up to the brow bone and blended nowhere near enough. The trick: do the eyes first, completely, before you touch anything else on your face. Apply sky-blue shadow with your fingertip in a single press and repeat until the color is almost shocking. Sweep pale gold across the brow bone. Finish with a red-coral lip — not pink, not nude, red — and let the contrast do something scandalous to your face.
Mimosa Morning
Harvest came early this year and it got straight into your eyes.
Yellow eyeshadow is not for the timid — which is exactly why you should wear it. Press a warm daffodil yellow straight onto the lid, then pull a sweep of flushed pink along the lower lash line and blend the two where they meet at the outer corner. The trick is the blush: apply it higher than you think you should, right along the cheekbone almost to the temple, and dust it back toward the hairline. A barely-there lip — the palest pink, almost nothing — keeps the whole thing from tipping over. Pair with something that grows.
The Bronze Hour
This is what a perfect afternoon looks like the morning after.
No mascara. Barely any foundation. Just skin that looks like it has spent two weeks doing exactly what it wanted to do. The bronzer is the makeup here — sweep it where the sun would hit you if you were tilting your face toward it right now: the forehead, the bridge of the nose, the tops of the cheekbones, the chin. A sheer copper gloss on the lips, pressed on with two fingertips. Tousled hair you haven’t quite gotten around to fixing. This look is not careless. It just wants you to think it is.
Pretty Dangerous
From Valley girl to Candy girl.
Pink lashes are the kind of beauty choice that makes a room stop — just for a second, just long enough. Load mascara onto the upper lashes in three coats: the first in black, then two in the most brazen rose-pink you can find. While the last coat is still slightly tacky, press the tips of the lashes together to get that starbursted, slightly undone effect the 70s did better than anyone. Dust the lid in the palest shell pink. A slick of clear gloss, a sweep of pink blush, and hair so long and blonde it’s practically its own event.
As God Intended
À La Naturel. The most difficult look in the world, and nobody must ever know that.
Here is the secret about the no-makeup look: it takes more time than anything else in this story. Start with skin so well-moisturized it needs nothing — and then give it something anyway: a sheer, skin-tinted base pressed in with your palms rather than a brush. A single coat of brown-black mascara. The faintest suggestion of taupe along the upper lash line, smudged immediately with the same fingertip. Lips in their own color, just glossed. And then the hair: long, warm, moving.
