This season's makeup is all about the glow

What M·A·C artists call “nu-ance” is a pretty wash of colour on eyes and lips.

Better put those tweezers away, and while you’re at it, say goodbye to the super-sculpted Kardashian brows. This spring and summer it’s all about bushy “teenage” brows, which are big news on and off the runways. After all, we haven’t been told to leave those strays alone since Brooke Shields was going commando in her CK jeans.

But according to Caitlin Callahan, senior makeup artist at M·A·C Cosmetics, that’s just one of the many fun new beauty trends we can expect to be rocking over the next few months. While some, like the bushy brow, are totally unexpected, others are more or less just updates or twists on what we were already doing last year. The faux sun-kissed glow, for example, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“Of course, there’s always a bronzing trend—always,” says Callahan, who recently sat down with the Straight at the Opus Hotel to talk about what’s hot and what’s not. “But the difference this year is it’s about using the right primer and having super-glowy skin, so not having tons of powder all over because primers, BB creams—all of these things—are so prevalent in fashion right now.”

With this in mind, you might want to start by applying some of M·A·C’s Complete Comfort Cream ($40 for 50 ml) to nourish and hydrate your skin, then maybe dab some Strobe Liquid Lotion ($40 for 50ml) over upper cheekbones to highlight them and then blend Cream Colour Base in Mid-tone Sepia ($22 for 3.2 g) under the cheekbones to contour them.

Once you have a high definition base to work with, there’s a couple of ways to go—one is a super natural look that Callahan is calling “nu-ance”.

“That’s the idea of choosing a colour or maybe a metal—silver or gold—and putting it on really, really sheerly,” she says. “It’s not that pop of colour. It’s just really light washes of colour on the eye and the lip.…Think of watercolour as opposed to oil paint.”

To finish off the look, apply a minimal amount of mascara and don’t bother curling the lashes or applying eyeliner. Everything should be barely there.

The other look that’s all the rage for the upcoming season is pretty much the polar opposite. M·A·C artists are calling this one “sci-chedelic”. It’s basically taking last year’s hit of bright, bold, pop art–inspired colour on the mouth to another level with ombre lips. Imagine a hot-pink outer mouth becoming a blood-orange centre. Another option is to keep the lips neutral and play up the eyes with electric-blue eyeliner and matching mascara. So over all, “sci-chedelic” is a bit more futuristic a tad less Andy Warhol–esque than what we were seeing with the 2012 neon palette.

In any case, whichever look you choose, as long as you start with a naturally highlighting base that brings out your best features without looking cakey, you’re golden, because as Callahan notes, the idea of putting on your “face” is totally passé.

“I think in the past we spent too much time trying to fix things by concealing,” she says. “Now I’m sitting down with my clients and really studying their faces and asking, ‘Okay, what do you love? Let’s accentuate that and let’s make everything else look really healthy, awesome, and beautiful with a little bit of bronzer and some primer.’ I think it’s a healthier way of looking at makeup.”