Darkish Romance Is the Season’s Hottest Magnificence Development—With Images

We’re within the throes of a romance resurgence: Readers are devouring love tales en masse (romance was one of many most-consumed audiobook genres on Everand and Spotify in 2025), and the style is inspiring big-screen variations (just like the upcoming The Love Speculation, starring Lili Reinhart). Individuals are additionally discovering love in locations they by no means anticipated (like hockey rinks, because of Heated Rivalry).

Sure, studying romance is sizzling proper now in additional methods than one, and it’s exhibiting within the newest magnificence tendencies too. With the much-anticipated releases of Wuthering Heights, Dracula: A Love Story, and Sensible Magic 2, hair and make-up are leaning towards the “dark-romance” aesthetic for 2026. However not like the dark-romance trope in novels and fanfiction, which facilities on taboo relationships and morally grey characters, these appears to be like are much less about shock worth and extra about heightened emotion. They suggest bodily intimacy not directly: tousled hair, a blushy blush, and smudged liner—an excellent, old style romp (or the considered one).

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However the inspiration for the dark-romance magnificence development goes past at this time’s love-story-heavy zeitgeist. Joseph Carrillo, a New York Metropolis-based make-up artist, sees it as a collective want for escapism. “The world is in chaos,” he says. “We’re drained. We’ve been residing with hyper-edited faces and overdone routines for years. Romantic make-up lets folks look human once more. It’s about temper, feeling, identification.”

Devin Toth, a New York Metropolis-based hairstylist, provides that the renewed urge for food for love displays a eager for connection. “Individuals are uninterested in feeling so indifferent,” he says. “They’re able to embrace want and wonder in actual life once more.”

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We’re in our craving period, people. Right here’s the way it’s exhibiting in our hair and make-up.

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Make-up

Darkish-romance make-up isn’t about depth of colour, although it might actually be darkish, when you so want. It’s concerning the temper. “It’s emotional, not theatrical. Darkish, however mushy,” says Carrillo, who sees it as “cheeks flushed however not contoured, and lips that look kissed, washed with gloss or softly stained.”

Margot Robbie’s make-up in Wuthering Heights, by hair and make-up designer Siân Miller, captures this completely. Robbie’s character, Cathy, seems with mushy, balmy lips and noticeably flushed cheeks. “We needed a weather-beaten search for the characters,” Miller beforehand advised Attract. She used Uncommon Magnificence Mushy Pinch Liquid Blush, Advantage Flush Balm, and Pat McGrath Labs Divine Cream Blush on Robbie’s cheeks all through the movie. Robbie’s blush in the course of the press tour additionally has this vibe, however in a extra wearable-for-everyday method.