4 knock-out makeup looks to try whatever your gender

For spring/summer 2022, makeup trends are going wild. It feels like everyone is done doing bare face or natural after lockdowns and social distancing. Now, more is more. At the season's runway shows we saw artistic face paints, embellished eyes and the comeback of Y2K glossy lips and bleached eyebrows.

In my previous beauty article, I wrote that there are a million reasons why people wear makeup. In my opinion, if you want to wear and explore makeup, then there should be no question if you can or should, no matter what gender you identify as. Someone might say to me “but why would you want to wear makeup, makeup is not for boys”. My simple answer is: why the hell not?

Recently, I got to transform myself and try four different beauty looks inspired by the SS22 runway beauty trends with help of a Swedish beauty team: makeup artist Linda Andersson and hairstylist Linus Johansson.

Related: Genderfluid beauty through time, history and mainstream media

According to Andersson, the makeup industry is definitely going in a more inclusive direction. “I think that from the social media aspect, brands really have to start looking at what a consumer needs and wants,” she says. Andersson believes smaller brands are championing inclusion the best, citing new London-based makeup brand The Unseen Beauty as a case in point, but that big brands have also taken steps towards inclusion. “Chanel did the Boy de Chanel collection targeted at male customers and Gucci Beauty is doing more inclusive beauty campaigns where you see faces that we haven’t seen in beauty campaigns before,” she notes.

With this in mind, I decided to offer up my face for four fantastic looks to fit the season.

For SS22, blush is not just a little pop of colour on the apple of your cheeks, it's blended on the face like contouring. The makeup artists at shows such as Anna Sui and Valentino were not holding back on their use of products.

In our shoot, we went for a romantic renaissance-boy kind of a look. We chose to go with makeup from Simone Rocha and Rejina Pyo and big earrings by Swarovski. Blush is something I have only recently added to my beauty bag and I personally love a more creamy or liquid blush, which I also add to my eyelids and lips.

For this look, the key was obviously the blush and Andersson chose Lip + Cheek cream blush by Milk Makeup which she applied on the top of the cheekbone and blended with a brush toward the corner of the eye. “Dab a little colour on your lips with your fingers and blend,” Andersson explains. “The key to this look was a natural and beautiful dewy skin. I prepped the skin with Augustinus Bader The Cream and Gucci Sérum De Beauté Fluide Soyeux Primer, followed by Gucci Foundation, which got a beautiful natural finish: I only applied it with a blending brush on areas where it was needed.” Another way to achieve this bold punch of colour is to layer your pigments, I would suggest sweeping Chanel's Joues Contraste on top of Valentino's Eye2Cheek cream.

Andersson encourages anyone going for this look to keep as much natural skin on show as possible, “which will create a dewy and natural finish”. For the shoot we opted for a Valentino base and a concealer by Chanel.

Ethereal makeup looks were ruling the runway at Tom Ford, Lanvin and Valentino for SS22: a little bit of Lord Of The Rings, with a hint of Winx Club and Euphoria. For this look, we went all in on fantasy.

The makeup artist Linda Andersson and I were sending each other inspiration pictures before the shoot and I screamed when I saw her reference of the Galadriel, “the 'Lady' of the woods of Lothlórien" from Lord Of The Rings. I got to live my elf queen fantasy in glittery metallic makeup styled with a royal-like look and crown. And the first step to achieve this look, a glow base. Andersson opted for Chanel's sheer highlighting fluid to achieve this effect.

Related: Is upside down eyeshadow the must-try makeup trend of the season?

For the makeup, Andersson used silver tones created with various Byredo products, but I also loved the dark burgundy lip she created using Gucci lipstick for the look. As she mentioned on the shoot, “It’s like you ate some berries in the forest” – very Scandinavian.

“As the inspiration was very fairytale, I wanted to add the clumpy lashes to balance out the glittery magical silver eye makeup,” Andersson explains. To create an eyelash like this she prefers using a lot of mascara and a lash groomer brush. “Just get a lot of mascara in the lashes and you can also tap lashes together so they become clumpy. The key is a lot of mascara.”

She also recommends starting with one layer, letting it dry, and adding more layers until reaching the thickness you are after.

Brands like Simone Rocha, Paul & Joe, Rodarte and Ann Demeulemeester went for face paint for their SS22 runways. I know that Andersson does face paint very well and I was so excited about this look.

First, she prepped my skin with Dior Backstage Primer and Foundation and some powder. I remember her then looking at my eyes for a while and saying, “with face paint you just have to go in, right in.” She started making big strokes all over my eyes. “Don't be scared just go for it. You just have to feel what feels good – it's a creative process.”

Related: Chanel’s Couture beauty look is a signal of the end of perfect makeup

She started with creamy colours and finished the look using Byredo and YSL eyeshadow palettes. “These were a bit metallic and created more depth and I only applied these to some points,” she explains. “It makes the paint strokes more alive with a different texture mixed in.”

This brought me back to my childhood and Easter. In Finland, we have this Halloween kind of tradition on Easter when we go from door to door to collect chocolate, dressed either as a witch, bunny or chicken. My mom used to paint mine and my siblings' faces for the chocolate hunt and I remember it being my favourite time of the year. Later on, my mom told a story of a family friend being concerned that “your kids will be so embarrassed when they grow up and see the pictures from Easter”. Well, look at me now.

This look was definitely one of my favourites and it only took around 20 minutes for Andersson to create. The makeup didn’t feel icky at all and I would have loved to keep it for the whole day but we had to move on to the next look. The look was quite bold and I would love to wear it for an event or another shoot. For a more everyday look, I would maybe go for just two or three colours or different shades of the same colour.

I have thick, quite bushy, dark brown brows, so I have been tempted to see how I would look with a bleached brow for a long time. The bleached brow trend comes and goes, but at the moment it is definitely back again. So many shows had models with bleached brows from Richard Quinn and Peter Do to Valentino, Gucci and Alexander McQueen. When we started bleaching my brows I must admit I was a bit scared but also beyond excited.

Andersson started the bleaching process by applying vaseline around the brows to protect the skin. “For the bleach, I used a blue bleaching powder Wella Blondor mixed with 3 per cent and 6 per cent Wella Welloxon developer. “Brush the hair in the opposite direction to get into the root and layer over the whole eyebrow,” advises Andersson. “Then wait for 10-20 minutes to develop depending on the thickness of the brow.” I bet mine was quite thick as it took around 20-25 minutes for mine to get nice and blonde.

Andersson’s tip is to keep checking and when the brow has reached the bleached colour you're hoping for, wipe the product off with a wet cotton pad. “I like when the brow matches the skin colour,” she says. Once we reached the shade we liked, I rinsed it out and shampooed my brows with an Olaplex silver shampoo for a slightly cooler tone. When I looked in the mirror, at first I was surprised at how different I looked and how the bleached brows transformed my whole face. Nevertheless, my reaction was 100 per cent positive – it is that transformation that excites me about makeup and beauty.

Related: Everyone was invited to the 2022 Met Gala, except Kendall Jenner’s eyebrows

I really loved the bleached look but this time we ended up colouring them back to my natural shade as I was flying to Finland the next day for a job and I didn’t want to risk shocking the client who booked me and my brown bushy brows. But bleached brows, we will meet again for sure.

If you want to try the bleached brow but are too afraid to go straight in with the bleach product, you can also create the look using only makeup. “You can either block your brows out using Elmer's Glue or you can use a light concealer and tone them down,” Andersson suggests. She used to assist a lot of fashion shows in London, Milan and Paris where bleached brows were a big trend in 2015 and she herself is a big fan of the look. “It's such a powerful way to transform a face. If you have a bleached brow, you can go quite simple with the rest of your makeup – a bleached brow and a red lip or a bleached brow and a creamy brown eyeshadow and beautiful skin are simple and beautiful,” she says.

The bleached brow created a kind of a blank canvas on my face. We started with a more natural look with glowy skin, achieved with Colekt Reload Face Balm, Reject Face Oil, along with Chanel's Baume Essentiel to create luminous and dewy skin, slight blush and glossy lips and later on changed for a more dramatic look and added a graphic liner...

Related: These emerging Nordic brands are challenging gender norms

At the end of our session, I asked Andersson what would she say to someone who would like to start incorporating makeup into their life and looks but doesn't know what products to use. She recommends starting from a good, natural base. “I love when your own skin can shine through,” she says. “Foundation and concealer should be light and fresh and only cover what's needed. That way it will always look editorial and modern.”

Once you master the skin and base, there are no limits. “Be playful and have fun. It’s only makeup – you can always take off if it doesn't feel right.”

Andersson also hopes that in the future our acceptance of beauty will change. “I hope that one day if you fancy wearing a blue face to work, people would just look at it and be like ‘oh that's cool’, instead of passing judgement. And that applies to all genders.”