All About Jennifer Lopez's Super Bowl 2020 Halftime Beauty Look — and the Special Meaning Behind It

If you were on the floor after Jennifer Lopez’s action-packed Super Bowl performance, you’re not alone! The multi-hyphenate star, a.k.a Jenny from the Block, brought down the stadium while showing off her pole-dancing prowess, shaking it alongside Shakira and singing with her 11-year-old daughter Emme. And between all five outfit changes, one thing remained constant — her iconic JLo glow. Luckily, we caught up with her makeup artist of 20 years, Scott Barnes, who broke down her complete beauty look and the special meaning behind it.

“90s supermodels realness” is how Barnes describes the megastar’s Super Bowl makeup to PEOPLE, adding that her look was a nod to legendary photographer Peter Lindbergh, who passed away in September 2019. “We just recently lost him, which was very emotional for all of us who worked with him a lot over the years. So we were thinking of him and the shot [he took] with all the supermodels, the motorcycle jackets, the skirts and boots,” Barnes explains.

What did that mean for the beauty look? “Smoky eyes, a pale lip, a strong Cindy Crawford eyebrow and bronzer,” says the pro, who also had to take her outfit changes into account.

“You can’t just complement the first five minutes. You have to make it work whether she’s got a Puerto Rican flag wrapped around her, or all that silver. So the makeup had to be a really neutral palette that was strong enough that it would stand alone and not clash with any of those outfits.”

To create her look, Barnes lined and elongated Lopez’s eyes with Marc Jacobs Beauty Highliner Gel Eye Crayon Eyeliner in Blacquer. “I swear to you, that liner saved my life. It’s amazing,” he says. Next he used several shades in his Scott Barnes SNatural N. 1 Eyeshadow Palette for her smoldering eye effect.

It took four products to nail her iconic glow: Marc Jacobs Beauty O!Mega Bronzer Coconut Perfect Tan in Tantalize (on her forehead, cheekbones and jawline), and a combination of Marc Jacobs Beauty O!Mega Bronzer Coconut Perfect Tan in Tantric and the shade “Sliced” in the Scott Barnes Sculpting and Contour N. 1 Palette on her nose. On he body, he used his cult-classic Body Bling.

For her high impact performance, Barnes says he went “a little heavier on the powder,” but stressed that less is more.

“I like the skin to look dewy so I don’t want it take that away from it. That’s where that glow comes from. I don’t want to minimize it too much. So I use powder, but I don’t do it to the point where it’s matte.”

Barnes had “a couple of months” to concept the look with his longtime client, and said Lopez is involved in the process “from start to end.” (And unsurprisingly, Barnes says, “she’s always right!”)

“We started conceptualizing right away, and the ideas started to tighten as we started seeing [looks from stylists] Rob Zangardi and Mariel Haenn.”

And while the stadium might have been rocking as the Kansas City Chiefs took on the San Francisco 49ers, Barnes, says their glam sesh was serene. “We don’t have music on, everyone is focused. I’m concentrating, [hairstylist] Chris Appleton is concentrating, [manicurist] Tom Bachik is concentrating.”

For the pro, the pinch-me moment came when Lopez hit the stage. “Suddenly you’re like, ‘it’s happening!'”

And it’s one he’ll treasure forever.

“It’s just overwhelming to be invited to do something so strong and to be a part of something. There’s a lot of gratitude.”