5 French-Girl Beauty Rules I Learned at Isabel Marant

From ELLE

Backstage at Isabel Marant, models spent more time having their foundation, blush, mascara, and other makeup left over from earlier shows removed than applied. "She's not a makeup person at all," said makeup artist Lisa Butler, referring to the bare-faced designer herself. Similarly, hair stylist Damien Boissinot did very little to alter the models' existing texture. Nails were not even acknowledged! But there's more to quintessential French-woman vibes than doing nothing-otherwise we'd all wake up cooler than a Cottilard. Here, five French beauty rules we picked up backstage at Isabel Marant.

1. Enhance your natural hair

Rather than create one uniform look, Boissinot riffed on each girl's natural texture. There were waves, curls, slicked center parts, and low ponytails. No two styles looked exactly the same-like, you know, real women.

2. Spend time on skin care

Butler prepped Gigi, Taylor, Lineisy, and all other models' skin with a mixture of Sanctuary oil balm ("You squeeze it out and it's a bit opaque, but as you rub it, it goes clear and becomes really oily"), Embryolisse, and Elizabeth Arden 8-hour cream.

3. Color correct, don't conceal

While regular concealer would've hidden under-eye circles sufficiently, Butler used Ben Nye's impossible-to-find Neutralizer Creme Crayon (a tattoo cover-up pencil) to knock out blueness instead. "It's the color, and also the fact that it's a pencil," Butler explained. "You can get in there; I wish people did more of them because I think they're really easy."

4. Don't curl your lashes

Butler eschewed every makeup artist's stock "look wide awake" tip of curling eyelashes. Which makes sense, because there's nothing nonchalant, i.e. French, about perky eyes. In fact, she skipped eye makeup altogether after Marant vetoed brown pencil smudged into the lash line.

5. Style brows with gel, not pencil or powder

If there's one thing French women don't do, it's over-filled Instagram brows. "We brush the eyebrows with a little bit of Eyeko Gel," Butler said. "It's transparent and I use it all the time. I love that stuff to thicken them up a little bit."

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