Painted Feelings: 6 Avant-Garde Beauty Looks Layered with Emotion
From high-shine metallic tears to sculptural lip contours, makeup artists Celine Cabildo and Zee Ghielmetti break down the season’s most evocative, emotional beauty trends.
From quiet melancholy to euphoric bursts of color, makeup is far more than simple self-expression—it is emotional storytelling. Below, we look at the most captivating, avant-garde beauty looks that wear complex feelings directly on the skin, decoded by the visionary artists who created them.
Tears, but make them metallic.
Andrea Genota
Makeup artist Celine Cabildo’s high-shine take on emotional beauty pairs a dewy complexion with silver-streaked “crying eyes.” Her secret? A custom blend of metallic eyeshadow and clear lip gloss in a thick consistency.
Purple highlighter captures a mood—dreamy, delicate, or daring.
Andrea Genota
To execute this look seamlessly, makeup artist Zee Ghielmetti suggests utilizing it as a multi-dimensional finish with this a pro tip: “Use it as a blush topper for extra dimension. If you’re skipping blush, blend it closer to the undereye for a seamless lift.”
Forget the obvious overlined lip.
Andrea Genota
Forget the obvious, aggressive look of a traditionally overlined lip. Ghielmetti introduces a subtler, more sculptural take: “Use a cream contour to create a shadow around the lip. It’ll enhance shape without needing you to drag the lip liner too high from the lip.”
No need to feel blue—just wear it.
Andrea Genota
There is no need to feel blue when you can wear it with intention. Moving far away from the one-dimensional ’90s take where colored mascara stood alone on bare lids, Cabildo redefines the shade with sophisticated layering—a complementary shimmer underneath, letting the hues melt together.
One look, two ways to wear the glow.
Andrea Genota
One look, two entirely distinct paths to achieving an ethereal skin glow. Depending on your mood, choose between an airy whisper of light or a high-impact sheen.
Cabildo favors translucent, duo-chrome pigments that catch the light while letting skin peek through—best applied with a fluffy powder brush for an airy finish.
Ghielmetti layers powder metallics over cream formulas for a hyper-reflective sheen, packing it on using the fingers for max impact.
Written in the stars—or painted on with feeling.
Andrea Genota
This look is written in the stars, but painted on with deep feeling. To place a celestial accent that naturally enhances the gaze, Cabildo points to the architecture of the bones.
To create a star that shines in all the right places, Cabildo suggests mapping it along “the natural contours of your face, like the inner corners of your eyes that connect to your nose. Pack on glitter in the center and diffuse from that point.”
Makeup: Celine Cabildo and Zee Ghielmetti. Hair: Mong Amado and Glenda Eugenio of Toni & Guy Philippines. Fashion styling: Steven Coralde of Qurator Studio. Models: Ashanti of The Audacity and Mika Reins of PMAP Nails: Analyn Sartocas of I Do Nails.
Photographer’s assistant: Julius Albao and Kieffer Carascal. Makeup assistant: Alyssa Bugna. Hair assistant: Lea Luna and John Alrey Valencia. Styling assistant: Niña Cuyana of Qurator Studio.
Frequently Asked Questions
Makeup artist Celine Cabildo creates her signature metallic crying eye look by pairing a dewy complexion base with silver streaks beneath and at the outer corners of the eyes, simulating the path of tears. Her technique uses a custom blend of metallic eyeshadow mixed with a thick-consistency clear lip gloss, which gives the streaks their high-shine, dimensional finish rather than a flat metallic effect.
Makeup artist Zee Ghielmetti recommends treating purple highlighter as a multi-dimensional finish rather than a single-use highlight. Applied over blush, it adds dimension to the cheekbone. When blush is skipped entirely, blending it closer to the undereye area creates a seamless lifted effect. The key is using it as a layering element rather than placing it in isolation at the top of the cheekbone.
Instead of dragging lip liner above the natural lip line, Ghielmetti recommends using a cream contour product to create a soft shadow around the lip perimeter. This creates the illusion of an enlarged lip shape through shadow and light rather than hard lines, resulting in a more sculptural and subtle enhancement that reads as more modern and less aggressive than traditional overlining.
Cabildo moves away from the isolated colored mascara look associated with the 1990s by pairing blue mascara with a complementary shimmer product underneath the lashes on the lower lashline. Allowing the shimmer and the blue tones to blend together creates depth and visual sophistication, shifting the look from nostalgic to contemporary editorial.
Cabildo recommends mapping face glitter along the natural contours of the face rather than applying it broadly. Her specific technique: identify the inner corners of the eyes where they connect to the nose bridge, pack glitter densely at the center of that point, then diffuse outward from there. This placement follows the bone architecture and concentrates the glitter where it will catch the most light naturally.
