It's a look that needs very little introduction because a) it's so good, and b) you've already seen it on Instagram. As follows, I present: The Chanel Cruise Eye from 2016.
First, groom your brows to your liking. My only advice is to use a brow pencil two shades lighter than your natural brow color to fill them in. Make sure the pencil is nice and sharp and trace the bottom contour of your brow with light strokes, starting from the inner brow moving outward. To get it to look as natural as possible, stay close to the line where your natural hair grows. Be exact with your shape—or be bold and exaggerate the lines by softly building upon the strokes. Some models sported more extreme brows than others—some were even left natural. I'm wearing a stenciled-out brow that's very futuristic. Wearable? Everything is, if you're bold enough. But you can just do your brows as you normally would. Choice is yours, because while these are certainly face-framing brows, the real work of art lies in the surface area of your eyelids.
To get literal-looking doll eyes, start with a soft and delicate rose shadow in your crease, then use the same eye shadow brush and layer over a little bit of a warm peach color. This will look like a soft sunset dancing on your lids. Be sure to ring these colors underneath your lash line as well. Lastly, take a pearly/slivery eyeshadow and stamp a V to trace your tear ducts. Connect this inner-corner highlight into your waterline using the same powder with a finer brush. Apply a coat of mascara to the top and bottom lashes, and proceed with falsies.
Trim a full strip of lashes into a small rectangle shape. You can buy them pre-cut, but it's seriously so easy to do yourself. Take a pair of tweezers, dip your strip into lash glue, and when sufficiently dry, pop on the lower lash line—dead in the center.
You'll want to highlight before you get into blush. Swirl your favorite kind over your cheek bones and temple. Then, take a Q-tip and apply the same highlighter over your Cupid's Bow. Sufficiently highlighted? If not, add more—this is Chanel, after all. Follow up with a cream coral blush applied in the hollows of your cheek.
And because the rest of the face is soft and muted—albeit impeccably illuminated—the resulting lip look needs to pop. A matte fuchsia-red lipstick is the way to go, but if you don't have your perfect shade, you can always blend two lipsticks together. Line your lips and feather them in with a blue-based red, then follow up with a cherry and fuchsia lipstick and blend the colors together. Your own custom Rouge Coco lip color, insert name here. Take this face to dinner—drinks afterward, let's not have it go to waste.
—Stacey Nishimoto
Photos 1-2 courtesy of the author and 3 courtesy of Chanel. Read all of Stacey's makeup looks in The Selfie.