If it feels like everyone can’t stop talking about Wuthering Heights that’s because it’s true. From the very first peek we got of the trailer back in September to the film’s official release date today, the costumes, the music, the romance and the yearning between Margot Robbie‘s Cathy and Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff has society in a chokehold. Sure, director Emerald Fennell’s highly-anticipated adaptation may be a bit controversial to literary purists, but that’s not stopping us beauty editors from wanting to know every detail behind the “fever dream” gothic glam created for the film—specifically the “Moorland makeup” and “Brontë Blush” looks.
The casts’ flushed cheeks are a character in their own right. In the beginnings of the film, the “pomegranate girl” look was the inspiration that represented the wildness and isolation of the characters’ harsh surroundings—how windswept your cheeks would look like after running around the Moors; as the story plays out, blush becomes a symbol of opulence. Siân Miller, the hair and makeup designer for Wuthering Heights, confirmed that the character Isabella, played by Alison Oliver, wears Kylie Cosmetics Hybrid Blush in Winter Kissed ($22), which she calls the “perfect baby doll pink,” a fitting hue for Isabella’s intense naiveté when it comes to Heathcliff.
The importance of blush to the visually stunning Wuthering Heights also transferred to the red carpet of the film’s global premieres. Makeup artist Pati DuBroff said as much when divulging details about Robbie’s LA look: “It’s all about the blush.” To get said blush to “pop,” DuBroff kept Robbie’s foundation, eye shadow and mascara “really soft,” then blended two shades of CHANEL’s N°1 de Chanel Lip and Cheek Balm ($50)—Red Camellia and Berry Boost—together on her hand before picking up the custom color with a blush brush. Then, and this is key, DuBroff creates a “windswept flush” by lightly sweeping the cream blush on the apples of the cheeks and just below, flushing it outwards. Then using a foundation brush, she blends it further to diffuse any harsh edges, followed by the “tiniest wisps” of loose powder over the cream blush. Finally, CHANEL’s Rouge Noir Confidence Eyeshadow and Blush Palette‘s sienna shade (in the lower right corner) is applied again to the apple of the cheeks and below in “short feathery strokes.”
