AP photo/Christian Dior Beauty A Stylish Move five-color eyeshadow palette.

Guide to wearing purple makeup

Purple is the “it” color for fall, but head-to-toe purple runs the risk of resembling Barney the dinosaur — not exactly a chic look.

If you’re wearing purple on the body, Pati Dubroff, Dior Beauty’s international makeup artist, suggests just a hint of purple on the eyelid, using a sheer wash of a pearlized lavender shadow. “You’ll get the same tonality, but it’s not saying, ‘I’ve matched my purple.’ ”

Stick to a rosy beige color for the lips, or, if you want to double up on trends, try red lipstick, another key look this season. “The bright vivid tones play off bright purple clothing,” Dubroff says.

Be sure the red has blue undertones, not orange ones. Of course, another option is to wear purple makeup, not purple clothes.

If that’s the case, Dubroff says you can treat a deep, dark purple, such as a plum color, to be a neutral. “It’s right in there with brown, black and gray. It was an unsung hero but it is getting more noticed.”

She adds: “It makes green eyes look unreal, blue eyes look unreal and brown eyes look like a beautiful copper.”

It’s OK to wear an occasional swipe of a more electric shade on the eyes, perhaps using an eye pencil at the lash line.

She’d recommend women with fair skin use bright purples or light lavenders, while darker skin looks best with an eggplant. But, she notes, that stripe of shocking violet on the eyelid surprisingly works on almost anyone. Dubroff steers away from purple lipstick unless she’s working on a model for a magazine or advertising shoot. “It’s so rare to use in real life,” she says.

Samantha Critchell,
AP Fashion Writer

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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