As temperatures drop, the mood of makeup is gradually becoming deeper and more subdued.
If you're already familiar with low-saturation, pared-back looks such as nude, hazy, and subdued makeup, a fig tone is now emerging as a makeup trend once again. It subtly blends rose, plum, and brown.
Fig makeup is not so much a completely new color as a recent low-saturation makeup trend infused with the warmth of autumn. In other words, it belongs to a toned-down rosy family with hints of dried rose, plum, and brown. It is calmer than pink and softer than burgundy. Rather than emphasizing bright, fresh vitality like softly radiant makeup, it adds a subtle flush and a sense of depth, making it a natural fit for fall makeup.
You can capture the distinctive fig tone by applying rose and plum thinly and adding a touch of brown shading around the eyes. Softly blurring the edges of the lips or lightly sweeping color onto the cheeks also makes the look approachable for anyone who finds intense fall shades overwhelming.
Yeji's Calm Fall Makeup with a Rosy Fig Flush
Yeji's makeup shows the softer side of the fig tone. Instead of strongly emphasizing one feature—her eyes, cheeks, or lips—the colors across her face are harmonized in a calm, balanced way.
On her lips, she applied a thin layer of a subtly blended rose-and-plum shade, creating a mood distinct from that of a vivid red lip. Her eye makeup also gains natural depth through brown and rosy shading, rather than becoming dramatic through multiple layers of color.
Matching the eye and lip colors within a similar family, as Yeji does, naturally brings out the tone-on-tone mood unique to fig makeup. Instead of highlighting just one feature, the color flows softly across the entire face, which suits this year's fig makeup trend.
How you apply it also matters. Apply one thin layer of lip color, then gently diffuse the edges with your fingertip or a brush. If you need more intensity, add a little more only to the inner part of the lips. Rather than covering the cheeks with the same level of pigment, leave behind only a light flush to create a soft fig look like Yeji's.
Ningning's 'Grown-Up Fig' Look, Complete with Deeper Eyes
Ningning interpreted the same fig family in a more mature and intense way. In the photo, she creates a deep eye look by elongating and defining her eyes, then adding subdued shading to the lids and lower lash lines. Ningning has also recently been featured for smoky makeup looks using gray and deep shading, showing how actively she embraces defined eyes and muted tones.
She toned down her lips with a rose-brown shade so that her eyes and lips would not compete for attention. The deep color around the eyes and the reddish tint on the lips are both visible, but the look has a different weight from one finished with bright pink or red.
This combination can also be used as a reference for the 'mature woman' mood, which creates a sophisticated impression through restrained colors. Emphasize the lines and shading around the eyes while keeping the lip color low in saturation. Even without applying fig color heavily across the face, the combination of the eyes and lips alone is enough to express the look.
If you want to recreate a mood similar to Ningning's makeup in everyday life, start by narrowing the area covered with eye shading. Use brown as the base, then add a small amount of gray or a deeper shade only to the outer corners. If darkening the lower lash line feels too intense, leave a short sweep of shading just at the outer corners. Finish with a thin layer of rose-brown lip color to emphasize the eyes without making the overall look feel excessive.
From subdued and hazy looks to the 'mature woman' style, this year's fig makeup is best kept calmer. A key trend running through recent beauty looks is a focus on taking the intensity out of makeup. 'Mature woman' makeup, which uses calm colors or anti-blush techniques without overemphasizing the color of the face, follows a similar direction. As the blurred, muted tones seen in recent 'hazy makeup' and 'subdued makeup' have been added to the mix, fig shades have also become softer.
Rather than adding color everywhere, choose where to leave a flush. If you apply rose plum to your lips, keep the cheeks light. If you give the cheeks a fuller fig flush, tone down the lips with a nude shade mixed with brown.
In short, lower the saturation instead of building up vivid color, preserve the natural feel of the skin, and add mood only where needed. Rather than making plum or burgundy stand out as strongly as before, the key is to layer rose, mauve, and brown lightly so they look like a natural flush that was always part of the face.
Fig makeup has returned with the chillier weather. It is a familiar fall color, but this year it has become softer and deeper, reflecting current beauty trends. Still, there is no need to make every part of your makeup darker just because it is fall. Simply add a touch of dried-rose color between familiar beige and brown shades. That is one way to begin this season's fig makeup.
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
