Lately I’ve been visiting places popular with tourists, like Myeongdong and Gwangjang Market. They’re streets I know well, yet now and then I’m struck by the curious sense of having become a traveler myself. I hear a mix of other languages more often than Korean. The Hangeul signs, old alleyways, and everyday scenes we walk past without a second thought become someone else’s reason to visit Korea. And as a Korean, I’m grateful that they came.

Come to think of it, trends work much the same way. They don’t appear out of nowhere; they begin with a fresh way of looking at what has always been around us. Someone discovers something special in what we’ve grown too familiar with to notice, and that discovery becomes a culture, then a taste, then a trend. The same goes for art. In truth, our everyday lives are not separate from art. Architecture and music, clothing and design, and even the makeup and hairstyles we do every day all carry artistic elements. However, consciously expressing it in your own way is a different story altogether. As you get dressed, choose your cosmetics, and change your hairstyle, you gradually build a taste of your own. Rather than copying a trend wholesale, you start looking for ways to better show off your own charms, and that’s how ‘being yourself’ finally takes shape.

This season’s haute couture collections left a similar impression. Each fashion house set out its own identity and worldview more clearly than ever. Bold artistic experiments played out one after another on the runway, yet the makeup was surprisingly close to real life. Instead of over-the-top styling, many looks favored touches anyone can interpret and apply in their own way, such as the light of the skin, the mood of the eyes, and the vitality of the lips. In the end, a trend isn’t something you copy — it’s something you bring to life. In this column, I’ll look at how the trends discovered in the 26 F/W haute couture collections came to life on real faces, and how you can discover your own beauty within them.

1. Hey, You Can Do It Too: Semi-Glow Skin

The skin keyword running through this season’s F/W haute couture collections is ‘refined semi-glow skin.’ Tamara Ralph left a soft sheen over smooth, polished skin for an elegant couture mood, while Dior paired a natural skin finish with restrained eye makeup for a luxurious sense of balance. Balenciaga also kept the skin finish clean and simple against its structural clothing, letting the quality of the base itself carry the mood of the entire look. What they share is clear. Not radiance that turns overly slick, but a finish with smooth texture and a restrained sheen. This is the skin that stands for quiet luxury.

Traveling for global training sessions, I’ve found that no matter how much countries and cultures differ, the image customers want is remarkably similar. These days, many customers’ needs have shifted from ‘I want to be pretty’ to ‘I want to have an aura.’ I think that’s also why keywords such as ‘grown-up makeup’ and ‘makeup with an aura’ have stayed consistently popular on YouTube lately. So where does that aura come from? Lip color and eye makeup matter too, of course, but in the end it all has to rest on good skin. With good skin, you’re already halfway done with the look. That’s why luxury makeup focuses more on the skin finish than on flashy color.

K-Beauty came to be loved in the global market for much the same reason. Skin with a healthy inner glow has gone beyond being a trend to become the image that represents Korean makeup. Likewise, what international customers want to recreate when they see Korean women’s skin isn’t heavy makeup but a finish that looks like glass skin. This kind of skin is different from radiance that’s merely slick. The key is light reflecting softly along healthy skin texture, and what matters is a natural sheen that makes skin look as though it was simply good to begin with.

Personally, this semi-glow finish is my favorite, too. However, as someone with visible pores, I had a dilemma. Use a lot of glow products and my pores would stand out; switch to matte products, and my makeup would often sit on top of the skin. So for a while I’d strike a balance by using a matte foundation over a glow base, or, the other way around, a glow foundation over a matte pore primer. The go-to combination I eventually landed on is a glow foundation paired with HERA Reflection Skin Glow Powder.

At first, I wondered how a powder could possibly preserve an inner glow. Once I actually tried it, though, I understood why it’s described that way. Applied after a hydrating base and a glow foundation, Reflection Skin Glow Powder tidies away only the excess oil, while the radiance that seems to rise from within the skin stays exactly as it was. Remarkably, the skin looks much brighter, and its texture is smoothed out, too. Best of all, even after powdering, the skin doesn’t dry out and looks fresh from a facial.

As an artist, I don’t think the most important thing in glow makeup is the first application. Most products deliver perfectly satisfying radiance the moment they go on. The real difference shows up over time. Most customers who struggle with glow products tell me they stop reaching for them because their makeup breaks down quickly or starts to look shiny as the hours pass. In the end, what matters is fixing power. Reflection Skin Glow Powder solves this problem by controlling oil while leaving the radiance intact. Because it creates a sheen that looks like well-cared-for skin rather than an overdone high-gloss shine, it also ties in naturally with the Healthy Luxe Skin keyword.

[How-To] with HERA Reflection Skin Glow Powder

My glow-skin routine is simple. I apply sunscreen, a hydrating boosting base, and a glow foundation, in that order. As the final step, I pick up just a small amount of Reflection Skin Glow Powder and lightly sweep it over the centers of the cheeks, the forehead, and the outer edges of the face. That way, the radiance stays and only the excess oil is tidied away. Above all, I think the real test of a good product is whether it lets anyone achieve the look they want, whatever their technique. This one dispenses just the right amount through its patent-pending fabric mesh, so anyone can get a natural, clump-free finish.

This season’s skin finish is healthy and luxurious, built on smooth texture and a soft sheen rather than excessive radiance. It’s also the finish HERA proposes through its Reflection Universe. In the end, aura begins with the skin, and good skin isn’t only something you’re born with; makeup can very much create it, too.

2. Soft-Blurring Eye Makeup

Across the collections, eye makeup centered on calm shading and linear accents rather than flashy color play. Aelis used cool pink, rose beige, and soft berry tones for eyes that were soft yet moody, while Ashi Studio worked in taupe, gray, and brown shading for sophistication that was sexy without being overpowering. Elie Saab likewise added defined lashes and a subtle eye accent over clean, polished skin, drawing the gaze naturally to the eyes.

What particularly sets this season apart is the way it builds mood through contrasts in texture and depth rather than through a wide range of colors. The palette leaned mainly toward cool pinks, rose beiges, soft berries, and almond shades, and overall the focus fell noticeably on shifts in lightness and texture rather than saturation.

Two other points, extension-effect lashes and eye-area care, mattered just as much as building up color. For the lashes, the approach that stood out was making either the upper or the lower lashes long and defined. As for the eye area, applying color to dull skin around the eyes can leave them looking hollow. So I’d recommend trying COSRX 5 PDRN Collagen Vitalizing Hydrogel Eye Patch, which can brighten a dull eye area and add hydration and firmness, too.

[How-To] with ETUDE My Petite Palette

With the ETUDE My Petite Palette eyeshadows, don’t try to pile on a lot of color at once. Use so little that you can barely tell whether there’s any on the brush, and build the color up in thin layers. Every eye is different, so instead of setting a fixed boundary, simply follow the natural contours of your eye. If that still feels tricky, close your eye and apply the base color to 60% of the lid and the accent color to 40%, and that natural gradation will appear. Then use ETUDE Curl Fix Skinny Mascara to lengthen your lashes as though you’d had extensions. Wipe a little of the formula off the tip of the dense brush, and you can extend your lower lashes naturally. Lower lashes are a cheat code for making the midface look shorter, so I highly recommend doing them!

Everything said, this F/W season’s eye makeup is less about drawing crisp lines and more about building depth within soft, blurred edges. Contour adds sculpted dimension, and muted fall shades of pink, brown, and soft orange round out the look, together making the mood even more mature and luxurious.

Brown shades in particular make the overall impression calm and polished, whatever they’re paired with, so they balance out daring fashion looks such as those on the couture runways. With that in mind, it’s fair to say the eye makeup trends from these collections have strong commercial potential because they focus on colors and moods anyone can try.

3. Sheer Lips with a Soaked-In Flush

The lip trend in these collections centers on a dewy gloss and a pop of color that pulls together the mood of the whole face. This season, coral-reds and dried-rose shades stood out in particular, and many lip looks played up an elegant, feminine mood. Rather than a sharply defined lip line, the signature was layering, with color seeming to bleed naturally from the center of the lips outward for a refined, sensuous effect.

Choosing a lip product is harder than it sounds. If you want natural color payoff, pigmentation falls short, and it doesn’t seem to last long; high-pigment products, on the other hand, often leave the lips standing out from the rest of the face. Fall browns and mauves are especially tricky to pull off, since they can easily read as dull or heavy.

The answer to this dilemma is HERA Sensual Shine Tint. Thanks to the clear gloss typical of a tint and its layering effect, even deep colors go on effortlessly, and the formula delivers vivid color payoff and a natural sheen at once. It also reduces the dryness and tight, shrinking sensation tints often cause. Its rich moisturizing oils are another strength, keeping lips hydrated for up to 12 hours.

[How-To] with HERA Sensual Shine Tint

Because this product delivers vivid color payoff and gloss at once, a single swipe of the applicator, with no double layering, is enough to cover your natural lip color. For more dimension, apply a thin layer of the base color over the whole lip, then the accent color to the inner lips. Finish by tapping and blending it out with a cotton swab or your fingertip.

The charm of Seoul Beauty lies in using vivid color while keeping it in harmony with the rest of the makeup. Drawing on its Seoulista persona, HERA has consistently introduced color stories that capture the spirit of Seoul, such as Seoul Rose in Sensual Shine Tint and Seoul Red in Rouge Classy. I’d love to see this category establish itself as the lip trend that represents K-Beauty, growing into a ‘Seoul Couture Lip’ franchise that carries Seoul’s own refined sensibility and mood.

4. Subtle Shimmer-Metallic Cheeklighter

Another standout in skin makeup was the ‘cheeklighter,’ a cheek-and-highlighter hybrid that adds natural flush and radiance to clean skin at once. At Iris van Herpen, a halo-like skin finish harmonized with the surreal clothing. Elie Saab, too, worked in a pinkish strobe highlight to give the face vitality and dimension.

For a while, the highlighter trend focused on imparting radiance to the skin, but lately it seems to be evolving to take in the natural color of blush as well. The key is to keep the skin as clean as possible while bringing out natural vitality and sheen.

To that end, many looks layered light-reflecting particles, such as chrome metallic pigment, thinly over the areas light hits first, like the cheeks and the bridge of the nose. The soft, reflective gloss, like colored pigment beaded on the surface of water, gives a modern feel.

[How-To] with espoir Strobing Highlighter

Metallic pigment works better swept broadly over an area than dabbed on in small amounts as an accent. Generally, cream/liquid formulas suit dry skin and powder formulas suit oily skin, but espoir Strobing Highlighter, made from pressed jelly-textured strobing dough, is a game changer that lets you create a range of tones and moods, whatever your skin type.

In short, the line between blush and highlighter is gradually blurring. The idea is to build soft radiance into clean skin alongside the flush, creating a healthy, lively impression. That’s why the trend looks set to lead into a ‘Flush Glow’ category built around designing flush and light together on clean skin.