THE ERA OF PRECISION BEAUTY
Not a trend, not an aesthetic; a point of view.
Written by DARIAN SYMONÉ HARVIN
Illustration by DONALD ROBERTSON
As I pulled out a seat at my neighborhood café and cocktail bar, I immediately noticed my bartender-turned-friend, Robi Khalfani, in a different state, aesthetically. When she fully turned in my direction, I caught it: a gold metallic eyeliner, only in her waterline. Soft, subtle. It was something on her face I had never seen before, and it was certainly new.
"Are you wearing gold eyeliner?" I asked, using my curiosity as a way to spark the conversation. Mind you, this is a woman I mostly see with barely any makeup on.
She was experimenting, she told me. Sometimes she wore a pop of color around her waterline on special occasions, but rarely in the everyday motion of life. When I asked if she was wearing anything else, she shrugged and said, "Barely." She looked up as she thought. "I mean, I have on a little blush, but that's about it. It's something I'm trying out." Robi had considered a single element, one that let her experiment easily with makeup while getting to know her face at the same time. This method, getting to know your face by stripping away, nothing fighting for attention, is one lane on the road of precision beauty–a way of doing makeup that's showing up everywhere from the red carpet to, apparently, my local bar.
But what is precision beauty, exactly? Are we, for now, finished with the years of “clean-girl” makeup, which created the illusion of a face laid relatively bare? How do we define what appears to be next? Is it minimalist, maximalist, or perhaps something else altogether?
“Precision beauty is makeup with intention,” Sam Fine, master makeup artist and author of Fine Beauty—one of the holy grail books on precision beauty—says, simply and succinctly, like the precision method itself. But there’s another angle, too: Precision as less of a look, and more of a makeup philosophy.
Take Zoë Kravitz’s winged eyeliner, groomed brow, and brown lip with sheer, barely-there complexion coverage. Nothing is fighting for attention—it manifests as one, sharp deliberate look. Alexa Chung, for example, has done liner with a base that lets the skin shine through for over fifteen years, and that consistency is the point. She knows what works for her and doesn't chase the trend of the moment.
“I think of precision beauty in the same way you might think of a capsule wardrobe,” says makeup artist and VIOLET GREY alumna Ashley Maxine. “Rather than leaning into a particular trend, I'm really thinking about what is going to work for that person on that given day.”
There is no face map. There is no step-by-step tutorial. It could be sharp lines that take you three months to master with light foundation. A red lip, touched up around the border with a tiny brush, and no blush. Or blush placed on a specific part of your face. It's built on self-knowledge instead of trend, knowing your face well enough to make a few confident choices and place them exactly—with practice, of course. It's not how much you're wearing, but how detailed and focused you can be in the process of developing your own taste. It is makeup as editing, rather than accumulation without intention. That's the process. It’s more of a point of view than an aesthetic.
I decided I needed to find out what precision beauty looked like for me, and chose my eyes as my playground. Aside from mascara, I've always been quite intimidated by eyeshadow and eyeliner, but to be fair, I had never put in true practice. My frequent routine consists of a light coverage foundation, bronzer, blush, mascara, and maybe a shimmer in the inner corner of my eyes. Whenever I get my glam professionally done, I view it as the chance to rock the eyeliner look of my dreams. But, I've always adored a slightly smudged, brown, taupe color, tight around the waterline and slightly buffed out. I quite love my dark under-eyes, and I like the idea of highlighting them in a way that feels intentional and elevated.
Enter the Fara Homidi Essential Eye Compact Trio No. 61, which holds three colors. I chose Rumi, a taupe-y brown, to experiment with a moody look that wasn’t too intense for daytime. Using Kraum’s new Micro Angle Brush, I started with my lower waterline, paused, then worked up to the outer corner of my eye, bringing it all the way over to my inner corner before buffing it out with the Micro Taper Brush. Kraum’s brushes, handmade in Japan, have about a three-inch handle with a double-crimped metal ferrule, which holds the fine bristles in place. Having such a small brush in hand made the process feel like painting. I had to pay attention, and it felt almost therapeutic.
The look felt moody, but not too dark. Attention was drawn toward the eyes as I barely had anything else on, aside from a sheer, nude lip gloss and light foundation. I set my face and left the house feeling expressive— that I was someone for whom beauty and makeup were part of my lifestyle.
Next, I tried a more pigmented, intense color from the new makeup line, Atlas Atelier, whose POV embodies the idea of precision; edited glamour. A “vivid lip, a radiating flush across the cheeks, a jet-black flick of line,” says their founder Michelle Duncan. Inspired by the nightlife scene in Paris during the art-deco era, and 80s New York.
When I picked up the powder-to-cream Le Blush, I applied it first to my cheeks before intuitively picking up a Kraum brush to smudge it onto my lids for a monochrome look that was both soft and impactful. The next week, I focused on eyeliner. The Victoria Beckham Satin Kajal Liner in Cinnamon is a creamy, pigmented pencil that, instead of applying it directly to my face, I used with the Kraum Micro Square brush to experiment with different placements of eyeliner. I normally never inch above the waterline, but this time, I decided to draw a precise line.
The hidden benefit I found in practicing this expression of beauty is how calming the approach can be. When I sat down, I knew that preparing for detailed work required me to move slower, and I needed that time.
The word precision can allude to there only being one right way to do makeup. But let's be honest: There are no real limits in beauty, nor should there be. “Give yourself room to play and explore,” Ashley says. “Precision doesn't have to mean perfection. You just have to have a specific direction in mind, right? And enjoy wherever that journey takes you, embrace it.”
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Darian Symoné Harvin is an accomplished beauty reporter and influential speaker. As a former social media editor, she uses her journalism and curatorial skills to craft distinct narratives on beauty at the intersection of politics and pop culture. On top of her successful newsletter BEAUTY IRL, Darian has interviewed the most relevant artists today, from the most viral TikTok stars to Billboard #1 artists to Oscar-winners for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Cut, and Allure. Darian is a conversation starter and magnet for community.
