FASHION Magazine

We must be very used to seeing Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj in outlandish outfits on the red carpet, because we totally missed the fact that they had almost identical hair and makeup at the American Music Awards. (And pink hair is usually easy to spot!) While most people live by the beauty rule of wearing either a bold eye or bold lip, Perry and Minaj love making a statement with hits of bright colour on both. Thing is, when you’re an international pop star, it totally works.

But, for the rest of us, it’s a little harder to pull off the “heavy-handed cat eye and bright lips” combo. If you’re going to try it, do so when it’s event appropriate: meaning, not for dinner at your boyfriend’s parents’ house, or when you’re chatting up the boss at your office holiday party. Instead, break this style out when you’re going to be around Minaj and Perry types—that is, at a crazy concert or one of those parties that just seems to last all night long.

Ready to give it a try? We’ve rounded up our favourite liners and bright lipsticks to help you get this look »

See our suggestions for how to get Taylor Swift’s red carpet look »

Confession: We adore Taylor Swift too much to mind that she’s fond of repeating the same hair and makeup at every red carpet event. Hey, we get it—if something works, why change it? At last night’s 2011 BMI Country Awards, however, Swift did slightly switch up her typical winged-eye-and-bright-lips look, by adding a warmer shimmer to her eye makeup and skipping the red lips for a muted pink-plum shade instead. (Don’t the colours complement her purple sequin Emilio Pucci mini-dress perfectly?) Swift’s curls are also more relaxed than we’ve seen before, but still styled in her classic one-sided wave. This is definitely a look worth copying for upcoming holiday parties.

It’s a trend we’ve been trying to ignore for a while, but Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi keeps trying to make it happen—the duckbill nail. Dubbed as such because of the way the nail gets wider at the ends, it takes a long afternoon at the salon to achieve this extremely fake nail look. Seen as recently as yesterday, at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards, we’re hoping the duckbill trend doesn’t have wings and will stay in the Jersey Shore forever. But red carpet after red carpet (who, exactly, keeps inviting her?) Snooki is there, showing off her bedazzled, duckbill’d tips. There are about a thousand adjectives to describe why we hate this look, with “artificial” and “acrylic” topping the list. Actually, we’d maybe even like the airbrushed art she’s wearing (in a Katy Perry sort of way) if it was paired with a more naturally shaped nail.

Vote now and tell us what you think »

To be fair, loose curls are nothing new, but there’s something so simple about the red carpet hair of both Selena Gomez and Amanda Seyfried. Gomez, at the Fulfillment Fund Stars Gala in Beverly Hills, can sometimes overdo it with extensions and pageant-worthy curls, but here she’s achieved a more natural, broken-up wave. Her stylist used a 1-inch Enzo Milano clipless curling iron, wrapping big sections of the hair horizontally. Seyfriend’s style (done for the premiere of In Time in London) is slightly more polished, but still avoids that “fresh off the curling iron” look—the rest of her hair is sleek, leaving the focus on a few key ringlets around her face.

From Todd Lynn to Emma Stone, blue is back—and we couldn’t be more excited. Yes, blue eyeshadow doesn’t have the best reputation. It’s the light-wash denim of the beauty world: you automatically think of everyone doing it wrong (case in point: your babysitter in the ‘80s) before you remember just how good it looks when you do it right. Blue, after all, is the most flattering colour for any skin tone. Stone is the perfect case in point—she’s been spotted on many red carpets in shimmering sapphire shadows.