Beauty-wise, it has sparked viral trends, from the coquette aesthetic to Regencycore and a pivotal conversation about hair oiling and its cultural significance. Now Bridgerton Season 3 has landed, what extravagant looks can we expect? And, more importantly, are there any hidden Easter eggs?
While Season 2 treated us to Queen Charlotte's gravity-defying updos and Edwina Sharma's ethereal glow, Bridgerton Season 3, which launches on Netflix today, focuses on Penelope's story – more specifically the evolution of her character, her journey to womanhood and a will they/won't they love interest.
Of course, the appeal of any Bridgerton beauty look is that it's all about glamour rather than a literal, period drama interpretation of the Regency era. In other words, in the same way that a string quartet will play Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball, Kate Sharma's razor sharp contour is just as relevant for modern cheekbones.
“In Bridgerton, it's not so much character makeup but having the confidence to come into a room and own it," Bridgerton lead makeup designer Erika Ökvist told GLAMOUR, when we caught up over Zoom.
"I've got maybe thousands of Regency pictures that the looks are based on, but then I will marry them with something interesting I saw in Vogue and then I'll make sure that most of the looks are over the top and you could wear it at the Met Gala.”
It's currently dominating TikTok.
So it's hardly surprising that the brief for Season 3's beauty looks was to up the ante even more. “Can we make it more glamorous? Can we make it more sexy, more glossy and more interesting? That was the brief – up everything, as long as it's believable for the character," Erika notes.
New beauty looks for main character energy
Erika describes every Bridgerton character has having a "beauty look DNA”, which she evolves each season. This is especially evident in how she has developed the hair and makeup identity of Penelope, played by the brilliant Nicola Coughlan, from Season 1 to Season 3.
“During the first season, Penelope was a very young teenager,” she says. “Her mother chose what she had to wear and probably told the maids how her hair needed to be fixed. In Season 2 she does what every teenager does: she experiments in front of the mirror.
"Now Penelope has come to a point where she knows she's not going to marry the love of her life because clearly at the end of Season 2 Colin Bridgerton says that he's never going to court her."
But Penelope is smart and knows how empowering a beauty transformation can be. She is also a woman of means. At the first ball in Season 3, the colour of her hair is more auburn than carrot hued and the dress a more daring shade of dark green.
“She has long black gloves on and what I would call ‘Old Hollywood’ glamour for both her hair and makeup," Erika notes. "It's not her, but it's a version of her that is probably better than she's ever been.”
“Penelope has walked away from this really round, very curly kind of girlish look,” she says. “Previously, the eyes and lips had a round shape, you've had curls for her hair and a dress that was always cut just above the boobs. Whereas now she has a waistline and a hair style that elongates the neck and makes it more glamorous.”
The unexpected new season Easter eggs
The real pull comes down to the way Erika uses beauty to tell the story. A key Easter egg is Penelope's new kiss curls. "That tells a lot about the story because clearly she wants to get married, she wants to get kissed," Erika reveals.
Another Easter egg is the tiny diamante detail she wears in the corner of her eyes – again a nod to a longed-for kiss.
As Erika points out, “She's got very sultry eyes now and when she's blinking down, you're looking at her lip, which is very lush. She's Lady Whistledown so she can express herself on paper, but she's also a very clever and creative person. What's to say that somebody that creative can't use it for something visual as well?"
Another character's look that has a more relaxed vibe this season is Kate Sharma, played by Simone Ashley.
“In Season 2, Kate was a no-nonsense character who would just wear her hair in a braid,” Erika explains. “Her main thing was to get Edwina married off nicely. She didn't really have any inspiring thoughts for herself and then she fell in love with Anthony and all of a sudden you can see she has some soft wisps of hair.
“Now that she's married, she's in a secure place and feels happy,” she continues. "When you feel secure, you can look any way you like and not feel threatened. When you come back from honeymoon I reckon you should glow.”
Inside Erika's makeup bag
Unsurprisingly, Erika's attention to detail is second to none. Before filming begins, all of the actors test drive their makeup for 12 hours to see how it fares on their skin. Then, if it gets Erika's stamp of approval, most of the female characters will sit in the makeup chair for up to three hours each day.
“During the same day, we might have three different scenes with this character, and I can't have nine hours of hair,” says Erika. “So we use wigs – and a lot of them for most people [Penelope alone has seven wigs] – which takes anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes, and then the makeup usually takes an hour because we are also doing skin prep.”
To achieve the desired looks, Erika calls upon an arsenal of hard-working products. These include Pat McGrath eyeshadows and blushes, which she layers on, using a cream blush first and then two shades of rosy powder blush over the top to “create dimension”, Erika says.
But the one product that is integral to every look is primer because the makeup needs to “look pristine from eight o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night," says Erika, who is partial to ones by Laura Mercier and Benefit.
What you can be sure of, is that you'll never see the same hair and makeup look twice. “Last season was the the equivalent of Paris Fashion Week when they would have sent their maids to learn how to do the latest hair,” says Erika.
“We don't obviously want them to repeat any looks. So every time you see a lady, she will have a new hairstyle and new makeup, which is super exciting both for us and for the fans. You're like, 'Oh my God, she's got a new lipstick or she's got a new blusher!' I think that's part of the lush experience of seeing this show and also for the people who really love makeup.”
Bridgerton beauty rules for real life
- Skin prep is everything
“First of all, we spend a lot of time on skin prep. I really think facial massage is very good and lymphatic massage. If you do it properly, you can see the puffiness disappear while you're doing it. And also, moisture, moisture, moisture.
"But more than anything else, and I think this is very important for all makeup artists, we've got a responsibility to our cast to protect their skin from the sun with SPF.”
2. Patchwork with primers
“To set down foundation, we don't use just one primer, we could use up to four. We might use one for the nose because we've got different types of pores and sometimes we want to make sure a certain part of the face doesn't shine.”
3. Be strategic with your powder
"In Regency times the face would absolutely have been powdered. But the thing is, on camera it looks dead. You have got to have that natural skin sebum feel. In real life, powder where you want the contouring and not where you want to highlight. If you make that matte, then the highlight that you put above it is going to stand out more."
For more from Fiona Embleton, GLAMOUR's Associate Beauty Director, follow her on @fiembleton.
