The 1960s rocked brown. Here we are in 2025 and ladies, brown is back. Like a blitzed rendition of I Can’t Get No Satisfaction while wearing bell bottom pants and a wide collared brown shirt, the proverbial color of mud rolls in as a badass color. Can you dig it, man? Not to overplay the 70s verbiage but, reader be warned, slang is slopped all over this article. Besides not getting any satisfaction, I can’t help myself taking advantage of slang. Sorry.
To add to the new brown obsession, Pantone made Mocha Mousse its color of the year – which is weird, in my opinion. Why take brown and call it Mocha Mousse as if that makes it any easier to deal with? Many of you adore brown, but personally, it’s not my favorite in wardrobe or makeup. It is such a drag to look dead, and no color does that like brown. Having said that, there are some easy tricks to look chic, not catatonic, and we are headed there with a cool head and a makeup brush.
Browns and Death: How to Look Chic not Catatonic
Many of you haven’t changed your brown eyeshadow palette in, like, 20 years, and others are terrified of brown and can’t imagine wearing it! For both sides of that far out coin, brown needs to be approached with a modicum of panache and knowledge of how color works.
If you look at the Mocha Mousse palette from Pantone, you will see the gradient of colors that can be used in both makeup and clothing. As an aside, I want to be on the board that chooses the names of the colors. I would have had a lot more fun with them like promoting more “Chocolate Martini” type titles, but that’s just me.
Hide the Brown Spots to Wear Brown
Did you know that brown can be made by mixing equal parts of the primary colors red, green, and blue? What this means in practicality, is that there is no way to flatter brown. For example, orange enhances purple when worn together – they are what’s called complementary colors. Brown just sits there alone and complains because no one makes him (her?) look any better. You can use other colors in conjunction with brown, but nothing makes brown look less, well, brown.
How this plays out in makeup is that if you have any sun spots or brown discolorations on your skin, you have to cover them or they will look worse. There is no way to distract from brown, it’s a stick in the mud (pun intended).
To further this analogy, getting out of the mud means making your skin look more even, which is why I am using a matte finish CC cream called PrimeSkin CC+Cream specially formulated to cover brown spots and discoloration. It is a cream-to-powder that sits lightly on the skin and offers coverage without setting in fine lines or looking cakey. It’s a delicious blend of skin care (vitamin E and bioferment serum) and makeup that makes our model Starr’s skin look far out!
As an aside, the foundation does not contain SPF, which I prefer. Many of you would rather have both foundation and SPF in one product; however, when you mix the two, both are subsequently minimised, therefore I recommend applying them separately.
Contour/Bronzer Brown Debacle
A word on bronzer or contour. Because we have so many browns going on, be sure that your bronzer or contour doesn’t match the color of any age spots or discolorations. You want to head toward a warmer, skin-kissed shade in order to head off the flattening effect of the browns. We are not here to be a bummer brown wall!
Brown Eye Makeup Without Slinging Mud
The Mocha Mousse palette (as shown above) is helpful as it offers some guidance on how to layer a bland color like this without looking like you slung mud on your face. Of course, choosing the right colors is more about your skin color than anything else, so here are a few suggestions. Start with a shade either one shade darker or lighter as the base. Then carefully add the crease color, liner, outer liner, and highlight (if you want to use that many colors) each being a shade darker than the previous.
If I just overwhelmed you with detail, don’t worry, Starr and I demonstrated the technique in the video. Having said that, the same goes for wardrobe choices. I’m not going to focus on the wardrobe, but I think a suggestion or two is warranted given the whole “death” idea of the color brown.
Depending on your skin color, adding a bit of rose (like the Baltic Amber in the palette) or some green, (like Safari) can really liven things up, especially around your face. Maybe try a scarf with multiple shades of cream and bronze to bring attention to your face, especially if you have brown hair, skin, and top (also known as brown overload).
With Starr, I used Nebula on her lid, and then layered her eye shadow starting in the outer crease and blended it for a graduated look. After that, I used a water resistant Mocha eyeliner pencil that blends easily and doesn’t smudge on mature eyes (my favorite). I finished with a wonderful dark brown mascara that lengthens and thickens, while simultaneously bringing out her blue eyes. The outcome is a chic, smokey, and slightly dramatic look.
The Trouble with Brown Lipstick on Older Women
Brown lipstick can look, well, muddy. My recommendation here is to go with a warm (peachy) or cool (pinky) brown lipstick in order to avoid it looking dated. Depending on your skin color, go one to two shades darker or lighter, with a slightly darker lip liner pencil, but not too dark or risk looking funky in a bad way.
A note about the Mocha Mousse palette: the palette leans toward a rose tint as opposed to a peachy tint. Having said that, on Starr, the peach works better so that’s where I went. If you prefer roses, then that’s just marvy. On the boob-tube you will see all variations of this so do what works best for your coloring. In the world of makeup, there are no hard and fast rules, just cherry picking what floats your boat!
Also read, Martha’s New Look: Brown Smokey Eye Makeup Tutorial (for Beginners).
Basic Brown as Your Bag:
Is brown your bag? To quote again from the Rolling Stones, is it a “gas, gas, gas”? Okay, maybe I overdid the slang, but if you dig it then give me some skin! How does using more brown sound to you? Does it feel fun and playful or like someone slung mud on your face? Whatever you do, have a blast and enjoy playing with how beautiful you are. Groovy😊 Please join the conversation!
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