Costume Drama Beauty: The Make-up Looks Worth Stealing From Period Films

Period drama is officially back, and this time it isn’t staying on screen. Bridgerton season four has just wrapped its most talked-about run yet, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights has spent the best part of 2026 splitting critics down the middle, and BritBox’s The Other Bennet Sister quietly became the surprise comfort watch of the year. Between them, they’ve kicked off a genuine beauty movement, with searches for “romantic gothic makeup” spiking dramatically earlier this year as viewers hunted for the look.

Period dramas are driving a genuine surge in regency and gothic-romance beauty trends, with brands launching fragrances, packaging and campaigns inspired by cinematic nostalgia. But here’s the useful bit: unlike a lot of costume drama styling, none of this needs a corset fitting or a horsehair wig. Here’s what’s actually worth stealing

The Bridgerton Glow: Skin First, Everything Else Second

If you’ve spent any time on TikTok this year, you’ll have seen the phrase “Bridgerton glow” attached to approximately everything. The look, masterminded by the show’s hair and make-up designer Nic Collins, is built on the idea that skincare does most of the heavy lifting long before any product goes on.

Collins has been refreshingly clear that the trick isn’t a clever product, it’s prep, and that the eyeshadow shades she chooses are picked to match, not mask, the wearer’s own skin tone. The result is a version of “no make-up make-up” that photographs beautifully because there’s nothing artificial fighting against the light.

The detail everyone’s actually copying, though, is Sophie’s lip. Rather than a hard lip liner, make-up artist Nic Collins used a Clinique Chubby Stick in a strawberry shade, tapped on with a brush for a wash of colour, then lightly outlined with a slightly deeper liner so the edge blurs rather than draws a hard line. It’s the difference between lips that look painted and lips that just look like your own, only rosier.

For the season’s other characters, the formula shifts slightly but the logic stays the same: Francesca’s palette leans cooler and quieter, with blush placed high on the cheekbone rather than on the apple for a more restrained finish, while Eloise gets a berry-toned lip balm designed to look forgotten rather than applied.

How to steal it:

            •           Invest in a tinted, balm-like lip crayon rather than a traditional lipstick, and apply with a fingertip or brush for a blurred edge

            •           Place blush higher on the cheekbone if you want a more grown-up, “Francesca” finish, rather than on the apples for a younger flush

            •           Skip powder where you can. The whole point is a bit of shine

Wuthering Heights: The Art of the Deliberately Undone Eye

Where Bridgerton is soft focus, Wuthering Heights goes the other way entirely. Margot Robbie’s press tour for the film has been a masterclass in gothic romance beauty: textured hair, smudged liner, and a lip that looks stained rather than applied.

Beauty expert Annabella Taurua has described the trend as pairing undone, textured hair with smudged, smoky eyes that add real depth and character, and crucially noted that despite looking dramatic at first glance, it’s a style that’s actually easy to wear day to day, built around loose hair and a deliberately imperfect finish rather than anything precisely done. That’s the permission slip a lot of us needed. This is not a look that requires patience or a steady hand.

The technique is closer to bedtime eyeliner smudged into daytime eyeliner than a true smoky eye. Apply a soft kohl pencil close to the lash line, then blend the edges outward with a finger or a small brush rather than blending upward and out the way you would for evening glamour. The aim is soft, not sculpted.

How to steal it:

            •           Use a kohl pencil, not a liquid liner, for a smudge that reads as intentional rather than smeared

            •           Leave hair with texture rather than smoothing it down. Second-day waves work better here than a fresh blow-dry

            •           Pair the eye with a stained, not glossy, lip so nothing else competes for attention

The Other Bennet Sister: The Case Against the Glow-Up

Here’s the plot twist. Not every lesson from this year’s costume dramas is about a technique.

The Other Bennet Sister reimagines Jane Austen’s most overlooked character, Mary Bennet, and rather than giving her the classic makeover arc, it deliberately resists it. The show’s appeal lies in its refusal to treat physical transformation as the reward for personal growth, choosing instead to let

Mary find confidence without a glow-up montage. It’s a quietly radical message dressed up in bonnets and empire waistlines: that your appearance is genuinely the least interesting thing about you, however much a Regency drawing room (or a group chat) might insist otherwise.

It’s worth sitting with, particularly if you’ve spent the year absorbing every “get ready with me” that promises a new face along with a new personality.

Sometimes the most stealable thing about a costume drama isn’t the eyeshadow. It’s the reminder that groomed and glammed aren’t the same thing, and you’re allowed to want one without needing the other.

The Verdict

What ties all three together is restraint dressed up as drama. Bridgerton’s glow, Wuthering Heights’ smudge, and Mary Bennet’s quiet refusal to be made over all share the same underlying idea: the best beauty moments in these shows look effortless because they are, largely, meant to. None of it requires a professional make-up artist, a three-hour prep window, or, thankfully, a corset.

Pick whichever mood suits your week. Soft and glowing for a first date, smudged and moody for a night out, or completely undone because you’ve decided, quite reasonably, that you don’t owe anyone a transformation.