Rust, for all intents and purposes, is trouble: You don’t want it on your jewelry; you don’t want it in your pipes.
But the color of rust—now, that’s something we can work with. We already know that the shade, somewhere between orangey red and brown, is the perfect non-neutral addition to a fall wardrobe, but our long-standing apprehension toward putting it on our faces is rapidly coming to a close.
Looking to the recent Fall 2015 runways for guidance, we spotted rusty hues everywhere. A flash of red near the eyes, like at Tom Ford and Antonio Marras, sounds less like a good look and more like a solid way to fake a sick day, but it’s a surprisingly versatile color that flatters a wide variety of eye colors and skin tones. Yes, it’s markedly easier to wear on lips and cheeks, but we’re kind of into the way a rusty color looks when used sparingly on eyes. Paired with an otherwise bare face and groomed brows—no mascara!—it’s more interesting than brown but still has that warm earthiness.
You can go with a sheer wash of shimmery shadow, like Urban Decay Eyeshadow in Roach ($19), or use a creamy matte eye pencil like Stila Smudge Stick Waterproof Eye Liner in Sienna ($22) to create a solid line or smudge. But if you’re still not quite convinced on the eye front, Kat Von D Studded Kiss Lipstick in Archangel is the perfect burnt red to ease you right into the color you’ll be seeing everywhere this fall.
