Zara Larsson is diving deep for her eye makeup inspiration—as in, literally under the ocean! The Swedish pop star is now very well known for her colorful, elaborate eye shadow, which is often sparkling with gemstones and comprised of vivid neon tones, and she and makeup artist Sophia Sinot are looking to the natural world to inform their latest designs. But we're not talking flowers, though the two have done similar designs in the past; instead, they're swimming under the ocean to mimic the shades of sea life.
For Larsson's Lollapalooza set on August 1, the pair went pink and channeled the Palinurus mauritanicus, or pink spiny lobster, with vivid shades of pale pink, fuchsia, and orange on the “Midnight Sun” singer's lids, dotted with vibrant magenta polka dots to mimic the pattern on the small crustacean's shell.
A few days later in Montreal, they modeled Larsson's makeup after the pseudoceros dimidiatus, or tiger flatworm. As you may imagine from the creature's name, it has a striped pattern—one Sinot replicated on Larsson's eyes with bold strokes of black eyeliner under her brows, atop a powdery sea green base. (Prior to that, they swapped the sea creatures for a more traditional animal print—leopard, of course—all over Larsson's lids.)
This isn't the first time Larsson and Sinot have gone underwater for beauty inspo; they've been having fun with it all summer. For a performance in Madrid a few weeks ago, the two channeled a yellow snapperfish, which is typically found in tropical waters. The fish itself is shiny silver with vertical yellow stripes, so Sinot applied a shimmery silver shadow to Larsson's lids and added a bright canary yellow color to her inner corners and under her lower lashline. For the stripes, she drew wavy, winged shapes under Larsson's brow bone and outer corners, then placed yellow gemstones atop each stripe.
The next night, Sinot and Larsson landed on a pink dorid nudibranch sea slug as their inspo for the evening. Sinot used a palette of pure white, vibrant magenta, and dandelion yellow, with the white color concentrated in the inner corners and dotted with teeny pink spots that faded into bright pink at the outer corners. The yellow shade was applied underneath the arch of Larsson's brow and to her lower lashline.
Then again, the makeup inspo isn't really that unexpected, given how closely Larsson has been associated with what I like to call the “Lisa Frank dolphin” aesthetic. Though the “Midnight Sun” singer is a Sagittarius, she's also a Cancer moon, and recently posed with an enormous crab on Instagram. Her looks always have a tropical, summer mermaid vibe, so it's not entirely surprising that she and Sinot would be pulling inspo from the depths of the ocean. And there are so many gorgeous creatures to channel, each with their own unique colors and patterns, it's basically a marine biology lesson and makeup masterclass all rolled into one!
This story originally appeared in allure.com
