Beauty has developed some serious attitude this season. Now it’s all about taking things to extremes. So, whichever look you go for, whether it is a powerful red lip or a poetic flushed cheek, you need to be sure of one thing: that it is just as dramatic as your shoulder pads.

As for colours, one shade rules supreme: plum. Wear it on lashes, lips or nails — just wear it

GLITTER

This season’s sparkle has an edge, so get dark and dangerous to truly shine

BACKGROUND

• Top 10 beauty products for autumn

• Beauty trends for autumn

• Statement hair and make-up for autumn

• How to do autumn make-up

• This season, throw away the rules of make-up

Video: How to do autumn make-up

Ruby Hammer distils the runway fantasies into attention-grabbing looks

Until now, glitter has assumed the role of the unwanted dinner guest, always turning up to ruin things. And yet, glitter is set to make converts of us all if the autumn/winter catwalks are anything to go by. A spot of the shimmery stuff daubed onto the outer edges of the eye can look surprisingly edgy. The trick is to stick to deeper tones, and focus either on the eyes or the lips, to avoid looking like a Christmas decoration. The look should be tough, not twinkly, so apply dark colours in a slapdash way. If you find that glitter gets onto your clothes, use a slick of lip gloss to stick it on the eyelid instead. We recommend Clarins Gloss Appeal in Crystal, or Mac Lipglass. “Use it all over the eye and pile the powder on top,” says Terry Barber, creative director of make-up artistry at Mac.

GRUNGE

Slept-in make-up and tousled bed hair — it couldn’t be simpler

The style-savvy will have noticed the grunge aesthetic seeping into the fashion subconscious for a while, and there’s now no denying its return. It is, by a mile, the ballsiest option this season, but sadly the down-and-dirty ennui of grunge isn’t particularly suitable for the workplace (unless you work in fashion, natch). The solution is to channel the look into your beauty styling, instead. In essence, grunge is about looking like you just rolled out of someone else’s bed, so slept-in make-up is a great route to getting that authentic edge. Failing that, arm yourself with plenty of black textures — gloss, cream, pencil and powder — and smear them across your eyelids. Don’t obsess over application — you don’t care what people think, remember?

POWER

Sharp tailoring calls for bold, precise beauty that makes an impact

Behold, this look is power with a capital POW! But how do we take the sharp tailoring and tough textures shown on the catwalks of Balmain, YSL and Stella McCartney and convert them into beauty effects? Powerful fashion calls for bold make-up applied with painstaking precision and worn with great dollops of self-belief. Take this season’s sharp shoulder, for instance. Its beauty equivalent is a graphic sweep of liquid liner across the socket of the upper eyelid, as Val Garland did at Moschino to create a pop-art effect. Or consider the figure-hugging pencil skirt — it’s just crying out for a needlepoint-perfect red lip. Dig out your lip liner: there is nothing accidental about this look. “Do your lipstick first, and then use the lip liner to fill in the corners so there is no obvious line. Use it as a filler rather than an outliner,” advises Terry Barber.

NEW ROMANTICS

It’s super to be natural. Use creams, beiges and pinks to softly sculpt the face

When we fell for nudes earlier this year, we fell hard. So hard, in fact, that the menagerie of flesh tones, beiges and dusky pinks looks set to dominate well into winter. Allow Christopher Kane, with his dreamy chiffon dresses, to set the scene, and follow suit with a veil of nudes and luminous creams across your cheeks. This look is all about the supernatural quality of the skin, so leave lashes and lips bare. For a catwalk-to-reality authenticity, get experimental with face-sculpting. The trick is to find the lines of your face and then define them. “Sculpting Powder in Bone Beige by Mac is great for sculpting the cheek bones, the sides of the nose and the jaw line,” says the backstage make-up maestro Andrew Gallimore.

Times recommends

• The Boxing Day tsunami: five years on
• What took place in 2010...
• Can you really cure a hangover?