For much of 2026, the prevailing trends around lipstick have been to loosen up and let it smudge. Dakota Johnson, however, has another proposition for fall.
As per the stars of Hollywood and the runways of recent, lip lines have been buffed and blurred, color has been concentrated into just-bitten gradients, and the enduring ’90s combination of a deliberately darker pencil topped with a slick of gloss has continued its comeback. Juicy textures, with soft stains and diffused edges, have been taking precedence over more stringent definition.
At the New York premiere of Verity last night, we saw a red lip so precise it could have been drawn with a ruler. Makeup artist Georgie Eisdell painted Johnson’s mouth a deep, vampy red, tracing the contours with what’s now become unusually crisp definition. There was no blown-out border or visible contrast between liner and lipstick here. Instead, the color appeared saturated from edge to edge, following the shape of the Cupid’s bow and terminating in razor-sharp corners. It’s a cranberry red, with an undertone that looks neutral-cool and noticable blue or berry-like base.
Photo: Getty Images
Against Johnson’s sparkling white Calvin Klein Collection bralette and matching embellished column skirt, the effect was even more dramatic: it’s a great case of classic red-carpet glam, with a slightly sinister undertow…appropriate to the psycho-thriller she’s starring in alongside Anne Hathaway.
Eisdell kept the rest of the makeup restrained enough to give that mouth room to breathe. Johnson’s complexion was poreless and matte, while a wash of sepia-brown smoke around the eyes and lashings of black mascara amplified their blue.
Hairstylist Mark Townsend provided the frame. Using K18 products, he left Johnson’s glossed espresso lengths long and loose in a sleek blowout, gathering sections into a subtle twist at the back. Her increasingly short bangs were swept open across the forehead, revealing the brows and leaving more of the face exposed, which placed Eisdell’s red lip firmly at the center.
Johnson has been experimenting with those bangs throughout the Verity press tour. At the film’s London premiere last week, Townsend looked to an early-’90s Christy Turlington as inspiration for a bouncy blowout and short, piecey bangs; he also shared that Johnson blow-dries and sometimes trims her fringe herself. The bangs have since become still more brow-revealing, lending a lightness to hair that has simultaneously gone considerably darker.
