All The Hidden Meanings You Missed in Euphoria’s Makeup This Season

No matter your thoughts on the show, there’s no denying the impact Euphoria’s makeup has made in the three years since the first season aired in 2019—if New York is considered the fifth main character in Sex and the City, Euphoria’s makeup deserves a similar treatment. Since season one dropped, we’ve seen colorful, glimmering eye shadow show up all over the runways and social media, and tiny rhinestones are now just as much of a going-out essential as a black bodysuit or a pair of heels. 

According to the show’s head of makeup, Donni Davy, she’s been just as inspired by the response to season one’s makeup as the rest of the world was when the show came out. “The thing that inspires me the most is when people take their own unique take on a makeup look from the show,” Davy tells Glamour.  “Maybe it’s a Jules look, but a little more with a Maddy glam aspect to it. There’s such an insane amount of talent on TikTok and Instagram, it blows my mind.” These interpretations didn’t only serve as inspiration for the season-two looks, but became a springboard for Davy’s upcoming makeup brand, Half Magic, which launches later this spring. (She’s tight-lipped on the details for now but says some key products made an appearance in the show, so stay tuned).

While she was moved by the response to season one’s makeup, it meant the pressure was on when it came to dreaming up the looks for season two. “I was challenged with figuring out how to continue the Euphoria makeup conversation,” she says. “But instead of repeating myself or going equally as colorful and vivid as sparkly as season one, it was sort of like, ‘How do I showcase what I believe are interesting, bold looks that are perfect for what the characters are going through but that aren’t going to compete with this same visibility as season one?’”

The answer was simple, and she went back to what made the makeup so special in the first place: using it as an extension of the characters themselves, and a direct reflection of what they’re experiencing. “First and foremost, the looks have to go with the script and what the kids are going through,” she says. Since this season—somehow—has an even darker vibe than the first season, she let that guide the makeup and ended up with a more toned-down, yet equally interesting, assortment of looks. “I wanted to make sure my team and I had enough restraint with our looks, because I didn’t want it to seem like I was taking advantage of the storyline, or putting an overly bold, wild look on someone in a moment where it would be distracting,” she adds. “That’s a fine line that I like to make sure I’m always walking.” 

Subtle doesn’t mean boring, though; in fact, it let Davy be even more strategic about what she wants to communicate through the looks. Each carefully chosen rhinestone or eye shadow shade and every flick of liner is a sign of something deeper. Davy will help you uncover all the hidden messages. 

Cassie Howard 

Davy had two favorite vibes for Cassie (played in this season by Sydney Sweeney: Her classic looks and her wannabe Maddy looks. A classic Cassie look usually includes “soft shimmers on her eyes; a lot of pinky peachy, soft shimmering tones, obviously adorned with tiny rhinestones, accentuating her lower lash line with a lot of mascara. Sometimes I dot the roots to make them look fuller,” says Davy. “It’s definitely in the baby doll kind of aesthetic with a little bit of a 1960s influence, and always with this kind of flushy, moist skin where you can almost feel the heat, and her nerves and her anxiety kind of busting through that.” Even when there is a liner moment, it’s generally smaller, more upturned wings, or a double liner to keep the ’60s vibe going—like in Nate’s fantasy on the bearskin rug, or in the bathroom scene. 

On the flip side, her Maddy-inspired—or Caddy, as Davy calls them—looks are sharper and bolder. For the first Caddy look that appears, we see Cassie in stark white eyeliner with big silver rhinestones—a much bolder take on sparkles than Cassie’s tiny floating rhinestones in episode one. Davy said she wanted to take Maddy’s carnival look from last season and inverse it. “It needed to be extremely bold and visible from across the hallway for the sake of getting Nate’s attention,” she says. “At first I was going to do a baby blue situation because that’s kind of Cassie’s signature color. In me and Sydney’s eyes, we just associate baby blue with her. I realized that her skin would stand out more if she chose stark white. I thought white would also look kind of jarring, a little weird—borderline off, just shocking. She’s really going through it to be morphing into her best friend.

“There’s definitely a comedy to it, especially with those looks,” Davy says. “The Maddy look is weirdly haunting on her because it’s just like, ‘That’s so not you.’ But then it finally gets Nate’s attention.  It was meant to be an attention grabber and to even be a tiny bit uncomfortable to see—even the baby hairs, the overlined brown lips. It’s that secondhand embarrassment, because it looks extra dramatic on her. And then the white was definitely a choice to make it look even more strange and odd.” 

Maddy Perez

For Maddy’s makeup this season, Davy let actor Alexa Demie take the lead. “Alexa came in with really strong ideas about her makeup this season,” says Davy. “She as well was really thinking about the makeup from season one to season two and didn’t want to do a repetitive situation. I feel like her looks this season are, because they came from her head, they’re very Alexa. Alexa meets Maddy.”