When Zendaya stepped onto the red carpet at the New York premiere of The Odyssey on July 14, 2026, the internet did what it always does when she appears at a major event: it stopped. She was dressed in an ivory Matières Fécales gown with floor-length wings extending from the back, styled by Law Roach in a look that had reportedly been reserved for her more than two years in advance. She wore over 30 carats of Chopard diamonds. Her hair was styled into a goddess braid that looked slept-in rather than set. And her face looked, to everyone’s confusion, like she was barely wearing any makeup at all.
The conversation that followed was immediate, massive, and genuinely interesting. Was this a no makeup look? Was it soft glam? Was it an incredibly expensive version of looking like you just ran a few flights of stairs? Was the blush too heavy to qualify? Could a look assembled from eight Prada Beauty products ever honestly be called minimal?
The makeup community has been debating it ever since, and the debate reveals something genuinely worth unpacking about how we think about makeup, beauty standards, and the enormous gap between “effortless” and actually effortless.
Here is the full breakdown of every product used, what the look actually is, why it sparked such a strong reaction, and how to get as close to it as possible without spending four figures on Prada Beauty.
What Did Zendaya’s Makeup Actually Look Like at The Odyssey Premiere?
Before getting into the debate, it helps to describe the look precisely, because much of the disagreement stems from people describing slightly different things.
Makeup artist Ernesto Casillas largely left the actress’s eyes untouched, forgoing both mascara and visible shadow in favour of naturally fluffed brows and bare, so-called “ghost lashes.” This is the element that shocked people most. On a red carpet where false lashes, liner, and defined eye looks are so standard they barely register, Zendaya’s eyes were completely bare. No mascara. No liner. No lash extensions. The makeup artist himself confirmed this explicitly in response to questions from the beauty community.
The skin was luminous, dewy, and warm. Not poreless and flat in the way of heavy full-coverage foundation, but genuinely glowing in a way that looked like excellent skin beneath a sheer, light-reflecting base. The warmth across her cheeks, nose bridge, and forehead read as a natural flush rather than a placed blush, though placed blush it very much was.
The lips wore a soft, barely-there pink that added colour without drawing attention away from the skin and the overall glowing quality of the look.
The result was a face that appeared, to most people seeing it in photographs for the first time, to be wearing very little makeup. Her makeup artist described it as intentionally minimal. Her face at the premiere looked categorically different from how it looks in full glam.
The debate is not really about whether this is technically a no makeup look. It is about whether a look assembled by a professional with eight luxury products on a woman with exceptional bone structure, a strong natural brow, and naturally lifted lashes qualifies for that label. And that is a much more interesting question.
Every Product Ernesto Casillas Used and Why It Matters
The full product list was shared by Casillas on Instagram and has since been dissected by the beauty community in considerable detail. Every choice tells you something about the technique and philosophy behind the look.
Casillas prepped Zendaya’s complexion using Augmented Skin Essence, Augmented Skin Cream and Augmented Skin Eye Cream, creating a hydrated canvas before applying makeup. This skincare prep stage is not a minor detail. The entire visual quality of the finished look rests on what the skin looks like before a single drop of foundation goes on. When skin is deeply hydrated, a sheer foundation sits on top of it differently than it does on dry, dehydrated skin. The bounce, the light reflection, the way the product moves when the face moves: all of it starts here.
For the foundation, he used Reveal Skin Optimizing Foundation in NW45, followed by Blurring + Micro Correcting Concealer in LC3 only where needed, allowing her natural skin to remain visible. The key phrase is “only where needed.” This is not a look where foundation is applied across every surface and then built up to opacity. It is a look where the product is placed strategically, on areas that need evening out, leaving the rest of the skin to show through and do what naturally glowing skin does.
He then combined Prada’s cream-to-powder blushes in Caffè, a mocha brown, and Cherry, a true red, applying the shades to the areas where the sun would naturally hit. This dual blush technique is one of the most technically important elements of the look. Using a warm brown alongside a true red, rather than a single pink or coral blush, is what creates the sun-kissed depth that makes the flush look lived-in. A single-shade blush application looks placed. Two complementary shades layered on the high planes of the face, across the cheeks and nose and temples, look like warmth that has built up over a day in natural light.
The look was completed with Prada Balm in Astral Pink, while Prada Balm in Universal added subtle radiance to the high points of the face.
In Casillas’s own words: “The makeup was intentionally very minimal, with fresh, glowing skin as the foundation of the look. I layered Prada Beauty’s Touch Blush in Caffè and Cherry across the cheeks, nose, temples, forehead and chin, focusing on the areas where the sun would naturally hit.”
Is This a No Makeup Look? The Honest Answer
This is the question that generated 720 comments from the makeup community and the honest answer is that it depends almost entirely on your reference point.
Relative to how Zendaya typically looks at major red carpet events, this is genuinely minimal. Her Euphoria premiere makeup was a full, dramatic, defined look. Many of her press appearances involve strong eye makeup, visible contour, and significant product. Relative to what she wore at The Odyssey premiere, those are categorically heavier looks.
Relative to what most people wear in everyday life, this is a professionally applied, eight-product, fully assembled makeup look that took significant skill to execute and significant money to replicate with the same products.
Both of these things are true simultaneously.
The makeup community identified several reasons why the “no makeup” label creates friction. The blush is visible and heavy by true no-makeup standards. The skin is too perfectly luminous to be unassisted. The lip colour, though subtle, is applied and present. And the reason the eyes look so remarkable with nothing on them is a combination of naturally strong brows, naturally lifted lashes, and an eye shape that renders mascara largely optional, advantages that are individual rather than universal.
One observation that cut through the debate particularly cleanly was this: the look requires covering the skin while making it look like skin, doing heavy blush while making it look like a natural flush, darkening and defining the brows while looking like you did nothing to them, and defining the lips with no obvious lipstick or liner. And that is on top of the fact that the person is naturally beautiful with balanced features and exceptional skin quality. This is not a lazy or simple look. It is a technically demanding look that is designed to look effortless, which is arguably the hardest kind of makeup to execute well.
According to recent retail data, sales for heavy full-coverage foundations have fallen significantly, with people increasingly tired of the cakey, heavy feel. The barely-there glow Zendaya demonstrated at The Odyssey premiere reflects this broader shift in how people are approaching their daily makeup routines.
Why the Beauty Community Calls This “Soft Glam” Not “No Makeup”
The debate over terminology matters because it connects to how people set expectations for their own makeup results.
The majority of people in the makeup community who looked at Zendaya’s Odyssey premiere look landed on a similar conclusion: this is soft glam, or an elevated version of the no-makeup makeup look, but it is not actually minimal by any objective standard. The blush application alone, which swept across cheeks, nose bridge, temples, forehead and chin in two different shades, is more product placement than the average no-makeup look involves.
The distinction matters because “no makeup makeup” as a category carries an implication of low effort and low product count. When a look described that way involves eight luxury products and a professional makeup artist’s technique, it can set unrealistic expectations for people who try to recreate it and find that their results look nothing like the reference image.
There is also a broader conversation about how the no-makeup look as a concept has been stretched to accommodate increasingly elaborate techniques. From the early days of barely-there foundation and a tinted lip balm, the category has expanded to include looks that involve extensive skin prep, multiple base products, cream colour application, and careful placement, all constructed to look unintentional. Zendaya’s premiere look sits at the far end of that spectrum, and the gap between what it looks like and what it takes to create it is significant.
The most accurate descriptor, used by several makeup professionals commenting on the look, is an elevated soft rosy glow, or a sun-kissed skin look with bare eyes. Both of those feel less universally aspirational than “no makeup,” which may be part of why Casillas and much of the coverage reached for the simpler framing.
The “Ghost Lashes” Effect: Why the Eyes Are the Most Interesting Part
For the makeup community, the most unexpected and technically interesting element of Zendaya’s look was not the skin or the blush. It was the eyes.
The absence of mascara on a major red carpet is genuinely unusual. Red carpet photography, with its bright lighting and distance from the subject, typically flattens features, which is why makeup for these events usually involves heavier application than everyday wear. Eyes without mascara or lash enhancement tend to disappear in that kind of photographic context. Zendaya’s eyes did not disappear. They looked striking, open, and present despite no enhancement of any kind.
Several factors explain why this worked on her specifically. Her lashes are naturally long and lifted without mascara. Her brow shape is naturally strong and defined. Her eye shape is distinctive and does not require framing through lash enhancement the way many eye shapes do. The absence of mascara, combined with the warmth of the blush placement close to the outer eye area, created an emphasis on the freshness of the look rather than the eyes themselves.
Casillas confirmed in response to community questions that there was no mascara, no liner, and no lash extensions involved. The brow work was also minimal, with only concealer and foundation near the brow area rather than any brow product, leading several observers to note that Zendaya’s brows are strong enough without assistance that brow products would only have added heaviness to a look built around lightness.
This is worth understanding because the “ghost lashes” effect, as the community named it, is not universally replicable. It works because of specific natural lash and eye characteristics that not everyone has. For most people who want to recreate the spirit of the look, a lash tint or a single coat of brown mascara will get closer to the intended effect than going completely bare, unless your natural lashes already have the length and lift to carry a bare eye on camera.
What Zendaya’s Skin Actually Looks Like Without Makeup
Understanding why this look works requires understanding what Zendaya’s skin looks like as a baseline.
In January 2023, Zendaya revealed that her skincare philosophy involves consistency and simplicity because of her sensitive skin. She has stated that she keeps it very simple with cleanser and moisturiser, and finds that when she applies too many layers or too many different masks, she breaks out or gets an eczema flare-up.
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She has also spoken in multiple interviews about removing makeup before bed as a non-negotiable rule and describes it as her number one beauty principle. This approach, consistent simple skincare and disciplined daily makeup removal, creates the kind of baseline skin quality that makes a skin-first makeup look achievable.
This is relevant because the gap between Zendaya’s skin at baseline and the finished look for The Odyssey premiere is smaller than it might appear. The products Casillas used were optimising and enhancing what was already genuinely good skin, not constructing an impression from scratch. The more work your own skincare routine is doing on a daily basis, the smaller that gap becomes for you too.
How to Recreate the Look at Different Price Points
The full Prada Beauty product list used for the premiere is expensive. The Augmented Skin Cream alone retails at around £90. The foundation is £72. The concealer is £48. For a recreation of the full look using original products, you are looking at the best part of £500 before you have even opened a product. These are beautiful formulations but the effect can be achieved more accessibly.
Here is how to adapt the technique at more realistic price points, broken down by step.
For the skin prep, a hydrating moisturiser with a hyaluronic acid base is your equivalent of the Augmented Skin Cream. CeraVe Moisturising Cream, the Paula’s Choice Skin Recovery Moisturiser, or a simple squalane oil applied before foundation will create the same plumped, smooth canvas principle. This step genuinely matters. Applying a sheer foundation over dehydrated skin produces a different result than applying the same foundation over deeply hydrated skin.
For the base, a skin tint or sheer coverage foundation sheered out further with a few drops of face oil or serum is the accessible version of what Casillas did with the Prada foundation. NARS Sheer Glow, Armani Luminous Silk at the mid-range, or the Makeup Revolution Skin Silk Serum Foundation at the affordable end will all give you a sheer, luminous finish when applied lightly with a damp sponge.
For the blush, the dual-shade technique is the single most replicable element of this look and does not require Prada products. The principle is a warm brown blush or light bronzer as your first layer, placed on the high points of the face, followed by a warm cherry or berry red blush on top, applied with a light hand to the same areas. Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk Blush over a Hoola bronzer is one accessible version. The e.l.f. Halo Glow Blush Beauty Wand in Berry Bitchin applied over a warm bronzer is another. The key is the layering and the placement rather than the specific product.
For the eyes, if your natural lashes have enough length and lift, try the look with nothing on your lashes and see how it reads. If the eyes feel like they disappear, a single coat of brown-black mascara on the upper lashes only, or a lash tint if you want a longer-term solution, will replicate the intended effect without adding the heaviness of a full mascara application.
For the lips, any satin or moisturising lip product in a sheer rosy pink or warm neutral will work. The Maybelline Lifter Gloss in Moon or Pearl is one of the most accessible options at this price point that genuinely delivers the sheer, glossy quality the Prada Balm provides.
Which Skin Tones and Face Shapes This Look Suits Best
This is the question that never gets addressed in mainstream coverage of celebrity makeup looks, and it matters.
Zendaya has a warm medium complexion, strong angular bone structure, a defined jaw, high cheekbones, and an eye shape that has natural dimension without enhancement. The look was built around and for those specific features.
For warm and medium skin tones, the look translates directly. The dual blush technique using a warm brown and a cherry red will read as sun-kissed and natural on medium, olive, and warm deeper skin tones. The sheer foundation approach works particularly well here because medium complexions with warm undertones often find heavy foundation coverage counterproductive: it masks the warmth and glow that is naturally present.
For fair and light skin tones, the cherry and brown blush combination needs careful adjustment. On very fair skin, a true red blush can read as unwell rather than sun-kissed. Swap the cherry shade for a softer coral or peach, and use a very light bronzer as the brown layer rather than a deep mocha blush. The sun-kissed principle works at every skin tone but the specific shades need to be adapted.
For deep and dark skin tones, this look is genuinely beautiful when the product choices are adjusted. The warm brown and red blush combination can be intensified rather than reduced, because deeper skin tones often need more pigment for the same visual warmth that a lighter shade delivers on fairer skin. Look for cream blushes in terracotta, rust, and deep cherry for the layering. The skin-first, sheer base approach works exceptionally well on deeper complexions where the skin itself often has a natural richness and warmth that heavy foundation coverage erases.
For rounder or softer face shapes, the blush placement needs slight adjustment from what Casillas did for Zendaya’s angular features. Rather than sweeping across the nose bridge, concentrate the warmth on the cheekbones and temples, keeping it higher on the face to add structure. Bringing blush down to the nose can add width rather than definition on certain face shapes.
What This Look Says About Beauty in 2026
Zendaya’s Odyssey premiere look did not appear in a vacuum. It is part of a visible and growing shift in how beauty is expressed on and off the red carpet in 2026.
The move away from full glam, heavy contouring, and dramatic eye looks has been building for several years, accelerated by a broader cultural interest in skin health, natural texture, and what might be called intelligent minimalism: not the absence of effort, but effort directed towards enhancement rather than transformation. Zendaya at The Odyssey premiere is the most high-profile example of this aesthetic reaching the very top of the red carpet, where previously it would have been considered under-dressed.
The fact that her makeup artist described it as “intentionally minimal” and that it generated genuine debate about whether it qualified as a no makeup look is itself a signal of how far the category has moved. Five years ago, a look with eight luxury products including cream blush in two shades, full base coverage, concealer, and two lip products would not have been described as minimal by anyone. Today, relative to the full-glam standard the red carpet usually operates to, it reads that way.
This is useful to understand when you are approaching your own routine. If the reference point for what is “natural” is constructed by professionals using premium products on people with exceptional baseline features, the gap between that and what a real no makeup look looks like on most faces is enormous. The more useful question to ask is not whether you can look like Zendaya’s Odyssey premiere, but what the version of this principle looks like on your face, your features, and your skin: fresh, luminous, warm, and genuinely like you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Zendaya wearing any makeup at The Odyssey premiere?
Yes. Her makeup artist Ernesto Casillas applied eight Prada Beauty products to create the look, including foundation, concealer, two shades of cream blush, two lip products, and skincare preparation products. The look was intentionally minimal relative to typical red carpet glam but involved significant professional technique and product.
Did Zendaya wear mascara at The Odyssey premiere?
No. Casillas confirmed that the look involved no mascara, no liner, and no lash extensions. He described the approach as “ghost lashes,” leaving the eyes completely bare and letting Zendaya’s natural lashes carry the look.
What products did Ernesto Casillas use on Zendaya at The Odyssey premiere?
The full product list was Prada Beauty Augmented Skin Essence, Augmented Skin Cream, Augmented Skin Eye Cream, Reveal Skin Optimizing Foundation in NW45, Blurring and Micro Correcting Concealer in LC3, Touch Cream-to-Powder Blush in Caffè and Cherry, and Prada Balm in both Astral Pink and Universal.
Is Zendaya’s Odyssey premiere look a “no makeup” look?
It depends on your reference point. Relative to typical red carpet full glam, it reads as minimal. Relative to what most people wear day-to-day, it is a fully assembled professional look. Most makeup professionals who have commented on it describe it as soft glam or an elevated sun-kissed skin look rather than a true no-makeup look.
How do you recreate Zendaya’s glowy skin look without Prada Beauty products?
The technique matters more than the specific brand. Start with a deeply hydrating moisturiser to prep the skin. Apply a sheer skin tint or sheered-out foundation with a damp sponge. Layer a warm brown bronzer followed by a cherry or warm coral blush on the high points of the face. Use a sheer lip balm in a soft pink or nude. Keep the eyes bare or add only one coat of brown mascara on upper lashes.
What blush did Zendaya wear at The Odyssey premiere?
Prada Beauty Touch Cream-to-Powder Blush in two shades: Caffè, a warm mocha brown, and Cherry, a true red. The two shades were layered together and swept across the cheeks, nose, temples, forehead, and chin to mimic where the sun would naturally warm the skin.
What foundation shade did Zendaya wear at The Odyssey premiere?
Prada Beauty Reveal Skin Optimizing Foundation in NW45, mixed with Prada Augmented Skin Essence for a sheered-out, lightweight, luminous finish.
Can you get this look on darker skin tones?
Yes, with adjusted product shades. The dual blush layering technique works beautifully on deep and dark skin tones using deeper terracotta, rust, and rich cherry shades rather than the specific Prada shades used for Zendaya’s complexion. A sheer to medium foundation in a warm-matching shade and a glowing moisturiser underneath will replicate the skin-first, luminous quality of the look.
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