How the Hair and Makeup in Bridgerton is Changing For Season 2

After spending the summer away in the country, the social season is starting up again and everyone is bringing their best to impress the ton.

“[They’re] making sure that they create a wow factor; that they get to impress the people that they want to impress and they get to marry the people that they need to marry,” the show’s hair and makeup department head Erika Ökvist tells POPSUGAR. “They would’ve found something new or something that they liked.” Just as we collect the latest and greatest beauty trends of the season and incorporate them into our daily routines at the start of a new season.

Everyone is coming into their own, but you won’t see a huge departure from anyone’s signature look “because all the characters have a look DNA that we know and loved,” says Ökvist, and she wanted to preserve that. Instead, she pulls inspiration from the real Regency era, then mixes it with modern beauty trends. “There is a sort of an edge to it that feels a little bit editorial, as well as historical.”

Of all the characters, Daphne experienced the biggest life changes last season. She made her official debut in to society, got married, and had a baby. “She feels secure now within herself and she’s got the knowledge of how to dress well and how to look well,” says Ökvist. “So she would’ve evolved from a younger-looking look to a little bit more mature, but still as relaxed and as glamorous as she always is.”

When we first met Penelope, she was having trouble finding herself and her place within her family, especially under her mother’s watchful eye. Then in the last episode of season one, we learn that she’s actually the writer behind the town gossip column, Lady Whistledown. “With her big secret, she ultimately is a very wealthy young lady in her own right,” says Ökvist. “With that, [she’s] trying to find her new look.”

Still, it’s a balancing act because she doesn’t want to tip anyone off to her hidden identity. “Her mother would go like, ‘Whoa, what are you doing now with straightened hair?'” she says. “It has to be something [that] happens very subtly. You can’t just go from wearing a lot of yellow to suddenly have navy blue.”

We’re introduced to Kate and her little sister Edwin in the latest season. Kate has a very strong, no-nonsense personality, and that’s reflected in her makeup. “She is not as fussy, she probably couldn’t sit still long enough to let the maid do the full everything,” says Ökvist. “She doesn’t feel the need to just have something new every time you see her, because that’s not her style.”

If anyone blew us away in season one with over-the-top hair and makeup looks, it’s Queen Charlotte. “This is almost like her work look; it’s her uniform,” says Ökvist. “She needs to wow the people.” No one in the room – not even the diamond of the season – is allowed to upstage her: “She wouldn’t be caught dead having the same hair twice.”

In season one, Anthony was running from his responsibilities as the viscount and the head of the family since his father passed. But now, he’s ready to settle down and marry.

The biggest inspiration for his look is his hero, his father. “In season two, he had to sort of really go all the way and become that really, properly serious person, who’s the head of all this family,” she says. “So he maybe simplified and changed his look a little bit because of that.” He’s partying less, frequenting the barbershop more, and getting his life together – supposedly.

Ökvist and her team, which she refers to as her “very glamorous army,” use a myriad of products on the cast. Emma Hardie skin-care products were used to prep the actors’ faces for makeup. To give them “cheekbones going up to God” they often did a lymphatic drainage massage prior to application.

For makeup, Pat McGrath Labs was the official makeup sponsor of “Bridgerton” season two and the entire 150+ cast used the brand’s products. For filming, makeup artist Dame Pat McGrath sent Ökvist and her team every single product in her line to play with, including lab samples of the Divine Blush collection before it launched. “It felt like it was Christmas three times over,” Ökvist says.