“Forbidden Fruits” is a feast for the eyes. Everywhere you look, you’re met with color and glam. Furs, gems, and a covetable closet cocoon the characters in a classic all-American mall. It’s the kind of film viewers have been craving in recent years, reminiscent of early noughties slumber party staples and sorely missed in modern cinema. As such, at first watch, it’s easy to think you’re settling in for an easygoing movie about girlhood and teenage drama. Three mall workers—Apple (Lili Reinhart), Cherry (Victoria Pedretti), and Fig (Alexandra Shipp)—work at a Free People-esque clothing store full of overpriced lacy garms. If the mall was a high school, these three would be The Populars. So, when Pumpkin (Lola Tung)—an outsider at the bottom of the social hierarchy—asks them for a job, all signs point toward a classic American teen comedy, perhaps even with a makeover montage in store. That is, until things take a dark, witchy turn. Given the story’s absurd twists, makeup plays a big part in creating its fantastical world. As the girls perform bloody ceremonies and concoct potions (in a cowboy boot, rather than a cauldron), their makeup looks feel like key ingredients—intentional and transformative.

Each character embodies their own distinct visual language, created after months of back-and-forth between makeup artist Joan Chell, director Meredith Alloway, and the actors. Ultimately, Chell landed on four hero looks—one for each main character—with additional, metamorphic looks to supercharge their scenes in Paradise, where they’d cast their spells. 

Apple, The Boss Lady

Apple is the coven’s leader; what she says, goes. But beneath her mean-girl exterior, there’s a nuanced background that garners sympathy. She lives in her car in the mall parking lot, for starters, and a rough upbringing is hinted at throughout the film. Her makeup looks reflect this, with Chell opting for a “soft and serious” moody vibe. “I didn’t want her to look nasty or harsh,” she tells us. “She had a serious evil edge to her without making her look like some sort of evil witch.” Apple looks polished and pretty, lulling the audience into a false sense of security that makes the plot twists all the more sickening.

In some paradise scenes, it’s impossible not to notice Reinhart’s perfect lips: red and juicy, shiny like a freshly buffed apple—or blood. “I wanted her lips and eyeliner to stand out,” says Chell. While inspired by a buffed-out Korean lip look, what transpired was more of a “straight lip, carved out nicely, but not harsh,” giving her a “boss lady look”. 

Her nails often sported this same, hypnotic red. They were long and almond-shaped, as is the current trend du jour. But, in a nod to the LGBTQ+ community (suggested by Reinhart herself), two of Apple’s fingernails were clipped short. This is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it detail that adds another layer to her character, whose sexuality isn’t addressed outright.

Pumpkin, The Shapeshifter

Pumpkin is the coven’s newbie. She’s clever and cunning, something the audience doesn’t really know until the very end of the movie. Until then, she comes across as desperate to fit in and a little naive. To this end, Chell wanted her to look young, so she doused her in faux freckles using the Maykoo Freckle Stamp. “I would take a baby wipe with a little alcohol spray on and wrap it around my finger and just dot down the strong [freckles]. And then [they] would end up melting into the skin.” Tung’s skin worked best with two shades: Chestnut and Natural Coffee. As the movie goes on and Pumpkin integrates more with the coven, her freckles become less pronounced, given the suggestion that she’s started to wear more makeup to fit in, and has lost some of her youthful innocence. A little like a chameleon, Pumpkin shapeshifts to match her surroundings. In scenes with Apple, her lips look juicier; in scenes with Fig, her eye makeup is heavier. Ultimately, “she starts to become them,” according to Chell.

Cherry, The Old Soul

Eager to please and well-meaning but desperately disturbed, Cherry has her head in the clouds, and she struggles when Pumpkin first joins the group. You could say she doesn’t want things to change, and that she’s stuck in the past. Her makeup look, then, is the most far-removed from modern-day reality—a bit “‘60s and ‘70s-ish” and heavily inspired by the likes of Brigitte Bardot, Pamela Anderson, and Anna Nicole Smith, all at the request of Alloway. 

Pedretti herself would apply her own foundation (ILIA’s Skin Rewind Complexion Stick, if you were wondering) for the most natural-looking finish, and Chell would add cool tones to her eyes and face reminiscent of decades past. A lick of icy shimmer powder added a particularly other-worldly dimension: “I think it was an ode to an icon from the past,” says Chell. “In the sixties, lots of shimmers came out.”

Fig, The Edgy One

Of all the girls, Fig feels the most “alternative” of the group and is seen throughout the film styled in tight braids and a lot of black. “She’s edgy,” confirms Chell. “She’s nothing like the other three. The eyeliner was kind of an ode to rock 'n' roll and the punk scene.” 

While heavy and smoky, her makeup pulls on more plummy, deep colors than straight-up black. “I relate colors to themes a lot. Fig, to me, is almost like an eggplant color. I love that color. And of course, [Shipp] is a Black actress, so she's got a darker skin tone. It’s a really good color to accentuate her skin tone.”The darkness of Fig’s look might make you think she’s got a dark personality, but really she has anything but: “She’s just a girl in love,” says Chell. 

The Coven

While each character had their own look, certain decisions affected all four of them. Chell added face gems, for example, to multiple girls in a bid to make the Paradise scenes seem more mystical. “They're in a little club of their own, in their own little world. And this world is all about the glam and the beauty. It’s very whimsical,” muses Chell. “They were doing mystical rituals that didn’t necessarily have to look evil to keep people thinking, ‘What’s happening here?’” 

For a film so deeply embedded in beauty, the special effects scenes came crashing in with shockingly visceral brutality. “It's stunningly glam, and then it takes a sharp turn to the dark side,” admits Chell, who particularly loved creating a gory, raw nail bed for a scene that sees Cherry rip off her own acrylics in a state of sheer terror. For this, Chell used Ultra Slime to make the skin underneath Cherry’s nail look extra “stringy”, and she painted what looked like raw flesh, which she practiced multiple times—sending videos to Alloway for thoughts each time—before getting it just right. “She'd be like, ‘Can you make it a little more bloody under the nail?’ And I was like, ‘Sure, okay.’ Then I would do it again.”

Blood, too, had to be painted with precision. After one take that saw Reinhart’s stomach drenched in blood, Chell had to paint it back on in the exact same way the next night for continuity purposes. “Special effects are really a lot of fun,” admits Chell. “Sometimes you just get bored with doing straight makeup all the time. When you blend in a little effects with the glam, it's kind of the best of both worlds.” According to Chell, this is the secret to great acting: “Everybody enjoys it. I find actors really get into the situation of the character when they’re injured if special effects are done well, and it looks authentic—it helps their performance.”