'Sterling Point'—And It's Makeup—Nails Girlhood In A Way Teen Dramas Rarely Do

Skye Tostowaryk the makeup department head behind “Sterling Point” knew Prime Video had the biggest breakout show of the year on its hands, long before the rest of the world. “It felt very special working on it,” she fondly recalls. “There was such a bond between the cast and crew that when we wrapped at the end of last summer, I ended up staying for an extra hour just to hug every single person, which I've never done at the end of a show.”

Like the show’s performances, dialogue, and costume design, opens in new tab, Tostowaryk’s approach to makeup was incredibly naturalistic; the makeup looks are refreshingly lived-in and specific to each character, and never tip into something that looks conspicuously “done.” It was less about transformation and more, as she says, “about placement and enhancing what’s already there.” That resulted in understated but intentional looks for the show’s three main female characters, Annie (Ella Rubin), Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle) and Oona (Bo Bragason) that not only feel intrinsically connected to who each character is, but also mark a departure from the heavily contoured, full-glam standard set by teen dramas of the 2010s (“Pretty Little Liars” and “The Vampire Diaries,” we’re looking at you).

Before filming began, Tostowaryk met with the show’s creator Megan Park and created a lookbook and held makeup tests with the cast. Because she already knew who would be playing the girls, she could build the initial looks around the actors themselves rather than an abstract idea of the characters. But nothing was set in stone: as the season progressed, Tostowaryk would talk to the actors about what was coming up in each episode and evolve their looks accordingly. “It was very collaborative,” she says. “I do like to collaborate with my actors anyway, that’s always my approach.” 

Annie: ‘No Makeup’ Makeup

Annie is perhaps the clearest example of Tostowaryk’s no-makeup makeup philosophy. Although in the opening episode, we see just how regimented Annie’s skincare routine is with her double cleansing, under-eye patches, and gua sha routine, the intention behind that is to tell us about Annie’s general approach to life when we first meet her: she’s diligent, to the point of overdoing it. But as Tostowaryk says, it also helps us understand that Annie is someone who takes care of her skin so well that full coverage is never necessary. "We just really wanted to show that she has like gorgeous radiant skin,” she says of both the character and Rubin herself. 

Rubin’s day in the makeup chair on set then naturally began with skincare. Some mornings, the 25-year-old actress would bring in her own sheet masks before Tostowaryk began her prep work. From there, Tostowaryk used Face Atelier Ultra Skin, a tinted foundation that she describes as exceptionally sheer and buildable. “We would do a really thin layer because we wanted like her natural freckles to show and we didn't want it to look like she was wearing makeup,” Tostowaryk explains, adding that Rubin would sometimes grab an eye pencil to bring the freckles back. With the show shot mostly in chronological order (it added to that aforementioned radical realism), the actress naturally became more tanned and freckled over the course of filming, which Tostowaryk’s team incorporated into Annie’s look. Tarte Shape Tape Blur Stick concealer was applied only where necessary, while powder was used sparingly and only once Rubin was on set, when Tostowaryk could see where the camera picked up any unwanted shine.

The rest of Annie’s everyday face was similarly restrained: a light coat of Maybelline Great Lash Mascara was combed through her lashes and a tiny amount of Saie Liquid Blush was swiped onto her cheeks—a recommendation from Rubin herself. (“I had never tried it before I worked with her and now I use it in my kit!”) Tostowaryk also applied the tiniest amount of an Elate eye pencil in the medium-brown shade Chilly to the upper waterline, simply to make Rubin’s eyes register on camera without looking as though she was wearing obvious eyeliner. For her lips, Tostowaryk used Charlotte Tilbury’s Lip Cheat Lip Liner in the shade Love Trap, chosen precisely because it worked with Rubin’s cool undertones. It was then dabbed and blended out with a clear Burt’s Bees lip balm for a moisturised and soft finish.

Across the episodes, Tostowaryk wanted to find a way to reflect Annie gradually letting go, and with an already pretty restrained makeup base, she sought to show this character development in a different way. “Where do you go if you're doing a no-makeup makeup? But there were some little subtle ways that we were able to do that,” Tostowaryk recalls. “She starts the season with a light pinky nude nail polish and then we chose more fun colors for her nails, butter yellow or blue.” Similarly, for her birthday night out with Rory (Daniel Quinn-Toye), the makeup team “added a little tiny pop of light shimmer on the inner parts of the eye and a bronzy liner.” It’s barely perceptible, but enough to suggest that this is not quite the same Annie we met at the beginning.

Ramona: Barely-There But Blemish-Free

If Annie's look is minimal, Ramona's is even more so. In fact, Tostowaryk wanted it to appear as if she’s not even wearing anything on her skin at all, since makeup just isn’t something she’s interested in. Her life instead revolves around working out on the lakes, cleaning boats with Ellis (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie), unwinding with a joint and a good book, and (before he passed) caring for her grandfather. 

The focus for Tostowaryk then became correcting small blemishes rather than covering anything up. A small dab of concealer was used where necessary to make Ramona look blemish-free, and a pressed Face Atelier powder in one-and-a-half shades darker than Hoeferle’s skin was swept around the edges of the face to warm the complexion and give her a sunkissed glow. "It warmed her up without looking weird, or like makeup," she says.

Using an Anastasia Beverly Hills tinted brow gel, Tostowaryk gave Ramona a slightly fuller brow and she finished the look by rimming her eyes with a Charlotte Tilbury lip liner in a reddish shade, blended out with her fingers. “It really made her eyes pop but also gave her that stoner look without going too extreme with it. It was very subtle, and he didn’t have mascara on either so that teeny tiny bit of blended lip liner really made her eyes stand out on camera.”

Oona: A Flash Of Color

Tostowaryk gave Oona one thing the other girls didn’t get: color. Her base was the same Face Atelier tinted foundation used on Rubin, albeit in a warmer shade to match her complexion. On Bragason’s fair skin, she added a small amount of Daniel Sandler  Watercolour™ Liquid Blush Flush in a coral-peach tone, applied to look like a natural flush rather than a discernible layer of makeup. 

But the character-defining detail is Oona’s eyeliner. Tostowaryk gently applied Lise Watier Eyeshine pencil in the shade Peacock (a green-blue teal color) onto Bragason’s lower waterline.  "It's a very high pigment liner," Tostowaryk says. "And it's easy to take too far with that liner." Unlike the makeup for Annie and Ramona, this is meant to intentionally be read as something the character does, which came instinctively to Tostowaryk. After reading the script, she thought it made sense for Oona to add “one fun thing” in her daily routine. "She had all these fun triangle bikini tops and board shorts and so much jewelry," she says. "I just thought, maybe she needs a little pop of color." It's a detail Una wears in nearly every scene—chilling on her houseboat with little sister Maple (Mabel Strachan), flirting with the costumes at Sully’s (Nikko Angelo Hinayo) cafe-slash-general store, or attempting to hold down a catering job at Rory’s mom’s lakeside vacation house. Tostowaryk never toned down to hit an occasion or scene, which felt like exactly what Oona would do.

For all three girls, Tostowaryk’s approach comes back to the same idea: make the skin look good first, then do as little as possible on top of it. It’s a particularly fitting approach for a show whose appeal rests so heavily on its sense of reality. It’s why even when fake sweat is called for, she skips the specialty products entirely in favor of a hydrating skin mist as "it's better for the skin". At the end of every day on set, she insists that everything is gently removed with a double cleanse using an oil-based cleanser from Toronto-based brand Living Libations. 

Tostowaryk encourages anyone in Annie, Ramona, and Oona's age bracket to follow suit. None of the products used were chosen for any reason beyond being what she liked, what the actors liked, and what they discovered together over months of filming.