The fall 2011 couture collections came and went in a whimsical whirlwind. With them, we’ve seen a whole host of trends: colored animal prints, shimmery black and white styles, flowing ensembles, and bizarre and beautiful pieces. The gowns were enough to floor us, but we can’t forget that runway trends don’t stop at the clothing; we blissfully found one prevalent beauty trend in all the shows: the au naturale look.

Valentino fall 2011 haute couture, Imaxtree

Designers chose to push the focus toward their creative ensembles by keeping makeup minimal. But keeping the makeup so subtle is what drew in our attention. Sometimes we’d rather do a double take on a girl who has hardly any makeup on versus a girl who has it caked on.

Anne Valerie, Bouchra Jarrar, Christophe Josse fall 2011 haute couture, Imaxtree

While the style is clearly bare bones, we can’t help but notice the sculpted cheeks these girls are sporting. Anne Valerie and Bouchra Jarrar went with soft corals to accentuate while Christophe Josse decided on a light pink tint.

Maison Rabih Kayrouz fall 2011 haute couture, Imaxtree

Maison Rabih Kayrouz stuck with the ethereal theme with simple makeup and a stage full of water and barefoot models.

Givenchy fall 2011 haute couture, Imaxtree

Givenchy, too, surrounded his models with nature’s own thirst quencher. But we see here a tinge of pale pink lipstick that brightens up the otherwise naked makeup.

Giambattista Valli, Elie Saab fall 2011 haute couture, Imaxtree

Veering a bit off the plain path, Giambattista Valli and Elie Saab lined only the top lid with black liner and frosted over the lips with a sheer rose-toned lipstick.

Julien Fournie fall 2011 haute couture, Imaxtree

Finally Julien Fournie brought in one of our favorite colors from nature—coral—and used it to emphasize the pucker. And while this look isn’t as vanilla as the others, we always approve faint hints of this bright shade. The key to a great fall makeup routine? Simplicity. There will be enough going on with your clothes!