Photo Caption: (from clockwise left) NARS Creatures of the Wind makeup look; Deborah Lippmann nail polishes used at Badgley Mischka; Gucci Westman applying makeup on a model at Jonathan Simkhai’s show; Jenny Packham’s makeup look using Laura Mercier products.

Each season, there’s more to New York Fashion Week than just clothing and fashion trends. Backstage, the world’s top makeup artists create the beauty looks that will similarly prevail in six months’ time, often with as-yet-unreleased products that are in the works for the next season. Beauty Insider went backstage at New York Fashion Week to get a sneak peak at the products and accompanying trends expected for next fall.

The biggest fall beauty trend is the prevalence of the nude face: a neutral, natural canvas of luminous skin without a lot of color on the cheeks, eyes or lips. One example of the look: the makeup at Creatures of the Wind, handled by James Boehmer, Director of Global Artistry at NARS. A key product he used was Mauritanie, a new shade of the Matte Multiple that’s out in September. “It’s like a honey or a caramel,” he said. “For the fall, you want something richer. It’s the best thing to keep in your bag—when you don’t know what to put on that day, it always makes you look finished and polished.” James used it on the models’ lips but as the name implies, it’s a multi-tasker that he said works on all skin tones. Another NARS standout coming out this fall: the Chocolate eye shadow in the Dolomites Duo, which Diane Kendall used at the Thakoon show.

Also using a neutral palette was Talia Shobrook, who created the beauty looks for Jenny Packham using Laura Mercier products. In her kit was a new color for fall, Champagne Eye Glaze. “The good thing about this is that it gives a sort of shimmer, it brightens up the eye and it stays on forever,” she raved. “It’s in between a cream and a powder, so if you’re going out at night and you don’t have time to do a whole makeup change, you just put a dab of that on and you’re ready for evening. It’s a time saver product.”

At Badgley Mischka, Deborah Lippmann debuted an upcoming fall color, Take the A Train, part of a six-polish collection with a newly developed, smooth finish. “I wanted to create a formula that was really luxurious, something that was super-shiny but not streaky,” she explained, adding that the formulation was in development, on and off, for five years.

The polish’s deep metallic chrome color, inspired by Art Deco and luxurious fabrics, deco period, is, according to Lippmann, actually quite easy to wear.“It’s an unexpected neutral, something like that you can wear to the office,” she said. “Women are wearing all different shades of gray.”

She feels the color epitomizes the nail trend for fall.“I think we’re coming back to beautiful,” she said. “My fear was that we were going to go to nothing on the nails. Now I think all spectrums are available and ok—it’s ok to wear red, it’s ok to wear something with a little bit of an interesting finish, and it’s ok to wear beige.”

Although a neutral palette was virtually omnipresent throughout New York Fashion Week, there were a few splashes of color.At Jonathan Simkhai, Gucci Westman used an upcoming extra-dark green crème eyeshadow, Revlon’s Street Style (out in October), to create an updated modern eye. “I’m super-excited about it,” she smiled. “It’s like Play-Doh, and there’s some transparency to it, so it doesn’t feel like a thick black shadow. It’s not solid green, it’s not so overpowering, and it’s a lot more wearable.”

While the smoky eye isn’t going away, Westman feels that products like these—smudgy, easy to apply with the fingertips, and non-opaque—are the way to go for fall. “A smoky eye can feel really dated depending on how you do it,” she said. “It can feel really 90’s. This is not too harsh. It feels more contemporary.”