Every year, on the first Monday of May, the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art become the most photographed stretch of ground on the planet. And every year, the beauty looks are just as much of a conversation as the clothes.
The 2026 Met Gala celebrated the Costume Institute's spring exhibition "Costume Art," with one guiding directive for guests: fashion is art. And if the clothes were the canvas, the beauty looks were the brushstrokes. Makeup artists and hairstylists leaned fully into the theme, delivering looks that felt more like a gallery than a red carpet. Where last year's 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style' pushed beauty toward sharp precision, this year was painterly, expressive and deeply intentional.
There was Old Hollywood glamour with a fresh edge, from Sabrina Carpenter's 1920s-inspired faux bob to Lisa's crystalline kiss curls. And then there were the looks that could only happen on a night like this: Joey King's Pre-Raphaelite softness and Isha Ambani's jasmine hair sculpture, a handcrafted homage to the mogra gajra.
Ahead, we round up the standout beauty looks of the night that caught our eye, and show you exactly how to recreate them.







































