A beauty & style guide to dressing like a fallen star
Solarites are not simply beautiful women.
They are celestial beings of pure energy whose humanoid bodies are powered by fallen stars buried at their cores. Their skin emits a natural phosphorescence. Their blood runs gold. During puberty, constellations emerge across their bodies before settling into maturity.
The first step in trying to look like one?
You need to glow.
STEP ONE: THE SKIN
Look illuminated from within
Solarite complexions tend towards warm browns with yellow and golden undertones, giving them their characteristic permanently sun-kissed appearance. The aim is to look like you’ve had a healthy tan from lounging under ample sunshine.
So the base should remain sheer, warm and luminous.
Think:
- Skin tint rather than heavy foundation
- Radiant primer
- Cream products
- Golden undertones
- Strategic highlighting
- Very little mattifying powder
Highlighter
This is the essential Solarite cosmetic.
One of the defining characteristics of a Solarite is the way their skin appears to be naturally luminescent and glowing. Most often this glow appears in the highest points of their face.
Apply a fine, almost wet-looking shimmer across:
cheekbones • temples • brow bone • bridge of nose • cupid’s bow • chin • collarbones • shoulders
And potentially the body.
Choose:
- champagne
- pale gold
- pearl
- opal
- ice blue
The glow isn’t overwhelming, it should just make your skin appear dewy and candlelit.
THE CONSTELLATIONS
Solarite starlets develop constellations across their skin when their magic awakens at puberty. This settles in adulthood but a constellation remains between their shoulder blades called a ‘dynasty marque’ which indicates their lineage.
Use tiny amounts of:
✨ pearl pigment
✨ gold liner
✨ silver liner
✨ micro-crystals
✨ individual flecks of shimmer
to trace subtle constellations along the temples, shoulders, décolletage or back.
For an everyday look, try adding three tiny stars beneath one eye. A little suggestion that the human disguise isn’t quite holding.
THE CHEEKS
Perpetually kissed by the sun
Solarites should never look heavily sculpted. Their beauty favours the ripe roundedness of girlhood over the severe contoured look.
Use satin or cream blush in:
🍑 peach
🌺 coral
🌹 warm rose
🍓 strawberry
Blend across the apples of the cheeks and slightly over the nose. You should look like you’ve spent the afternoon drinking sparkling wine in a garden and someone you fancy just complimented you.
THE LIPS
Freshly eaten berries
Solarite lips should look juicy, pillow-plump, and eminently kissable.
Use:
- Strawberry stains
- Raspberry stains
- Peach gloss
- Rose balm
- Sheer coral
- Glossy red-pink
Blur the edges slightly and add gloss through the centre. You want the effect to be like ripe peaches dripping down your chin.
THE EYES
Spring haze
Solarite eyes naturally appear in extraordinary shades of blue and violet, so their makeup should amplify rather than overpower them.
Palette: a dreamy aubade
🪻 Lavender
🩵 Powder blue
🌸 Petal pink
🍑 Peach
💛 Butter yellow
🤍 Pearl
✨ Champagne
Their eyes have a preternatural glow even in darkness, and their iris patterns tend to resemble nebulae or galaxies. You should therefore aim to keep everything hazy and diffused.
Then add the celestial element:
Gold or silver eyeliner
- A delicate metallic wing.
- Tiny stars.
- Gold in the inner corner.
- Pearl shimmer across the lid.
STEP TWO: THE HAIR
Crown yourself in light
The characteristic Solarite palette is:
gold • pearl • platinum blonde
They also tend to have the very light buttery blonde shades that often only appear in infants and children. But it’s not necessary to dye your hair blonde to look like a solarite. Try instead a hair shimmering product or some other light-catching quality.
Example:
- Gold hair jewellery
- Pearls
- Crystal pins
- Star clips
- Fine chains
- Floral crowns
- Gold thread woven through braids
- Celestial combs
The hair itself should feel romantic and slightly undone. Thick, bouncy and unruly curls, cloudy afros, or sea-swept waves. Elaborate braids or long flowing styles. Soft updos with loose strands escaping around the face.
Solarite hair is lascivious and freely undulating, a willing prey to even the slightest of breezes.
STEP THREE: THE WARDROBE
Dress like Botticelli discovered couture
The Solarite silhouette should move. When she walks, something should trail, float, shimmer or flutter.
Fabrics
- Silk
- Satin
- Chiffon
- Lace
- Fine cotton
- Gossamer
- Linen
Colours
🤍 Pearl
🩵 Powder blue
🌸 Blush
🍑 Peach
💛 Pale gold
🪻 Lavender
🌿 Pistachio
☀️ Cream
🌹 Coral
And occasionally richer sunset shades.
Details
- Draping
- Fine embroidery
- Floral appliqué
- Celestial beading
- Sheer layers
- Ribbons
- Pearls
- Gold thread
- Delicate lace
The body doesn’t need to disappear beneath fabric either. Soleterea is a sensual country that luxuriates in the natural assets of a woman. Bare shoulders, backs, décolletage, diaphanous layers and body-skimming silk all belong here.
STEP FOUR: THE JEWELLERY
Wear the heavens
Solarite jewellery should look like somebody dismantled the sky and took it to a goldsmith.
Metals
- Gold
- White gold
- Rose gold
- Platinum
Stones
💎 Diamond
🩵 Cornflower sapphire
🌅 Padparadscha sapphire
☀️ Citrine
💛 Canary diamond
🌈 Opal
🌙 Moonstone
🦪 Pearl
💜 Amethyst
Motifs
☀️ Suns
✨ Stars
🌌 Constellations
💥 Sunbursts
🌹 Roses
🦢 Swans
🦄 Unicorns
🍓 Strawberry leaves
And I’d encourage layering.
- Fine chains across the décolletage.
- Drop earrings.
- Armlets.
- Hair jewellery.
- Delicate rings.
- Anklets.
Nothing needs to be enormous because the overall effect comes from light catching everywhere you move.
STEP FIVE: THE PERFUME
Smell like liquid light
A Solarite smells like the first blade of morning sun slicing across the horizon. Warm, creamy, floral, nectareous, and almost narcotic.
The Solarite fragrance
TOP
🍊 Orange
🍑 Peach
🌼 Narcissus
🌿 Fresh citrus
HEART
🤍 Gardenia
🌼 Mimosa
🌹 Rose
🌸 Jasmine
🤍 Tuberose
🌼 Orange blossom
BASE
🍦 Vanilla
🍯 Honey
🌰 Almond
🫘 Tonka
🧡 Amber
🥛 Milky accords
The perfume shouldn’t smell crisp and freshly showered. It should smell like flowers opening in heat, like fruit becoming overripe, like honey warmed by sunlight, like skin after an afternoon outdoors. And there should be something faintly intoxicating underneath it all in the drydown. Warm and thick, like the air just before a storm.
THE COMPLETE SOLARITE LOOK
The cheatsheet for one outfit:
FACE
Luminous skin
Coral cream blush
Champagne highlight
Lavender wash over the eyes
Fine gold eyeliner
Strawberry-stained glossy lips
Three tiny constellation stars at the temple
HAIR
Soft, romantic styling with pearl-and-gold star pins
BODY
Pearlescent body shimmer across shoulders and collarbones
DRESS
Pale peach silk chiffon, draped loosely across the body with gold celestial embroidery
JEWELLERY
Gold sunburst earrings
Fine moonstone necklace
Cornflower sapphire rings
Pearl anklet
PERFUME
Orange blossom + peach + tuberose + honey + vanilla + amber
LUMINOUS. SENSUAL. ETHEREAL.
Ready to enter Vysteria?
When the Stars Alight is the first novel in The Essence of the Equinox, my completed gothic fantasy trilogy about a star-born princess, the future king of demons and a love affair that collides with politics, power and the fate of their worlds.
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