Give a girl a red lipstick, and she’ll conquer the world. Give Karisma Kapoor a statement-making lip shade, and she’ll take it with her to the grave. Before you brush that off as an obvious exaggeration, scroll through her Instagram feed—you’ll find that the actor seems to prefer wearing a bold hue on her lips more often than not.

From her loud-and-proud days of frosted pouts, the three decades since her debut in Prem Qaidi (1991) have transformed her into a beauty influencer in her own right. She filled her time in between those years by becoming the darling of the rom-com genre, and has a wide array of blockbusters to show for it—Raja Hindustani (1996), Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Biwi No. 1 (1999), Hum Saath Saath Hain (1999) and Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge (2000) among many, many others. 2006 saw her last mainstream role as a leading lady in Mere Jeevan Saathi, but her fans can take heart from the fact that she became a mainstay on the social scene soon after.

Karisma Kapoor's frosty beginnings

Not one to say no to the makeup trend that defined the zeitgeist back then, Kapoor spent the ’90s and ’00s wearing frosted lips and dark lip liner in every hue of the sparkly palette. This was matched with dark eyeliner and shimmer eyeshadow, a combination also favoured by her sister, Kareena Kapoor Khan.

In her early years in Bollywood, Kapoor had thick, bushy brows (the same style that came back to focus in 2017). This continued until the mid-2000s, post which she wore them thin and severe for several years.

2012 had her hitting the party scene with smoky eyeshadow highlighting her coloured peepers. Kapoor continued to play up her best asset with heavy kohl-rimmed eyes all through 2013, with glossy lips for company.

Karisma Kapoor's hair mantra: Go big or go home

In 2014 and beyond, Kapoor relied on her favourite staples—a bright lipstick (in shades across the pink and red spectrum) and eyes accentuated with kohl on the upper and lower lash lines. Before you cry foul and accuse of her playing to the gallery, the actor finally dipped a toe in unknown waters and stepped out of her comfort zone with a spree of experimental hairstyles in 2016. For the Vogue Beauty Awards that year, the actor had her strands pulled back into an unconventional hairstyle, featuring OTT volume at the crown. Soon after, she attended another award show in super-straight tresses, and followed it up with a tight, high ponytail for her friend, designer Manish Malhotra’s 50th birthday party. In 2017, Kapoor was a judge at the Vogue Beauty Awards, and she pulled out all the stops on the red carpet—wearing blue eyeliner on her lower lash line, paired with a messy ponytail and the same frosted nude lips she loved back in the late ’90s and ’00s.

For fellow actors Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh’s wedding reception in 2018, Kapoor wore a black sequinned gown with an old Hollywood red lip, side-parted hair and a shimmery silver eyeshadow on the inner corners of the eye. For the Vogue Women Of The Year awards that same year, she wore her most experimental beauty look yet, eschewing her favoured light, shimmery eye makeup for a pink and black smoky eye, with cherry coloured glossy lips and a wet hair look.

While the previous year saw Kapoor dabble in more out-there styles on the red carpet, Kapoor even wore blue eye liner to the airport in early 2019. For a promotional event mid-year, her look was striking similar to her best hits in the early 2000s—an almost frosty pink-nude lip, a barely-there smoky eye and flushed, dewy cheeks—proving that what goes around really does come around in the beauty world