While there were definitely some colorful and over the top beauty looks on the fall runways, that wasn’t the norm. On most runways it was about simple hair, simple nails, simple makeup. We’re starting to wonder, why even bother having hairstylists, makeup artists, and manicurists backstage at all?

If you’re anything like us, you’ve been conditioned to assume intricate hairstyles and dark nail hues, along with strongly contoured faces and deeply pigmented lips are synonymous with the annual fall show season. Guess what? For fall 2012, we were thrown for quite a loop. Color us surprised—even if nothing else was. The big beauty news this season? That ‘all dolled up on the catwalk’ tide has well turned. In fact, we’ve lost count of how many nude faces, simple hair, and clean nails we saw over the past month.

Why?