Farewell To Full Face
We’re lucky enough to live in a day and age where no one is required to dress a certain way. While popular trends still exist, our focus has shifted from a particular “look” to what traits an individual wants to emphasize. You should be happy about this, because not everyone can pull off razor-thin eyebrows.
1. Matte Makeup
This heavy style was popular in the 90s and the 2010s, often featuring heavy, cakey foundation and concealer that completely dried down. It looked flawless in theory, but in practice, it often caused some pretty intense buildup in and around your face.
2. Thin Eyebrows
This eyebrow style has popped in and out of fashion for centuries, most recently in the early 2000s. These brows were often paired with some frosty eyeshadow that reached from your lashline to browbone, and a MAC nude lipstick.
3. Batwing Eyeliner
This style of eyeliner was meant to be an effective method of achieving a perfect wing on hooded eyes, often asking you to bring your eyeliner into the outer crease of the lid. While effective, intense winged liner is currently out of fashion, making this life hack also out of fashion.
4. Silicone Makeup Blenders
Finding alternatives to makeup brushes was all the rage in the 2010s, with beauty blenders being the frontrunner of heavy makeup styles. When suggested, traditional beauty blenders were too absorbent, so some of us turned to silicone blenders. These blenders are effective for an airbrush-style look, but aren’t made for quick, daily application.
5. Insane Blush
The COVID-19 E-girl trend was all about the blush. It stretched from the temples across the cheekbone and over the nose, often in a bright pink color. Occasionally, blush was also placed on the underside of the nose and over the top of the lip, which made you look like you took a frosty walk outside.
6. Overly Defined Brows
Many of us were victims of Anastasia’s Dip Brow. Covering your existing brow hairs in gel with a stark cutoff line and clean tails was all the rage in 2016, used in conjunction with some heavy concealer work.
7. Cut Crease Eyeshadow
Another 2016 staple pioneered by beauty influencers, a cut crease was the eyeshadow style. It was fun to use when you wanted to show off a bunch of colors in your Morphe palette, but it was also incredibly time-consuming.
8. Baking
As a part of the wider matte trend, it was common practice to pack loose powder anywhere you placed concealer (so, like 85% of your face) and let it meld with your skin for a few minutes. If you had a decent loose powder, you could achieve a pretty flawless finish, but certain drugstore brands just left us looking pretty textured.
9. Over-The-Top Highlighter
Highlighter is kind of like the frosting on the cake, often done last in your makeup process. Folks were so obsessed with getting a good glow that they would often layer cream, liquid, and powder shimmer on their cheeks, nose, cupid’s bow, and brow bone.
10. Overlining Lips
With a lot of time and effort, you can achieve a slightly exaggerated pout that’s sure to wow everyone around you. Close up, however, you probably just look a little bit like a clown.
11. Rounding The Cupid’s Bow
This technique involves covering your cupid’s bow with lip liner to create a circular shape on your upper lip, and was quite popular in the early 2020s. It created a fuller effect on your lip, but could also look a bit silly if done incorrectly.
Amirhossein Soltani on Unsplash
12. Soap Brows
This trend was popular in 2023 and involved using a bar soap to set brows instead of traditional brow gel. It worked for getting your brows to stay in place all day, but it also led us to the feathered brow trend.
13. Harsh Contouring
We were obsessed with looking snatched in the 2010s, and contour kits are proof of it. It wasn’t uncommon to see folks emphasizing the shadows of their face in 2016/2017, often using a darker shade across their cheeks, jaw, forehead, and sides of their nose.
14. Neon Blush
Like everything in the mid to late 80s, even the makeup was bold. Bright neon blush was all the rage in the 80s, often featuring bright pinks and reds on the apples of the cheeks. It was pioneered by artists like Madonna and Jane Fonda.
15. Frosty Lip Gloss
While the 2010s were about cheek glitter, the 90s and 2000s were about lip glitter. Often paired with a generous amount of lip liner, frosted lips were an eye-catching way to make your lips look shiny and full.
16. Over Color-Correcting
It was common to see folks apply greens, oranges, and purples underneath massive amounts of foundation. The idea was to neutralize any skin discoloration, but if you didn’t blend well enough, you looked just a little bit off.
17. Stacking Lashes
2024 and 2025 have seen a shift back to natural makeup looks, so it's no surprise that lash stacking is out of fashion. The technique started in 2011 as a way to enhance and feminize the eye, but we’ve been all about doe eyes since the 1950s.
18. Blue Eyeshadow
Blue eyeshadow comes in and out of fashion at whim, often only worn by the most confident of us. The color was popular in the 80s, and has shown up in more elaborate makeup looks throughout the 2010s. Unless we find ourselves pivoting back to full coverage, we doubt we’ll be seeing this color anytime soon.
19. Tightlining
A smaller-looking eye was mysterious and alluring, so it's no surprise that it paired so well with the nude lip trend of the '90s and early 2000s. Used across several aesthetics, a clean, tight line gave you a bolder look, while smudging the eyeliner gave you a softer, smoky eye that was popular in the emo and grunge scenes.
20. Concealer Lips
It was incredibly popular to match your lip color to your skin tone in the early 2000s, and what better way to achieve this look than by applying your concealer to your lips? This was often paired with the aforementioned frosty lip gloss trend, but was also a popular choice in the no-makeup makeup trend.
