When Did Beauty Become So Boring?
- Neha Ogale
- Jul 18
- 4 min read
TikTokification continues to stifle creativity and siphon the joy out of experiencing makeup.
You’re all clones.
Before you get mad at me, I’ll go ahead and attribute the quote to a New York City-based content creator known as Sasha. In 2024, she took to TikTok to lament that the eponymous app has “ruined the vibe.” She denounced the slicked-back buns and sunglasses setting up camp in whatever restaurant TikTok told them was cool. I have noticed that modern beauty trends are following a similar, overtrodden path. Everyone has the same fluffy brows, lifted concealer, overlined lips, and ultradewy skin, all achieved through the same products and same placement on the face.
I would place the onus on the post-COVID rise of “Clean Girl” beauty, which has been written about ad nauseam. The rules are at once transparent and discreet. Never wear blue eyeshadow. If you must do a red lip, keep the rest of the face bare. Ditch the skinny jeans. Stick to neutral tones and textures. Don’t text back too quickly. Don’t be too much. Makeup has devolved from a form of art and self-expression into yet another performance in nonchalance. The subtext is obvious: be hot, but don’t give a shit. Its more ominous undertones carry whispers of wealth, status, and an obsession with the idealized female form — in other words, youth and Whiteness, or proximity to youth and Whiteness. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so long as the beholder idolizes Hailey Bieber and/or takes a keen but ambiguous interest in Japan.
Modern beauty trends feel uninspiring because people are uninspired. I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup until I was in high school. My everyday look consisted solely of a natural peach or ruddy brown lipstick pilfered from my mother’s vanity and smudged on under the fluorescent overhead lighting of my middle school lavatory. As a teenager, I studied my favorite films and rifled through magazines (yes, physical magazines) like Seventeen and Teen Vogue for ideas. I experimented with editorialized looks like “windswept cheeks” (which really just translated to clown blush in the unsure hands of my 15-year-old self) and embraced Cara Delevingne’s signature brows with gleeful enthusiasm. Some of my favorite finds I sourced simply through wandering the aisles at my local Ulta and Sephora.
But it would appear that no one reads magazines anymore, or goes to the movies (and even if they did it would make no difference, since everyone on screen looks the same — ever heard of Instagram face?), or even browses the inventory of their favorite beauty retailers. If you visit the Sephora website, you can select a “Help Me Choose” feature that stratifies your search by categories such as super-natural sculpting, clean makeup guide, and no-makeup makeup. TikTokification continues to stifle creativity and siphon the joy out of experiencing makeup.
When working optimally — that is, when the products work cohesively and in tandem with the skincare beneath — makeup produces characteristic visual effects like improved volume or definition in certain areas of the face by increasing the overall contrast in your complexion. Learning to work with your features, understanding what complements your skin tone, figuring out what colors or textures appeal to you most — these are skills that require curiosity, effort, and patience like any art or science. The best part of being an adult is that no one can tell you what to do. The worst part of being an adult is that no one can tell you what to do. I understand how experimenting can feel like a chore as we get older and busier. Autonomy is exhausting, which may explain why so many people have collectively outsourced the creative process and discovery to influencers who use thousands of dollars worth of professional lighting, film equipment, and filters only to churn out the same “snatched,” “glowy,” altogether slightly sweaty look.
If a black crop top and low-rise baggy jeans is the TikTok uniform, then this clean beauty, no-makeup makeup aesthetic is its corresponding ultra-normie face chart template. The last thing a makeup trend should be is forgettable. That an act as innately expressive as literally painting your face could mass produce such tepid results is an indication that something in the beauty world has gone terribly astray.
None of this is to suggest that trends are inherently bad or good; beauty trends have always been around. In the 1960s, we had cut creases and pastel shadows a la Twiggy and Sharon Tate. The ‘70s favored both a bronzey, goddess-of-the-earth look as well as rock-and-roll flair thanks to stars like Farrah Fawcett, Shelley Duvall, and Bianca Jagger. The ‘80s ushered in big brows, bigger hair, and bold colors on the eyes, cheeks, and lips, all of which the '90s pared down to a look that was decidedly powdered and plucked. Frosted shadows and lamentable concealer mouth reigned in the 2000s, followed closely by the ultraglam, heavily saturated “Instagram makeup” of the 2010s.
Each decade can be linked to a distinctive beauty aesthetic with its own specific color palettes, textures, and techniques. The makeup looks popularized in years past remain memorable because they were both visually interesting and culturally significant. My hope is for the arrival of a new vanguard in the cosmetic industry, one that encourages more joy and expression in its patrons. Can we just make makeup fun again? 🌀
Neha Ogale is a doctoral student in clinical psychology, a relapsed coat hoarder, and an indie film lover based in New York City. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @urbangremlin.