Make-up trends come and go, like fashion, I personally prefer to use what suits me best, with some adaptions to the latest trends, rather than following every new beauty and make-up direction.
However, it would be untrue of me to say that I don’t ever follow the latest trends, as the power of advertising has a powerful pull and with Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram all adding to our daily feeds it’s impossible not to be aware of what’s new.
In the fairly recent TV series on beauty by Lisa Eldridge, the Victorian era and the social pressure on women to look beautiful while pretending the effect is all natural was discussed. She describes it as the era of sneaky makeup, looking at the household tricks that women achieved to create virtuous blushes and wholesome glossy eyebrows. It was an hypocritical culture that forced women into covert trickery as a means of demonstrating their goodness. Beauty and make-up products were sold under the counter often as health treatments. No one, who valued their good reputation wanted to be seen as having to have help to look beautiful. Although we can now openly buy make-up and beauty products has the notion of been a natural beauty really changed that much? Do we still live in the Victorian shadow on this score, that some (mostly men) still regard it wrong to wear a lot of make-up or use many beauty products?
As a feminist issue, it’s an interesting one as women surely should be able to choose to use as little or as much help in the beauty department as they wish, but some feminists express the view, that woman are been exploited by the beauty industry, by feeling they have to wear make-up.
A 2019 study suggested that the average British woman spends £2.39 per day on make-up and toiletries, which adds up to £16.73 a week and £872.35 a year. How much time we spend on our make-up varies, 21 % of us spend under five minutes on make-up each day, with 48 % spending five-to-15 minutes and 31% between 15 and 30 minutes. As many feminists point out, that’s a lot of time and money.
During her show, Lisa Eldridge reveals that the natural look is one of the most time-consuming styles for her to achieve and it usually takes her over 45 minutes of painstaking dabbing and brushing to make a young fashion model look effortlessly beautiful. I would say that make-up should be about enhancing your natural features and in turn giving you more confidence. Some women can look completely different with make-up, again that’s a personal choice. I prefer to look the same, with or without make-up just a slightly better version. (With make-up) You can watch an online beauty tuitional online to help achieve this look.
After a year or more of going without make-up during Lockdown, you would think that we would all want to go back to wearing our make-up in a big way? During a recent survey by L’Oréal, it found that 80% of 16–34-year-olds were excited to start wearing more makeup again after lockdown. But, having got used to a minimal way of doing things, it seems the make-up products that are feeling right for now are subtle cheats that helps to embrace a more natural look. The Latest make-up trends are for make-up that doesn’t even look like you’re wearing makeup! It just looks like beautiful skin. I think the no make-up trend has dominated the make-up industry in the latter half of the last decade, and it’s just being talked about more now. This tend does has to go hand in hand with the beauty industry as you really do have to look after your skin to achieve this look as lighter make-up means less coverage to hide any blemishes or imperfections.
Skinimalism has become a major buzzword as brands have seen the shift of focus to increasing the focus of looking after your skin and paring back make-up to show off the results of taking better care of the skin. Letting skin glow rather that be concealed.
I work for a natural beauty company and have always said that the best beauty look is aiming to have the best skin you can. Trying to cover up problem skins with concealers and heavy make-ups just starts to look cakey and actually looks more obvious. Less is always more. Also, a heavy make-up doesn’t allow skin to breath, so it can actually make skin conditions worse.
So, for once this will me a trend that I follow, well just a bit….
