Walking into Sephora last week, I anticipated leaving with a few new things to expedite my morning makeup routine. Next thing I knew, I was recommended $350 worth of beauty products. This was much to my surprise since I had asked an employee for the makings of a natural makeup look. Willing to let her prove she knew what I wanted, I settled into the makeup counter seat and let her work her magic. She applied each product she had recommended for over 30 minutes. That was not the breezy routine I was hoping for. Squeezing a bright Beauty Blender in her hand and smiling ear to ear, she told me the key was to blend, as if that made up for the 20 extra minutes of sleep I would now have to devote to applying all of my new products.
The latest trend in beauty is to look like you have no makeup on at all. However, that isn’t accomplished by actually wearing no makeup, but by carefully crafting the ultimate beauty cocktail and applying it flawlessly.
As Fashion Week continues to set up camp all over the globe, we’re seeing more and more natural beauty as a component on runway. It was prevalent on the runways last spring as well, which makes it clear that this beauty trend will continue to stand its ground for more than a season or two. It’s easy to see on social media accounts run by MAC Cosmetics, the respective fashion week’s online posts, and celebrity supermodels’ accounts that there was still a lot to be done to achieve such a natural look. The models certainly weren’t sitting in front of the makeup mirror for a measly 20 minutes, but had makeup artists spending hours on their looks. It all seems rather silly when you figure that these models are arguably the most physically beautiful people we have to offer. Yet despite that, they’re probably using more products than I was recommended that day in Sephora.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from something as high-budget as Fashion Week, YouTube beauty vlogs have become a major platform for this trend that millennials have lovingly deemed “no-makeup makeup”. I watched a few of their videos myself, taking note of what they had to say in comparison to my Sephora experience. There were three top beauty bloggers who I took particular note of. All have over a million subscribers and the specific videos I watched all had upwards of 500,000 views. Meghan Rienks was the first. She shamelessly admitted to using a ton of products to make her not-so-perfect skin look flawless. Adding up everything she used, it came to a grand total of 17 products. Her exact look would cost you about $550, even steeper than my Sephora haul. Next, I watched a video by Arden Rose, who prefers a much more fresh-faced look. She used 10 products, totalling around $265. Better, but still a sucker punch to anyone’s bank account. For the last video, I wanted to see how cheap and easy a “no-makeup makeup” routine could get. Estée Lalonde uses 7 drugstore-only products that would cost you $64. Not horrible, but certainly not au naturale.
Social media platforms have given the most access to this beauty trend, but they are also where the current generation fights to end retouching and editing. This is done by propagating “no filter” hashtags and campaigns that urge the population to love themselves as they are. The problem is that the key behind “no-makeup makeup” lies precariously upon enhancing natural features. For people who have glowing skin and long lashes, they may be able to spare their wallets from purchasing a few extra products. For the majority of the population that aren’t regularly runway-ready the minute they wake up, they turn to an excess of products can seem necessary to keep up with this “no filter” culture.
We know that supermodels preparing for shows spend hours on their makeup and we can guess that YouTube stars are doing the same because they too are public figures, but do regular girls really spend this much money and time on their makeup? Makeup used to be something to just make you look beautiful, but lately we all want to feel beautiful. I would say that most people feel beautiful when they feel like themselves. It’s an interesting thought as the question of makeup is raised again and again in different arguments. As to the large amount of products and money spent, it may be ridiculous when put in this specific scope, but the idea behind it isn’t all that bad. Maybe it is just a trend and we’ll be back to blue eyeshadow in a year, but maybe this is one step closer to makeup being something that we can all enjoy without any pressures behind it.