I discovered makeup at a very young age, probably the same way the rest of you reading did too. Mum was in the kitchen and I thought I’d take it upon myself to coat my face (and the majority of the bedroom wall) in whatever I could find at Mum’s makeup table. Years on, I’m still can’t perfect winged eyeliner, or the perfect contour. I’m past the stage of stressing myself out over it now, I’m hoping that my husband (after many years of happy marriage) still sees me as the person underneath it all.
When I look at the kids and teenagers of today though, I can’t help but feel like they’re far worse off than I was. Eye liner and a touch of black lipstick (don’t act like you didn’t have a goth stage either) was enough for sneaking out of the house on a Friday night. But nowadays, thanks to the rise of social media…teenagers can’t help but compare themselves to the Kylies, Kendalls, Hadids and Delevingnes that dominate the media spotlight. While, each of those women are undoubtedly, absolutely gorgeous, it can’t be healthy for young girls to assume that they always need to be seen with that level of makeup on.
While I love reading up on the latest beauty trends, I can’t help but note that things are very different from when I was younger and I’m sure you feel the same.
It begs the question; how is the beauty industry changing, and what’s coming next?
Evolving Beauty Trends (Or Are They?)
As I’m writing this, I’ve had to move my laptop from my lap to the kitchen table because I’m wearing high waisted shorts and my laptop has decided to try and scold my thighs! High waisted shorts aren’t anything new, though. Women wore them in the 60’s too and they looked just as gorgeous doing so. Ten years prior to that, Grace Kelly, Hepburn and Monroe were demonstrating flirtatious, winged eyeliner (the same style that I’m continuing to fail at all these years later). We even saw women stripping back to pencil thin eyebrows in the 1930s, or shaving them off completely and drawing them back on – much the same as many young girls today!
While there will always be new eyeliners or Kylie lip kits, we’re probably going to be using them just the same as we have been over the last hundred years! Are there any beauty trend you’d love to see make a reappearance?
Personalisation
Any Mad Men lovers out there? Early on in the first series of the critically acclaimed show, Don Draper, Creative Director of a fictitious Manhattan advertising agency reveals his pitch for a new marketing campaign to represent Belle Joilie Lipstick: “Every woman wants choices, but in the end, none wants to be one in a box of a hundred.”
We come in an infinite number of shapes, colours and sizes. The foundation that works for me is far from ideal for my sister and we’re related! How are makeups meant to accommodate the three and a half billion women on earth with a one-size-fits-all approach. The answer, that many companies are now looking to pursue is creating personalised makeup. Finding Ferdinand are an example of a startup that give men and women the opportunity to create a, unique personalised makeup palette for their skin. Could we see makeup companies start to create products with personalised ingredients to accommodate our skin’s reaction to allergens or irritants in future too?
Personal Makeup Packages
Where do you get your makeup from? When I was little, I used to share it with my mum. Then, when I decided to find my own style (embrace that goth stage) I went to the local pharmacy to get my shampoos, eyeliners and lipsticks. When I got my first paying job (in a tiny café), I would buy an enormous amount of makeup, much to the expense of the other poor local women. In fact, sometimes I had to wait for the pharmacy to restock my eyeliner (that’s how goth I was!). It was a small village, in fairness!
Nowadays we can simply order our makeup online, or pop down to supermarkets or cosmetic retailers. Even the chemists stock more makeup than ever before. But, if we’re going down the route of personalised makeup – could we soon see pharmacy wholesalers stocking our local chemists with our unique makeup creations, much like repeat prescriptions? Instead of going to Boots or Superdrug, we’d simply have to pop by the chemist to pick up a package with everything we’d need to last us the rest of the month.
What do you think girls? Where do you think we’re going and what would you like to see from the beauty industry?
