AIBU To be bemused by current make up trends?

[misskelly]

I'm in my 40's and have loved make up since I was quite young. Make up has improved so much over the last 20 years and the colours available for every skin tone has been amazing. Anyone can find the right products and enhance their features if they wish.

So, I ask why,why,why for the love of god has a trend evolved that can only be described as Widow Twanky. Why do so many women want to look like pantomime dames?

Is it due to a culture of selfies and wanting to look good in photos? Fake eyelashes, contouring, drawn on eyebrows and lip lines does not translate in the flesh.

I know this might come across as bitchy, but I'm honestly not trying to be. Especially when so many women could look amazing because they are spending a lot of time and money on their faces. Am I so out of the loop now that I just can't appreciate this look?

Yes and all the slap plus the matte lips in strange shades makes them looks slightly corpse-like.

I am in total agreement.

Young girls will never be as beautiful again, as they are in their youth, yet they are covering their beauty to look like identikit drag queens.

Whoever coined it the Widow Twankey look was spot on.

There are millions of make up videos on YouTube and Instagram and all of the girls end up looking like clones of one another, putting on their make up in exactly the same way, endless blending of eight colours of eyeshadow, muddy brown stripes and foreheads, and the glittery highlight, which must include a stripe down the nose and on the Cupid's bow!

Our girls are growing up with this brainwashing, thinking they have to spend an hour or more before they leave the house. The economic impact is huge, some of the eyeshadow pallets (which are so vital!) are £40-£50!

I've always loved make up but there seems something sinister in this latest trend which means girls must look like gay men trying to look like women!

The wiggly brows, step too far 🙈

My name is BreakfastAtSquiffanys and I too wore Heather Shimmer.

Thank you to the OP for the Widow Twankey term for modern make-up.
Is the next development an oversized beauty spot and a blacked out tooth?

@Logans we had a student nurse with us recently with false lashes on and my colleague made a comment to that effect!

I don't get this trend either. I've been getting my unruly brows shaped since I was in my early teens (think monobrow) but all this filling in like caterpillars isn't for me! The contouring in real life doesn't work but these are people who live their lives through selfies - if it's not snapped on social media it didn't happen - so the priority is to look good in pictures, never mind how they look in the flesh.

I feel a bit sorry for all those girls with very heavy eyebrows. They will feel embarrassed when they look old photos of themselves in years to come.

I think less make up is more attractive. The art is making it look natural. Some women apply so much make up that they look like they are wearing a mask. Then they wonder why they get skin problems. They end up in a vicious circle because they have skin problems because they never ever have a day when they don't wear make up, so now they are wearing make up to cover the skin problems. And the trout pout OMG. I know a really pretty young lady who imo was naturally pretty. I hadn't seen her for ages but when I did she has these massive big lips that have obviously been enhanced will filler and her forehead is botoxed. IMO she didn't need it and now looks so fake and unnatural

A few posters have wondered if this is just a UK thing. Sadly, no.

I live in western Canada and while it's far from universal and lots of younger women just go for a bit of lippy (& on a night out maybe mascara or eyeliner), I see some contouring going on and I'd say a good third of them have sharpie eyebrows.

The eyebrows I find kind of hypnotizing. They are so damn weird, on the faces of people who appear to be quite sane (the girl serving me in the bakery this morning for example) that I have to force myself not to stare. The girl in the bakery for example - the other young women did not have Widow Twanky makeup on, it was 9:00am, it just seemed so out of place. Her hair was light brown, her eyebrows were enormous and black - why do that when you're working in a bakery?

I just find it baffling. I've never worn much more than lipstick (& mascara and a tiny bit of powder blush if I'm feeling blah). It's to slightly enhance what's already there.

As someone said downthred - they'll look at those photos in 20 years and say wtf?

I think the BIG difference between now trends and trends that have gone before, is that these are looks designed to look good via a photo filter. Which means they look SHIT in real day light/office light/home light!

It's a bit like wearing stage make-up off stage - you'ld look ridiculous! It looks great on stage but you don't keep it on after the show!

But people are wearing all this photo make up out and about hoping that it looks as good on them in day light as it does in their selfless.. and it doesn't!

it never has, modelling make up for photography has never been a "day look". Or even a night look if you're out and about in person!

I'm a pig in knickers.

Contouring would make me look like a pig in knickers that had wallowed in muck and wiped its face with mucky trotters.

Contouring might look ok in certain lights but in daylight it is quite bizarre. As are sharpie brows.

Loved heather shimmer in me teens. And flirted with 'iced champink'.

And what's with young girls wearing shorts with their arse literally hanging out? Bum cheeks and everything! Terrible.

And what's with you misogynists judging girls on what they wear? Why not keep your eyes to yourself and not judge young girls on clothing?

Our girls are growing up with this brainwashing, thinking they have to spend an hour or more before they leave the house

What is this tripe? I spend about five minutes on makeup before I leave home and I spend more time on it than a lot of my friends.

yes contouring looks awful in daylight. It's for photoshoots. It's grotesque in daylight!

I think it's so strange nowadays how people don't look like "themselves" in photos, they're all contoured and filtered and contorted.. what's the point?

Just to let you all know: girls are not doing make up for your benefit.

Just to let you all know: girls are not doing make up for your benefit

They kinda are though, that's the point/problem! They're effectively walking around in stage make up just incase they get photographed or have a selfie opportunity… so it's not just for themselves is it? it's for their social media audiences..

No, it really isn't.

So my friends and I were out tonight and didn't take a single photograph. We all had makeup done, dressed up, who did we do it for if not one another?

If it really was a secret, you wouldn't know! simple as that OP. It just may be that none of the right people know yet.

I don't think anything as big as you say it is would be traced to you OP, I think lots of people know, but maybe none have told who needs to be told yet.

'Young girls will never be as beautiful again, as they are in their youth, yet they are covering their beauty to look like identikit drag queens.'

Now I don't quite agree with that. For lots of girls their teenage years aren't their beautiful years. Far from it.

But I do agree that this Twanky makeup can look weird in actual daylight. I often see a woman on my morning commute (she must be about thirty though) who looks as though she puts her eyeshadow and bronzer on with a slide rule. Most odd indeed. And even odder when you think it's more important for their makeup to look 'normal' in photos rather than in actual real life.

And then on the other hand I think that people have always tutted over women's fashions and this is just another example of that.

I should imagine it's really difficult to get the contouring just right. So most people end up looking odd, the celebs they're copying get it all done by professional make up artists, so it'll never look any good.

I should think women and girls do makeup or don't do makeup..................for ourselves and not your judgement. Start a thread about men and boys who shave or haven't shaved for a day or two instead.

I should imagine it's really difficult to get the contouring just right. So most people end up looking odd, the celebs they're copying get it all done by professional make up artists, so it'll never look any good

nope, professionally done contouring that looks good on screen or in photos also looks cack in real life - it was never supposed to be an out and about look!

and no girls aren't doing this in a vacuum devoid of all societal influence just "for themselves"

Yes girls are doing it for themselves.

But you have a good night

Bollocks are girls/women doing this 'for themselves'