I tend to keep up with trends only because they’re often blasted out by brands these days, but I never followed them that specifically. Therefore, from my limited knowledge, I can’t think of that will never return – I think they tend to come back in different forms or get modified by newer advances in product development than anything else.
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All trends have a potential for coming back in style. There are a few I hope never return like super thin eyebrows or dark liner and lighter lipstick.
Everything old becomes new again. Even things one may *wish* wouldn’t ever come back again; do. How many times has frosty icy blue eyeshadow come back? Too many times in my lifetime, and I really wish it would go away and stay away for good!
Very thin eyebrows. I think everyone will stop themselves from going that thin and penciled in again now that we know the hairs won’t all grow back.
This was my first thought too.
Nope, everything that goes around will come back around. Makeup companies have to keep recycling trends, as an excuse to launch new products and convince us we need them. Look at contouring -it’s not new by any means, but as soon as it’s declared a trend, every brand comes out with new contouring products. Same with color correctors, matte lips, etc.
I agree that everything makeup will come back around if you wait long enough. Sooner or later somebody is going to get bored with whatever the current look and just has to “change it up” and sell more new makeup. Then the variation becomes either a revival or edgy-futuristic. What interests me most is how soon – and how – the “eye” becomes accustomed to the “new” look as being, desirable, “normal”, and even expected.
Agree – I remember when the winged eyeliner was popular – still is? – and it seemed like such a new thing to so many people. Not hardly. Everything old is definitely new again. (In many way, clothes too).
I’m hoping and praying that the 80s will come back FOR REAL, and I can wear dramatic eyeshadow AND a bright , glossy lip. I’m joking- but only because I’m too old to wear that much makeup even if it were in style.
Makeup is wearable art. Go for the gusto!
Me too! 80s were great. My dream would be to take a time machine back with modern beauty products.
I’m with you! Makeup was fun in the 80s!
I have to say I hope Ganguro/ Yamanba-Kei Makeup never comes back into fashion again. lol
That was always pretty niche. I don’t see that ever being a huge trend like say strobing. I mean we could all probably just buy small shimmery eyeshadows and use those for highlighters and not wake up one day with 15 unnecessary highlighters.
So true. 😉
I Agree!
I learn so much hanging around here. I have seen photos of the styles, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard what they are (were) called. I had to Google and spent a good half hour or so linking away through photos and Wikipedia. And I had a good time, doing it.
I don’t think the pencil thin brow of the 90s will come back. It seems like enough people were burned by that to prevent a return.
Brows plugged to a thin line will not return. I think many people who did that in the 90’s learnt that they cannot grow their brows back. I’ve heard so many stories it feels like everyone knows the consequences by now. IF it would return as a trend it probably would be dying part of eyebrows to a lighter color or using some makeup products, but never as plugging hairs.
This relates probably to all trends that people learn in time that might be damaging. Nowadays it’s hard tanning and using sunbeds, once (a few centuries ago) it was using toxic chemicals as powder and lipstick.
Hey, look at Garbo, Dietrich, et al. Skinny brows were all the rage in the thirties, and maybe even in the early twenties, too. People born now will not learn from overplucking in the 90s. Might as well be the age of Knights. You can just hope it will take 50-60 years to reappear. Prob after I’m dead, but they will return. My French teacher in the 60s had to draw them back. Ye gods! Young people often, but not always, do not listen to the mistakes of an older generation, they have to learn for themselves. Look at bad experiences with body embellishment. Better that I don’t continue. But many product ingredients do not have a long track record. Look at antipsychotic drugs. ~1950, first generation. OOps, by the 80s, lots of very bad side effects. So they made new ones, great! Second generation were safe, per fda testing, approval, etc. one big problem occurred: the rate of those same and other side effects developed in the second generation drugs MUCH EARLIER than the first generation presented the effects. Extrapolate the rates, and the second generation antipsychotics, the ‘saviors’ of psychopharm, will do far more harm than the originals. Not widely noted, but the research is there. Scully and Mulder were right: Trust No One. Not even the fda. And remember, they GAS about drugs. Cosmetic preparations, not so much? But, hey, better than lead and arsenic, for sure.
Brown lip liner – big in the 80s, but it looked terrible on everyone 🙁
What is old is new again. Things have a way of returning. Baking for instance. I can remember my aunts and mom doing that. Never thought I’d see the day that would return. As a child, it looked so silly to me. But there you have it, It’s back, and I’m not sure it works any better today than it did then. 🙂
I’m not sure which trends won’t return, but here are my thoughts on current ones that will slowly leave the makeup lexicon only to return again someday:
Color correcting — it was all the thing in the early 80s, although it wasn’t marketed in as coordinated a fashion as it is today. I can remember Chanel having this amazing light purple powder than made my skin look perfect. My husband still talks about it what a difference that made– now that’s saying something.
Highlighting — please don’t jump down my throat, this is my opinion. I think this trend will die a slow death. In my many years of makeup using, I don’t think I’ve seen a trend misused in the hands of so many. The metal faces I see walking around in the name of “luminosity” is laughable. I nice glow, and healthy finish looks natural and pretty. Adding metallic stripes to a face — well, to each her own.
Winged eyeliner is back — that was such a 50s-60s thing. Then you can go back to Egyptian times. It has come into vogue again, and it will go, and come again.
So right, esp about baking, that was NOT born yesterday. Cat eye. Linda Cantello claimed it, I read, but Ronnie Spector ( thank god she got away from Phil) sported it the most perfectly of anyone in the pre-Beatles girl groups, early 60s. And Cleo is generally depicted with feline flick, thanks, Charlotte T. Kohl liner does trace back to ancient Egypt/Nubia. Most make up design is been there, done that for s.o. my age. With the notable exception of true ‘artistes’ and I’m not saying that mockingly. Upper liner only. Waterline only. Heavily lined upper. Wing. Outer and inner, no middle. Light waterline, smudged grungy lower, no upper. I could fill a page on just liner styles I have seen. I find extreme highlighting, especially the nose headlight, to be pretty overkill for high noon. But oversubscription to make up trends usually seems silly and slavish, rather than vulgar and provocative, like the clothing trends can be. Hope we have outgrown the age in which makeup = slutty.
I would love to say stupidily thin plucked eyebrows.. but it will be back at some point..
Doubt it – everything comes back around eventually!
Blue eyeshadow from lash line to brow bone.
I hope this never returns. High school in the 70’s….such memories.
So, you’re going to laugh behind my back, when I do bright blue unilids from the Glimmericks palette and draw in the Twiggy lashes? Revlon Naked Pink? Think they still make it, but it is not the same. Hell, I’d wear biba blue roses and a paper dress, if I still had ’em. Homage, baby! Sorry, not enough hair for an 80s or Texas Big Do, with disco glitter eyes. What is worn today looks dated as soon as the companies can change seasonal offerings or trends. LE. MUST HAVE. Here today, gone tomorrow, but oops, back again!
Well I -hope- eyebrows plucked into oblivion won’t make a comeback but I suspect they will eventually!
Blue eyeshadow all the way up to the browbone perhaps!
Thinner brows may come back around, but I don’t think the full-on Jean Harlow brow ever will. But I could be wrong! You’re right that styles come back around in a modified form. My first answer was going to be underlining the lip a la the rosebud shape…. but that has kind of returned in the form of the Korean style gradient lips that are stained in the middle and fade out.
Racing stripe blush… Though maybe it came back and I didn’t notice.
That would be hard to miss. I’m not quite sure if that was really a style or just poor blending and bad brushes.
It was intentional bc makeup brushes were still pretty basic in the 90s and no such streaking when applying blush lol
True. You never saw it on models or stars. Just on everyday women who tried to follow the trend. Blend baby, blend. As far as thin eyebrow comments are concerned, they’ve been in and out more than my poor pup. I think in the future they will come back with a safe shaving method rather than plucking. They aren’t gone for good. Nothing is. Even Edsels will be back.
Wayne Goss recently did a video on contouring with blush. I cried. http://youtu.be/hBP_q5zs2ds
That hysterical one? Too funny.
I watched that video and knew immediately I could never do it! Lol some things need to stay in the past.
Well, I’m surprised that the 90’s looks like matte brown lipstick and thick brows came back so quickly, but not surprised that 80’s looks didn’t come back at all – blue eye shadow, bright stripes of dark pink blush-contour and candy pink lips…I did remember a brief time in high school (mid-90s) where the mod look was back for a season or two – pale lips and dark bold eyes, but no 80s makeup or hair to be seen in between…but you never know. It could make a comeback someday, but probably only a single technique like bold cheek and not bold cheeks AND colorful eyes together.
The dark blush-contour is starting to come back. Wayne Goss just had a video on it.
If done properly, I don’t think it’s ever gone out of style. It’s just a matter of the right technique, right color and right skin tone. I wish we could survey a bunch of makeup artists in the biz for a few decades. The answers to today’s question would be interesting!
As a big-browed gal whose brows DID come back after the 90s (not only did they come back, but they mocked me for my hubris–yes, they are pretty much sentient beings), I’m so happy to see so many folks saying that pencil-thin eyebrows won’t come back. Gah. I gained 30 minutes a day when I stopped overplucking. And I can barely stand to see pictures of myself from the 90s–I look like some strange, smooth alien version of myself.
Well there’s a few I HOPE won’t return, like super thin brows, unblended racing-stripe blush, and bronzing until your face is orange.
Never say never! 🙂
That 90’s thing of lining your lips with a brownish lipliner and then puting on a WAY lighter lipstick….i’d be shocked if that ever came back hahaha
Everything always comes back around every 20-30 years.
I think the excessive brown of the 90’s – lipstick and blush – probably won’t return. I hate these liquid lipsticks and I hope they never return! Not crazy about matte lipstick or nail polish either.
That’s popular right. Brown lips and tonal makeup is on trend. Liquid lips are still going strong!
I’m going to say I find it very unlikely that full on single-wash eyeshadow is going to come back – I see it in a lot of older photos up to the 80s where it starts falling. It’s almost always from eyebrow to lash and usually a pastel. Even in editorials I don’t see it often.
Everything returns but with a new name, fabrication, formula or minor change. 100 years ago, makeup often contained lead pigments. It’s now known to be unsafe but the looks are still available. Those super wide legged pants from the 70s, called elephant pants then, are coming back in style. I’m sure white Geisha style foundation will be in style too.
– Shimmer white eyeshadow all over the lid.
– Crazy highlight (over glow)
– light like none eyebrow
– realy bold blush
– black lipstick (not dark lipstick because thouse I love)
– using the eyeshadow up to the brownbone
– use bold or darker color only on the innercorner of the eye.
I hope thin eyebrows NEVER COME BACK! Everything, I’ll be okay with.
I have no idea. What I personally Do not like is the eyebrow Trend/Hype which is a really big topic at the Moment. I Prefer a Natural eyebrow Look with Perfect shape but not so much colour/too dark. So I hope When this Hype is over it won’t come back.
In the 80s, I would have answered this question with “whitish lips from the 60s”, which I was not old enough to enjoy, btw. Go figure in the early 90s, MAC had all of those pale frost lipsticks. I agree with Nancy T about everything coming back. As they come back, the advancement of products makes them fresh. in.
But, we wore them. We were too young and wide eyed to wear reds, so we wore beige, esp with red sweaters. Dior Future Beige, Revlon Naked Pink, and Arden Candlelight were my faves. Some of today’s are quite similar, but grayer, which I love. Oblivion, Gone Greige, Thistle. It’s a grayed flashback to before the Kennedy assassination. And we’re grayed, too.
Lol white (or whitish) lips are a favorite look of mine. I kept going paler and paler until I finally just bought a white NYX Macaroon Lippie. I don’t do it every day, but just recently I got them from Maybelline Loaded Bolds and UD Vice – Maybelline’s is matte and UD’s is sparkly. Maybe not a trend, but I can’t be the only one…
To each her own 🙂
The white lipstick of the 60’s I think or early 70s. if it had returned in years after that I am unaware, but still keeping my fingers crossed never to see that white lip trend again lol…
Mayb loaded bolds and lots of others have it again, but….not going there, and didn’t earlier, either.
Ombre lips
What about Korean L/s in two tones for Ombre? Big in K beauty, and ordered a lot here. Bet they’re at Aritaum. They are all over Amazon and K beauty shops, even the stateside ones.
I feel like all trends come back. I did some reading and had some lectures in both my history and anthropology classes (double major aaahhhh) that touched on aesthetics throughout history and you have trends from 4,000 years ago that have come back over and over and over. So I think it’s kind of like the thing where there’s no such thing as an original trend anymore, just iterations of trends for the last several thousand years in new forms, with new technologies, etc.
Highly agree. Gabriella Herandez, the Besame founder, has a pretty decent book on the history of makeup. SOMEONE was there and did it before.
Hernandez, sorry.
OMG thanks for the info! Just put it on my amazon wishlist! I love books like that.
that is truly interesting, I want to know more…hitting google tomorrow lol…thanks for that info!
Matte nude lipstick is one that I hope will stay away……
Not sure this qualifies to the question, but maybe… perhaps sun tans won’t come back fully, given what we know now sun damage and skin cancer. But…perhaps today’s bronzers are versions of same intent.
Some of the more current metallic highlighters reminds me of the 70’s, when shiny — eg., gold lame, shiny polyester — was all the rage.
I saw that layering blushes in dark, medium, and light r coming back from the 80s called DRAPING. Covergirl sold blushes with the three colors and have heard they still have some. I forgotten about it. But when I did see the contouring that’s what it reminded me of. I graduated high school in the mid 80s so I was in the middle of it all. Big hair etc lol. But we had FUN and that’s the key. Just supposed and don’t know why. Seems like things come back around. There is only so much that new ideas run out so remake some old ones and it’s FUN mostly to me I may not do it all. But I did have the blue garage doors on my eyes when I started wearing makeup in 1980. We were very limited to selection living in a tiny town with mostly Civergirl at the grocery store. But glad to get have it. Not sure the colors were always right but it’s all we had. Lol. So go with it. I remember Clinique had a foundation for oily skin that u had to shake up before applying it was very watery. Extremely watery. But it helped us oily girls seeing a deem doc. Had to travel to a bigger town to get it at a small but nice mall. That had a Dillard’s. Thanks for the reminder of memories. Especially after the 1980s music show in CBS Thursday nite. I went down memory lane it’s been 30 yrs since I graduated and new all the songs. Had to go to Iheart radio and listen to some more??❤️?
Everything comes back around, and I do think that will include those skinny eyebrows. I wonder what trends we’ll be seeing in 20 years?
Hi Temptalia,
I have to say that History ALWAYS repeats itself. Be it now or later. But I do not really follow trends, I do what I do, and add or subtract from it. And that dreaded blue eyeshadow can be done in a crease of your eyelids, the dreaded cream orange blush can be mixed with another color before it’s applied to your cheeks. Those are some examples of how History will repeat itself. There will always be trends that will be repeated, however those trends can have “your” special and gentle touch that goes with it or against it. There is always a good way to add the most bizarre tends of the past.
– I am NOT one to follow ANY trends, unless I make it my own. Fit the new or old trends into your makeup routine! I’ve been doing that for a long time already. Certain colors don’t look good on anyone, UNTIL you find a technique that does make it look absolutely awesome on YOU!
– As for the overly plucked eyebrows… Let’s say that I have learned a valuable lesson from my sister. But if you look at Brooke Shields, she never followed that trend! Neither did I. They, (whoever they are) can bring back whatever trend they want. The total key to trends is moderation. As for the winged eye, I have been doing a small winged eye for years now. Just enough to give my eyes a tiny, slight eye uplift. Instead of a fully teased up hairdo or a totally straight hair.. I found a thicker hairstyle with a bit of a wave in it. L. Find your happy medium that YOU are comfortable doing and no matter what, DON’T Ever be afraid to be yourself and rock it everyday! YOU are the boss when it comes to Your looks, Your styles. Change IS inevitable but that doesn’t mean that you have to feel like You are Not You. I hope this helps! ??
Trends are born because someone who does her own thing becomes newly famous (Cara Delevigne’s eyebrows, for example), or they evolve as a natural progression of where things are going. Fashion and beauty trends are usually all tied up in other cultural influences, so most of us who care about fashion and beauty will be influenced, even if we don’t admit it. But there is always room for people to go their own way, either by modifying the trend or revolting against it with style and confidence. I agree with you…some trends just aren’t “you” and there’s nothing wrong with ignoring them and being you. For example, I looove most of the 90s, but am not now and was not then into skinny brows or lipliner. The trends that last the longest are the ones that suit most people. The ones that don’t go away within a year.
The only thing I can think of at the moment: I hope everyone realised dark lip liner and nude lipstick looks really bad!