What makeup looks/trends did you use to wear that you go, “What was I thinking?” now? Any regrets?
When I first got into makeup, I was obsessed with eyeshadow – but I wouldn’t wear ANYTHING else; no blush, foundation, or lipstick at all, so looking back, it looks incredibly incomplete!
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That wear most people start…with eyeshadow or lipstick only. Every stage of my makeup years was because of that time period……and that time period was what style/texture of makeup being sold…like the Nakeds in the 80’s, the punk rock period, the contour of heavy blush, the natural look, the matte lips, etc. The only thing I regret is having someone plucked my brows. I wish my brows were as thick as Brooke Shields or back to my natural growth. My brows are not thin, but dont look right and adding brow color only makes me look older. Certainly, no brows like Lourdes.
When I first started getting into makeup, I would apply thick black eyeliner all the way around my eyes. I’d do it no matter the time of day, where I was going, or what other makeup I was wearing. One day I was in church and I as I turned around I saw a girl about my age wearing the same style of eyeliner and I realized…. I totally hate the way that looks. Haven’t done it since.
Oh my god I was the same! I was obsessed with the smokey eye look so I would put dark or black shadow all over my lids and then the thick black eyeliner. All the time. Whether it was appropriate or not.
I had a thing for body glitter when I wore tank tops in the summer when I was about 17-18. That’s probably about the worst thing I ever wore. I don’t know if that trend was local or not. I don’t remember changing my habits much when I went off to college 500 miles away from where I grew up.
(I’m not too judgmental about much of what I wore/used when I was younger, except I think I will hate shoulder pads and stirrup leggings for the rest of my life after being a child in the late 80s/early 90s. But the grunge/skater stuff from when I was a little older, still doesn’t bother me thinking about it. I had adorable beige work boots, for example! XD)
When I first started wearing makeup, I would do tons of eyeliner… And then I would apply lots of blush. I don’t have naturally rosy cheeks, for some reason they always look pale, so I thought the more I do, the better. So wrong. I would also apply too much eyeshadow without blending. I guess these are not trends, only mistakes lol
I used to just line my bottom water line. No idea what I was thinking. Nowadays I never line my bottom water line, probably scared of it now 😀 I dont think that was ever a trend though.. haha
i was doing exactly the same! and it made my small-ish eyes look smaller 🙂 i do not line my bottom water line unless i do a heavy smokey look.
Despite having fooled around with makeup since I was a toddler (seriously, there are pictures of me at age 2 covered in lipstick and caked on blush), I can’t think of a single serious makeup regret. I think I always had a good sense of what looks awful on me and so I managed to dodge the bullet of ugly makeup trends of decades past. My tastes in lipstick shades have shifted some over the years, but I never indulged in something horrible like the nasty pale lip/dark lipliner of the 90s or the overly tweezed brow.
I’m much older than most here and when I was quite young, Mary Quant cosmetics were available. I have always had and still have a very round face (now, it’s what makes me look much younger than my age) but, of course, I wanted “cheekbones” like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy (see, giving my age away here!) so I bought this duo from Mary Quant that included a very frosty white highlighter and a matte brown contour. I slapped that brown contour on like nobody’s business – it was the only way to get it to show. It’s a problem I still have with contour powders….they just don’t look natural on me or do what I hope they would do. But at 14, I didn’t care and just sucked in my cheeks and brushed on the brown powder! But the mention of Twiggy reminds me that I also used to “paint on” (with cake liner mixed with water) those under eye lashes just like Twiggy used to wear! Oh lord, to think of it now!
Just try a creme based contour color now, so much more forgiving!
Oh my – I remember those! And many wore that white Mary Quant on the brow with the blue eyeshadow I posted. LOL – what a memory.
OOO I DID EXACTLY THE SAME THING! I used to have a complex about my eyes, so when I got into makeup naturally eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara were the biggest things for me. I totally just let the rest be (maybe a very lightly-tinted gloss or something which I never loved). I think it also took a long time for me to be happy with my brows. When I look at my photos from the past I always think my brows look too brown, too thin, or just not the right shape!
I was obsessed with lipgloss with a blue pearl shimmer. It was white in the tube and it went on kinda purple. I’d usually wear it with purple eyeshadow with green-teal eyeliner. Just too much!
I also remember thinking that if I put tinted moisturiser or foundation on first thing in the morning I’d need to reapply it a couple of hours later, then a couple of hours after that (not removing the previous layer). I once went out totally orange, I’d topped it up so often! Cringe.
No mascara. though I used to wear somewhat dark shades of l/s so maybe it wasnt so awful but I would never do it now. also, wrond shades of foundation (sometimes i still feel like im struggling, just because of the different tone of my neck/face.)
Thick black eyeliner on the bottom lid only, nothing else. That’s how I started with makeup, when I was about 13. I wore it every day for several years, and now I look back on it, it’s excrutiating.
On non-school days, at about 14/15, I used to wear a sheer pinky lipgloss, and black kohl, but only on my lower waterline, nowhere else because I couldn’t figure out how to apply it! I wanted to do Avril Lavigne style liner but had NO IDEA how. And of course I didn’t have proper makeup remover to take it off so it would end up mostly still there the next day when I was at school, and I’d get heaps of comments (most of them not nice!). Looking back, I could have done MUCH WORSE – I was too timid to do anything truly out there.
panda eyeliner. nothing else. just black eyeliner all the way around, and really dark eyeshadows. it was extremely unflattering particularly on me, but now I realize that I don’t like that look on anybody.
Luckily it was a trend that spread like wildfire amongst the preteen girls in my area, so I’m not the only one to be embarrassed by this. lol!
I really don’t see how that is an incomplete look. My daily look is mascara and eyeshadow.
I was wearing bold, bright, and dramatic looks with nary a thing else – which, to me, looks very incomplete now! I don’t have much natural coloring in my cheeks/lips, which I’m sure is why it doesn’t work for me but great on you 🙂
That’s fair 🙂 Everyone has different looks they prefer. I never wear foundation because every type I have tried covers my freckles too much.
It’s definitely not a requirement to wear foundation 🙂
White eyeliner on the waterline!
Two things:
1. Thin eyebrows
2. Winged eyeliner. Only because overtime it kept getting longer and longer…
Pretty much the same as you. Instead, I wore just blue frosted eyeshadow when I was about 13. That was not a good look at all! Plus, in high school, my mom let me go at my eyebrows and I gave myself pencil thin, nearly tadpole brows. Looking back it looks so bad, but at least I realized by the time I was 16 to just step away and let them grow back and then go to a professional.
Haha, Christine – I also did that with my eye shadow. Although later on I added in some lipgloss. I don’t think this was a trend, but back in middle school I used to wear light blue eye shadow and I had roll-on glitter that I would put all over my eyelids over the shadow. That was my everyday look lol.
I don’t think I regret anything I did with makeup (life’s too short!), but when I was at the age where I started experimenting with makeup, glitter was the big trend. I had sooooooo much glitter on me at all times, including really chunky glitter lip gloss, glitter in my hair, glitter eyeshadow, glitter randomly on my face…it looks silly to see it now, but it was totally the thing to do at the time.
I used to be really devoted to putting super heavy highlighter on my browbone, every day, no matter what style of eyeshadow I was wearing. Now, I don’t think it looks bad necessarily, but sometimes it’s just not appropriate! Also I’ve fairly recently grown my eyebrows in and I usually just prefer to leave the area free of eyeshadow; it just looks good!
Also I used to be super into lipstick/gloss in light pink with a purply undertone, and I’ve gone off that colour completely in the last few years. I think maybe it just seems too young, in a bad way.
Let’s see…in the early 2000’s, I was all about applying dark eyeshadow with white eyeliner, then lining the inner rims of my eyes with black liner. Yikes.
I am not sure I have regretted doing anything like rocking the colorful parrot eyes in the 80s. What I do regret was not taking more chances in my 20s and 30s with new looks. I pretty much wore the same neutral eye for 20 years. I have just come back around at 42 trying new looks. The problem now is, too colorful or too funky looks bad. I am trying to find that happy medium.
I am totally embarrassed to admit this! I can’t believe I use to darken my eyebrows with BLACK pencil!! What the hell was I thinking? You know what I can honestly say? I finally wised up!! I wish someone would have told me how ridiculous I looked!
In high school I would wear that brownish purple lip color so popular in the late 90s/early 00s. Just that. Looking back my lips look diseased, or I just ate too many raisins and let the color sit on my lips. I chalk it up to being a makeup newbie and not knowing any better.
Lining my bottom lashline/waterline with black liner almost every day when I was a teenager. Without fail the black would migrate within a couple hours and give me the world’s worst raccoon eyes. And I never learned! I don’t really regret the make up itself – I thought I looked awesome then and still think I looked cute when I look at the pictures now, but I do regret the way I used to clean it up/remove it. Instead of using a cotton swab or even a paper towel or anything, with my hands I would rub my fingers underneath my eyes, pulling really hard on my skin and smearing the residue onto my temple and to my hairline. Just thinking about the damage I did to my delicate undereye area makes me cringe. And touching my eyes/skin with dirty fingers! Ack!
I used to be obsessed with metallic blue nail polish and blue eye shadow. Nothing else. Just a mess.
As a teenager, I wore thick, heavy black eyeliner all around my lower lids – no mascara, no eyeshadow, nothing else. I thought it was a really good look …. until eventually I grew out of it and trowelled on rainbow-coloured eyeshadow instead 🙂
I use to wear ONLY white eye shadow and nothing else ALL OVER MY EYE. lol Like, MAC’s Crystal Avalanche white. Literally, from lash line to brow bone. Ugh, HORRIBLE look. lol
I used to do that too 🙂 lol
In the ’90s I wore brown lipliner and drew my eyebrows on harshly with a dark pencil 🙂 lol I hide my old pictures from people. About a year after I stopped wearing the lipliner, a guy I had the biggest crush on made a comment about how girls that wear brown lipliner looked like they just kissed a butthole..(!) I was mortified and that was the end of that.
LOL! If only he’d made that comment sooner… That’s GOT to be the FASTEST way to get a person to stop wearing brown lipliner! I don’t see it much these days, but from now on, when i do, you know what I’LL be thinking of.
1. Too thin eyebrows (thank God they grew back);
2. Black eyeliner (way too harsh for me, but made it worse by lining upper lid, lower lid AND the water line OMG);
3. Using the darkest eyeshadow I could find and trying to create a cat-eye by smudging it from my lash line up to tip of eyebrow;
4. Frosted lipstick. Yuck.
P.S. I never wore or wear foundation, so glad to see other comments about that.
That list is ho’boy long.. Some of the highlights from my wall of shame
1. That awful trend with visible lipliner – who started that? Yuck!
2. Pencil thin eyebrows… Pamela Anderson, you suck!
3. That muddy makeup everything mid to dark brown look from the 90’s – The Character Elaine from Seinfeld.. I’m talking ’bout you
4. Big Poofy hair – yeah welcome to my hell from the 80’s.
Dark gothic maroon lips, pale face and winged liner… i think its still trendy but i swapped the dark lips for bright colours or classic (russian red lipstick) red.. only the best red lipstick everrr <3
3 words: roll on glitter. *shudders*
I snort laughed when I read this.. not at you..the delivery was priceless.
There are so many pictures of me with full eyeshadow and no eyebrows, no foundation, no concealer. Sometimes i can get away with not wearing foundation or concealer but NOT with the looks i was attempting.
I think the worst mistake I ever made was believing I had “warm” coloring. My skin is the epitome of neutral, but my natural hair color is deep auburn, so SAs were *always* trying to sell me on bronzes, golds, corals, etc, and they just didn’t quite work, but I wore them anyway… Also, I’m pretty fair, so pastels were pushed on me, as well, but with my dark-brown, nearly black eyes, most pale shades just look bad. Fortunately, by the time I reached HS, I had a fairly good idea what shades looked good on me, and since I’ve never been one to follow trends just because it was a trend, I have no regrets in that area.
Frosty-pink, pale lipstick just seemed to make my already thinner lips nearly non-existent, whereas deep, vampy shades make them look much fuller. Whoever came up with the theory that those with thinner lips shouldn’t wear darker, matte lips, was clearly wrong…
Back in the day, foundations in the pale range were clearly pink- or peach-based, so they always appeared too dark for me. I would have actually been better off not wearing it, but because I felt the look was “incomplete”, I wore it, regardless how bad it looked.
Finally, over-tweezing the brows. Being of Mediterranean descent, I have no issue growing hair quickly/completely anywhere else on my being (and I wax/tweeze/epilate regularly), but for some reason, my brows will not grow back…
It wasn’t really a trend, but all through middle and high school I only wore eyeliner on my bottom waterline. When I started really getting into makeup after high school, I learned the joys of lining the upper lashline and I hardly ever put anything in the waterline.
All that brown lipstick in the 90s. And overtweezing my brows back then too, which isn’t makeup but it’s something I definitely regret!
When I first started wearing makeup I used to wear electric blue eyeshadow with everything…yikes! What can I say…I grew up in the 80’s lol.
Black & green lipstick (mid nineties) It was a punk/goth thing. I would raid the Halloween makeup aisles at the drugstores for lipstick.
The 80’s rainbow eye combined with lining my entire eye. Oh my, squinty little eyes with nothing but bright color. The eye shadow was the only way to figure out that I actually had eyes! Who started the myth that completely lining around the eye makes small eyes stand out?
Few shades darker foundation to look tanned (smh)… and never wore blush hahahah I liked that flat look… and absolutely no other makeup lol…. Thank you for the laugh, I loved this question!
1. Dark, unblended lip liner. WHY did I/we do this???
2. All shimmer, all the time. MAC pigments on my eyes, bronzer on the outer corners of my face, shimmer blush on my checks and dazzleglass on my lips!
3. For some reason I was obsessed with silver eyeshadow—I would even dab some on top of my lipgloss. The crazy part is I got so many compliments that i thought, girl, keep it up!
Blue eyeshadow – single shade all over the lid and sometimes the crease. And it’s been back in for at least a year now. I could walk into a party and find my way around a room based on the light bouncing off everyone’s blue eyeshadow. LOL. Make-up is a bit more sophisticated these.
I started wearing makeup in the late 1990s and the whole brown lipstick thing was still in. My first big lipstick was an Elizabeth Arden lipstick in the color Amber which was made for model Amber Valletta as she used to be the face of Elizabeth Arden back then. Well, she has a much more golden tone to her skin than I do and needless to say, my somewhat cool undertones looked awful with the golden bronze. I wore it down to the nub though!
When I first started wearing makeup the concept of blending was completely foreign to me so I’d just dot concealer on and kind of pat it in and powder over it and always wonder why it looked crusty and patchy. I must’ve made whatever I was trying to conceal just that much more obvious. :/
Also lots of black on the waterline and no liner on the upper lash-line. I just don’t like the look of that now because I feel like black on the inner rims of my eyes makes my eyes look small and I prefer to use a nude or brighter colors on the waterline with black on the upper lash-line.