The brainchild of best friends Jules and Gebs, @RavveBeauty is the Instagram account dedicated to showcasing and celebrating all that is disturbing, disarming and alluring when it comes to underground beauty. Doubled up contact lenses, iridescent face shimmer, obscure facial piercings, heads shaved to look like flowers in full bloom, unibrows, no brows, wiggly brows. Lending us their well-honed eye, here they pick their top beauty Instagrams of the month.

They say that beauty is pain and pain is beauty, which is certainly the case when it comes to extreme body modification. However thanks to digital enhancement solutions like filters and retouching apps and well as clever make-up tricks and prosthetics, it’s now impossible to tell whether what we’re seeing online is real or a pain-free illusion. Either way we’re hooked. Here are the best accounts pushing beauty beyond its pain threshold.

Gab Bois

One of our original favourites, @gabbois makes you want to put all things in ear, nose, and throat. Do not try it at home!

Milan Bauranov

Milan’s work mixes make-up and metals and makes us think of beauty as an armour: lashes become spikes, brows are heavily pierced and lips look like hunting traps.

House of Malakai

The House of Malakai is the great purveyor of wearable art that transform ravers into warriors and pop stars into creatures of the darkness.

Sam Schlavlev

A standout in the industry, Sam challenges the notion that beauty is softness and symmetry and instead uses makeup as a tool of distortion. Compelling and disturbing.

Aryuna Tardis

The Russian phenom blurs the line between traditional makeup artistry, special fx makeup, visual art and role play. The results are always out-of-this-world and often shocking.