From mullets and DIY ‘dos to the return of the RAWRing 20s and questionable ‘I can’t breathe’ beauty looks
@abbyrobertsCUTE COLOURFUL NOSES
A formerly overlooked appendage took the spotlight this year with the rise of E-girl and cottagecore make-up. Whereas in the past the nose was largely ignored when it came to beauty – save for a bit of concealer and perhaps some highlighter – recently it realised its potential as a canvas for creative expression.
While E-girls have became known for their signature technique of piling blush on the nose so it looks, as Doja Cat put it, like they just woke up, blew their nose and have pneumonia, the look has extended outside the E-girl realm with a slew of young make-up creatives getting experimental with their noses.
@raisaflowersRETURN OF THE MULLET
A bonkers haircut for a bonkers year, 2020 saw the revival of the mullet. It started slowly with Miley Cyrus and a 70s shag back in January but lockdown is when it really started to kick off. Tiger King and Joe Exotic, a terrible person with a glorious mullet, reigned early quarantine and seemingly planted the seeds of a mullet in many minds.
In the months that followed we saw the style adopted by Christine and The Queens, Maisie Williams, and Euphoria’s Jacob Elordi, as well as half the models who walked the Savage x Fenty runway including Cara Delevingne and Rihanna herself. Cyrus levelled up to full Rod Stewart-esque mullet and recently Troye Sivan joined the pack with help from Charlie Le Mindu.
@sojinailsWET ASS NAILS
Trends come and go quite quickly in the nail world. From glow-in-the-dark manicures to looks inspired by everyone’s favourite Telfar bag, there’s always something fresh and new happening. The biggest game-changing trend when it came to nails this year, however, was water droplet nails.
First conceived by LA-based nail artist Sojin Oh, the nails, also known as wet nails, involve placing 3D embellishments which look like delicate droplets of water onto the nails. The look quickly became a phenomenon with everyone from Kim Kardashian and Rosalía to Rina Sawayama and Lil Miquela tapping Oh for a manicure.
@kaiagerberDIY HAIR COLOUR
If there was one big beauty trend this year it was hair. Whether you were bleaching it, cutting it, or shaving it all off completely, hair was on everyone’s mind with all of us deciding lockdown was the time to make a change. However, with no access to professional salons, we had to take matters into our own hands, and we did.
From Kaia Gerber’s pastel pink to Kristen Stewart’s neon orange, Georgia Jagger who went half-and-half with a turquoise-lilac style, and Dua Lipa who tried literally all colours, everyone took the opportunity of lockdown to get creative with their colour.
@raggedyroyalTIGER KING
Tiger Kingdominated early lockdown and sparked not just the mullet trend but also a number of Tiger King-inspired make-up looks.
In early April, most of us were stuck at home with a lot of extra time on our hands, so there was plenty of chance to get creative and go out all with elaborate make-up looks. With Tiger King capturing everyone’s imagination, it’s no surprise that all the cool cats and kittens of Instagram got to work on their best big cat make-up looks.
Photography Annie Powers, via HAIRTEST by Edward LampleyDIY HAIRCUTS
As well as reaching for the bleach over lockdown, many people also grabbed the scissors and even clippers for a spot of DIY haircutting. While some decided a straight up buzzcut was in order, others played it (slightly) safer and cut themselves a fringe.
Cutting yourself a fringe is a risky move not advised for beginners and we saw varying results from the celebs who attempted it. While Bella Hadid’s isolation cut was a miss for us, Rosalía fared better with her DIY fringe, although she does seem to have quickly grown it out again. Quarantine decisions are not always the best decisions, folks. Maybe for the next one we put down the scissors and grow our hair Kajillionaire-style.
@misslailamcqueenRAWRING RETURN OF SCENE BEAUTY
There were a number of unexpected events this year and a scene revival on TikTok was definitely up there. It started at the beginning of the year when the new decade AKA the RAWRING 20s was taken as a chance by some to revisit early 2000s emo and scene culture.
Amid the chaos and upheaval that followed, the scene revival continued to go strong particularly on TikTok where teens who missed the first wave posted tutorials full of choppy side-fringes, extreme backcombing, and neon coloured make-up. The kids are feeling emo, and honestly fair enough.
@eliasamontorio via TIkTokDIY HAIR CURLING
The DIY spirit thrives on TikTok where you can find a hack for pretty much everything from how to whiten your teeth yourself (don’t do it) to how to shave your teeth down yourself (don’t do it).
Tutorials for how to curl your hair without using curling irons became very popular this year. First up was the sock trend where users demonstrated how to get flawless ringlets with just some damp hair and a pair of old socks. This was followed by the, slightly more left field, radiator trend which saw users wrapping their hair around a hot radiator to curl it. Don’t worry guys, we’ll all be let out of the house soon. Hopefully.
‘I CAN’T BREATHE’ LOOKS
There’s a long tradition of beauty as protest, from the early 20th century suffragettes who wore red lipstick as a symbol of liberty and the African-Americans who wore their Afros in the name of Black pride in the 1970s to more recently anti-surveillance make-up which blocks facial recognition software.
But this year we saw the way not to do it when a crop of “I Can’t Breathe” make-up looks emerged in the wake of George Floyd’s muder by police in the US and the ensuing BLM protests around the world. These looks, which predominantly appeared on TikTok and Instagram, featured Floyd’s last words and often, disturbingly, saw the artists in Blackface or covered in fake blood. There are a lot of ways to show solidarity with the Black community and spread awareness of the ways institutional racism is enforced and upheld. This is not one of them. Do better.
@jamescharlesMUGSHOT CHALLENGE
Earlier this year a tone-deaf TikTok challenge made the rounds and was one that a lot of people really should have known better than to take part in. The Mugshot Challenge saw people posting fake mugshots of themselves often with cuts and bruises covering their face.
The trend was not a good look and was called out for glamorizing violence, particularly domestic violence, with survivors of domestic abuse condemning the trend as triggering and hurtful. The kids participating were also overwhelmingly white. It is, however, Black, Asian, and other ethnic minorities who face disproportionate rates of incarceration in the UK and the US. While white people have the privilege of cosplaying being arrested, many people have to live with the reality of racial profiling and police brutality.