Imperfect is the new perfect, according to the fashionistas at The New York Times.
Dubbed the effortless beauty trend, this new makeup craze revolves around dewy lips, glowing skin, smudged eyeliner and eyelashes that match your mane.
“They say that stiff coiffures, overdone eyes, defined lips and matte skin are out,” reported Stephanie Rosenbloom. In contrast, you might sport “popsicle lips,” or opt to wear the smoky-eye look underneath your lower lash line rather than across your eyelids.
According to the article, it’s the “just got out of bed with your lover” look.
The pattern, it seems, is to fade to nothing. Instead of lining your entire eye, you may just start at the corners and only work your way to the center. And for lip color, the goal is for the color to die out gradually as the lipstick reaches the outer edges of your lips. To achieve this look, you should dot the center of your lips with a bit of color, and then roll and pucker the color outwards. You’re still using the same makeup tools — it’s the techniques and colors that have changed.
There are several ways in which you can attain the “effortless” look. You could sit down and spend the same amount of time as before applying mascara and eye shadow, only this time aiming to smudge and smear. Or you could do your hair and makeup perfectly with those stiff coiffures and matte skin (a la your grandmother with all the hairspray — I have a hard time believing this was a recent fad) and then sleep on it. In the morning, you’ll look perfectly imperfect.
Jezebel has some other suggestions you may want to try, such as applying lipstick while running and wearing several different kinds of eye makeup in the rain.
While I can’t wrap my head around why anyone would want to do smokey eye underneath their lash lines — I spend half my time in the mornings trying to hide raccoon eyes — it actually doesn’t look so bad. This might actually be one case in which the descriptions sound worse than reality.
Responses from other Penn women were mixed.
“I didn’t really notice a difference,” said Wharton Junior Maddy Vincent after seeing pictures of models and celebrities sporting the look. “It might be easier. I might adopt parts like the smudgy eyeliner, though I tend not to deviate from my normal routine.”
Like Maddy, College junior Jeanette Elstein also tends to stick to a routine, working with what looks good with her complexion and satisfies her beauty needs. But unlike Maddy, she felt the look was “washed out” and even scary at times.
College Junior Anya Lichtenstein thinks girls at Penn are already working this look. She calls it “sleepy sexy.”
Sleepy sexy: the result of trying to apply eyeliner and mascara on five hours of sleep. Or so I’ve gathered.
“They looked nice,” she said. “But it didn’t look effortless — it looked done-up.”
Once you deviate from how you naturally look in the morning, it’s not really effortless anymore. It doesn’t require skill to look like you. However, it takes work to look good or bad.
Yet College freshman Michelle Fletcher brings up an interesting point. Although she wouldn’t don a look like this on a regular basis, she admits that her eyeliner smudges naturally. “But I don’t try for that,” she adds.
The smudging is something we can all relate to. After all, we’re not just dolls; we have classes and social engagements, clubs and hobbies. That kind of exertion can do a job on anyone’s hair and makeup.
This new mode might be more a reflection of the times. We’re getting less sleep than we used to, we are busier than ever, and the economy is such that maintaining a “stiff coiffure” or its modern equivalent could be a bit too pricy for some. Maybe this is a sign that the beauty world finally decided it’s vogue to be normal.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Penn chapter.