Bye, Sisters?
The year was 2016, and if you weren’t talking about makeup, actively in Sephora swatching new makeup or trying to follow your 19th YouTube tutorial on how to do a glitter cut-crease with a sharp wing and half lash, what were you even doing? Plain and simple, makeup disrupted pop culture as we knew it in the mid 2010’s. Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Dip unfortunately made an unnaturally thick and dark claim on all of eyebrows, Becca Champagne Pop highlighter gave us all the “glazed donut” look we so desperately needed and you can’t even deny that you, too, most likely fell victim to drawing muddy contour lines on your cheeks with your Kat Von D Shade N’ Light palette and just had to hope for the best.
I mentioned some of the beauty industry legends, such as ABH, Becca, Huda Beauty and company. We also certainly can’t leave out the influence of Kylie Cosmetics, and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, which launched in the following year in 2017. But the real phenomenon didn’t lie amongst the women at the forefront of marketing makeup: it was the men.
Ready for two phrases that will probably send a bone-chilling shock down your spine?
“Hi, sisters!”
“What’s up everybody? Welcome back to my channel! Hi, how are ya?!”
If you just experienced visions of two of the most hotly-contested internet personalities, (James Charles and Jeffree Star), then congrats! Just like so many of us, you witnessed firsthand what I call “The Reign of the Male Beauty Gurus.”
You know them. You love them. …Or maybe you hate them. I’m not really sure where your opinions lie. But the fact remains that you know exactly who the male royalty of beauty are: James, Jeffree, Manny, Bretman, Gabriel, Louie and certainly many more smaller creators. Recently, TikTok has been uncovering this phenomenon in which the gentlemen whose standards of beauty and artistry we so fervidly tried to emulate have simply let go of makeup. For example, Jeffree Star ran away from the lavish LA life and traded it in for short hair, eyebrows, a clean face and a yak farm in Wyoming. Another personality that we’ve seen make a 180 is Bretman Rock; he’s been appearing on the app in a much more rugged ensemble, and it’s a rare occurrence to see him with anything more than mascara and lip gloss on.
Some tried to make the argument that this may be due to the rise of the “Clean Girl Aesthetic,” which promotes fresher faces for that “no makeup-makeup” look. But personally, I think it’s due to something entirely different: they were too good at their jobs. If you think about it, every last one of these individuals taught us so many makeup skills to the point where they rendered their own online careers relatively useless. Everyone knows how to go about creating a full face, and if they don’t, it’s almost guaranteed that they have at least one friend who does. It’s become increasingly common for children to be able to casually whip out a perfectly-blended shadow paired with even winged liquid liner and a perfectly-overlined pout.
So at this point, why bother posting tutorials for looks one of your peers–or you, for that matter– have already done? Just like as it happened with Rome, the ferocity with which the Makeup Royals tried to overtake the scene became their very undoing.
Personally, though, I hope they decide to make somewhat of a comeback. Who doesn’t love a good snack while you watch someone get ready and tell you a good story?!