Beauty trends come and go, but some will haunt us long after their expiration date. Most of us have dabbled with some these outdated trends during our lifetime, and now with the wisdom of hindsight we can revisit the best of the worst...
The lady mullet
Quite possibly the worst offender on this list, the female version of the mullet looked suspiciously like the men’s version, just a little higher in the front, and longer at the back. As cringey as this was, so many of us did it in the 80s that you can’t laugh at anyone else before looking back through your old school photos first.
Blue under-eye eyeliner
Made famous by Lady Di, the vivid blue pencil liner under the lashes screams 80s chic. These days coloured liner is back in fashion in more subtle hues like olive green and bronze. Applied to the top eyelid only keeps this look more contemporary.
Orange tan
The beachy sun-kissed look we were all going for was posthumously dubbed ‘orang-u-tan’ for a reason. These days, unless you’re a Kardashian, the look du jour is a subtle glow that highlights your natural skin tone without overpowering your features.
Crimped hair
If you didn’t own a crimper in the 80s as a teen, you begged your parents for one until they gave in and bought you one that would singe your curls into flat, rippled sheets of burnt hair. Crimpers are now sought-after collectible relics of another era - which is exactly where they belong.
Pencil-thin eyebrows
Big in the twenties and thirties, thin eyebrows made a comeback in the 90s and early 2000s after we tired of the au naturel style of the 80s. This overplucked look did us no favours, and sadly some of our brows never fully recovered to adapt to today’s fuller style.
Tiger-Stripe blush
Long before contouring became a thing, women of the 70s and 80s were applying pink blush to highlight their cheekbones in an upward stripe across their cheeks. Looking more like tiger stripes than a natural glow, this look thankfully died out with shoulder-padded suits.
Glitter eyeshadow
We sure looked amazing zipping around the skating rink in our skater skirts and glitter eyeshadow when we were 18. But now we’ve moved on to more natural shades that help to bring out our eyes and don’t draw attention to droopy eyelids or dark circles, and left the glitter to the kids’ birthday cakes.
Dark lip-liner with light lipstick
Unless you’re wearing dark lipstick, leave the dark liner in your bathroom drawer along with the too-nude lipstick that was often paired with it. Just say no.
Sparkly face stickers
There was a time not that long ago when we’d finish off our make-up with a splash of stars or a diamond teardrop between our eyes, a la 1990s Gwen Stefani. We never stopped loving Gwen’s pink balayage, but the stickers, not so much.
Butterfly clips
One was just never enough – we adorned our cropped locks and updos with as many of these plastic beauties we could get our hands on. This look ultimately died out when the wings broke off after trying to hold more than 10 strands of twisted hair.
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