What is style?

 Style today has many different categories/aesthetics, some of them are preppy, 2000s, vanilla girl, grunge, and clean girl. Style can also make up for your makeup, skincare, clothes, hair, jewelry, or maybe even the brands you use. You will most likely find these things on Tik Tok and Pinterest. The people that post these things or promote this are celebrities and influencers. One of the biggest trends today are makeup brands like Dior, Rare Beauty, Fenty Beauty, Kosas, NARS, and Glossier. You don’t realize it but you do this when you shop because you shop you buy the style that you like. Also when you get ready, you pick an outfit, jewelry, or makeup look that fits your aesthetic. It is important or special to many people because it shows what they like and how they like it. It also is one of the first things people notice when meeting you. Sometimes in style there are beauty standards that aren’t true. One of them is your nose or your eyebrows. Then it can cause people to get surgery on their lips and nose. We all know sometimes that does not end well. 

The History of Makeup

First makeup started 6,000 years ago in Ancient Egypt. It showed wealth and drew attention from the gods. In Egypt 400 BCE men wore black eyeliner, for women they wore green eyeshadow and white powder to lighten their skin tone. Sounds alot like concealer to me. Then in Ancient Rome they started to wear makeup, but mostly for performances. Let’s skip all the way up to the 1920s, this is when they started to wear more visible makeup, such as bright red lipstick, black eyeliner and pink blush. In the 1950s the make up style was similar to the 1920s but more enhanced. The eyebrows were more thick and for the eyes a small wing but light eyeshadow. One thing that they definitely kept for a long time was the red lips. Now the 1960s had a whole different look. They went for white or light blue eyeshadow with the black eyeliner all around it. The lips did not have much, but it was mostly a nude lip. Another thing I noticed about the hair was that there were a lot of side parts. The 70s and 80s get a little funky. They had more big poofy hair, bright colors for eyeshadow, and last 

light pink lips. This is when they start doing the fake little birthmark on top of the lip. The 90s and 2000s were my favorite. They went for thin black brows, smokey eyes, and for the lips brown lip liner with pink in the middle. The hair was also cute and funky. Lots of half up half down hairstyles.

“Beauty Standards” 

There are all types of “beauty standards”. If you are wondering, they are kinda like rules that tell you how something should look. These days they can tell if you are pretty or not. This causes some people to get injections and fillers. Sometimes it ends up looking modest and natural, but other times it doesn’t. An example is lip fillers. When people get lip fillers a lot, they can become dependent on them to feel “pretty”. We all know you don’t have to have big lips to be pretty. People also get them to improve their social status or to meet those standards. Personally I would not get lip injections, because some of the side effects are, bruising, infections, and sores. Also with all these trends, what if big lips aren’t “in” anymore. Same thing with nose jobs. Everyone wants a nose job because they want a button nose, but about when that not is not the trend anymore. If you’re wondering what this has to do with style, well when you do your makeup they say you have to have special face features. Which is obviously not true.

Vanilla Girl vs 2000s style

Vanilla girl and 2000s style are two different aesthetics. Both

have some similarities but are different. Let’s first start with “Vanilla girl Aesthetic” for the clothes there are a lot of neutral colors like white, bage, and brown. Also very comfy, big on sweaters and cardigans. Very calm if you know what I mean. Even the most casual outfits are so cute when it’s this aesthetic. Tops are fitted. Bodysuits are also a thing, paired with a white cardigans. The hair is simple slick back buns and ponytails, hair down sometimes. Jewelry is all gold for earrings, gold small hoops, for necklaces and bracelets thin small chains. Makeup is also very simple, eyebrows brushed back, a little concealer, pink blush, and a nude lip to top it off with gloss. Now let’s move on to 2000s style. First and foremost when it comes to shirts and jeans, they are very baggy and oversized, unlike “vanilla Girl Aesthetic”. A Lot of jerseys and hoodies are included for the shirts. Jeans and sweatpants are very big in this aesthetic. Hair is very funky alot of half up half down, space buns, and braids with beads. Jordans are the only shoes you will see in the 2000s aesthetic, even though the jeans cover them because of how big they are. An outfit in the 2000s style would probably be baggy jeans, a graphic tee, and some jordans or nikes. The make up is very different from the vanilla girl aesthetic. It’s a full beat! They go for more of a matte makeup look. If I could say one thing about the “2000s aesthetic” it is definitely not bland. I’d say these two styles are very different.

Skin Care

Skin Care is a very big trend in 2023. Some of the big brands of skincare are Drunk Elephant, Glow Recipe, and last Bubble. Influencers on Tik Tok promote these brands and say amazing things about them. Others might disagree, and say that these brands broke them out, or that they are a waste of your money. People also say that you’re paying for more of the “aesthetic” bottle than the actual product. What they mean by that is there, the bottle or container looks like you’re getting a lot of product, but in reality you’re only getting about 1.69 oz. A solution to this problem is people buy the product, take out the cream or serum, and fill it with a higher quality product. So in the end you still have the “preppy” or “aesthetic” bottle, you just don’t have the actual cream or serum. Which I think is even more of a waste of money, because the brands are very expensive. A Drunk Elephant minis set caust almost one hundred dollars. Moving on to another problem with skincare is the destruction in the stores. People are stealing these products like crazy, even the samples that you see on the stands. The biggest brand that you will see stolen is Drunk Elephant. The solution for this is that stores like Sephora and Ulta have to start putting alarms on these brands. Even with all this people still manage to steal. Going back to the destruction, people are making “smoothies” with these products. Leaving them all messy and dirty. Although all this is happening, in my experience I’ve never had a bad usage with these products.