Last week, your Instagram likely felt like a time capsule.
Perhaps you participated, too, reminding your friends, family and other followers what you looked like 10 years ago, when eyeshadow palette launches were constant occasions, brows were blocky and “on fleek,” and contour and highlighter were applied in equally heavy doses.
Since 2016, however, makeup has skewed increasingly lighter and more natural. Today, we describe the dominating aesthetic as “no-makeup makeup” or “clean girl.” It’s had a long reign.
Now, some people — and brands — are more than ready for a return to the glamour.
To Rachel Lowenstein, consultant, culture strategist and creator (92,000 TikTok followers), the “clean girl” aesthetic has been devoid of the self-expression that other trends allow. “It’s just like a shopping list that you can purchase, and there is no expression allowed in that,” Lowenstein said of the aesthetic that brands including Rhode, Saie and Merit have helped popularize over the past five years.
Lowenstein predicts a pendulum swing. “We’re made for play,” she said. “We’re made to express ourselves.” Trend forecasting agency WGSN’s 2026 “Top Trends for 2026 & Beyond” report named “Unserious Everything” as one of its top trends, further indicating a potential shift to a more playful aesthetic.
2016 was also the year Instagram shifted its algorithm, from a chronological- to an algorithmically-based system, creating the dynamic that exists today — where people create and “perform” for that algorithm, and “emulate” what it favors, Lowenstein said. Now, she said, there’s “a nostalgia and desire for a time when we weren’t performing as much.” To Lowenstein, this could also indicate a shift away from the uniformity of a trend like the “clean girl’ aesthetic.
Some makeup brands are ready to return to the louder makeup language of 10 years ago — or at least find a middle ground.
In 2016, Tarte launched Shape Tape, its best-selling concealer — the brand still sells one every four seconds, according to Circana data. The product cemented Tarte’s place as the No. 1 concealer brand, based on sales, also according to Circana. The brand is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the hero product this year and has kicked off a campaign to mark the occasion. The campaign is “about honoring Shape Tape as a cultural icon, while recognizing that she’s grown up alongside our community,” said Maureen Kelly, Tarte’s founder and CEO.
In the decade since Shape Tape launched, it has become a full franchise, inspiring other Tarte products like Shape Tape Creamy, Shape Tape Radiant, Shape Tape Blur and Face Tape foundation, among others. The entire collection is currently 40% off on Tarte’s site, in honor of the occasion.
“Seeing 2016 come back in 2026 reminds you that makeup is supposed to be fun, expressive and a little unapologetic,” Kelly said.
Kelly said some of Tarte’s product launches this year will have a similar nostalgic spirit. “We’re definitely seeing a shift. The ‘clean girl’ era had its moment, but beauty always swings back. Right now, people are craving personality again,” she said. “For us, it’s not about recreating 2016 exactly as it was. It’s about taking what made that era so iconic — confidence, creativity and impact — and translating it for today.”
She added, “[Our 2026 launches are] bold and they perform, but they’re still wearable and empowering. Makeup doesn’t need to be quiet to be beautiful.”
Celebrity makeup artist Hung Vanngo’s eponymous makeup brand only launched in September 2025, but his debut collection was inspired by the more colorful start of his career, which took place in the ’90s, he said. The brand launched direct-to-Sephora with a collection of surprisingly bright products, given the recent makeup landscape. It included the $49 Color Story Eyeshadow Palette, with full palettes dedicated to shades of blue, green, orange or purple, for example.
“Based on current trends, the expectation was that the more neutral palettes would drive most of the category, with the colors really showcasing Hung’s talent and appealing to artists,” a brand representative said. “However, we have consistently seen the bright colors represent around 50% of our palette assortment [sales], with shades like ‘Passionate Purple’ and ‘Brilliant Blue’ regularly ranking in our top 5 overall SKUs.”
According to Vanngo, “A little more glamour is coming back; 2026 is really when people will play a bit more with makeup. He noted that, after a long period of slowing red lipstick sales, the Vanngo Red and New York Red shades of the brand’s $29 Creamy Matte Longwear Lipstick have been top performers at Sephora. New York Red, a blue-red shade, is currently out of stock on both Sephora.com and the brand’s DTC site. It is also the shade Vanngo put on Selena Gomez for this year’s Golden Globes. Makeup trends, Vanngo said, are “a circle, [as] people tend to get bored.”
But that’s not to say that he anticipates a full 180-degree swing. He said some of his celebrity clients, like actor Jodie Comer, are unlikely to sway from their preference for more minimalist looks. But, he said, first responses to his collection last fall were often a version of, “Oh my God, full-face makeup is coming back.”
For Anastasia Beverly Hills, 2016 was a golden age. It was the era of the collectible eyeshadow palette, and Anastasia’s Modern Renaissance Palette was a must-have. “Obviously, that was our era,” Claudia Soare, president of the brand, told Glossy. It is about 10 a.m. in Los Angeles when we speak on Zoom, and she is wearing a dark lip, signaling that her dedication to bolder makeup never waned.
Soare was equally honest about the fact that the “clean girl” trend posed a challenge for Anastasia Beverly Hills, which is best known for bold brows and lids. “‘Clean girl’ is not really our brand DNA,” she said, adding that she is excited to get back to what the brand does best.
Anastasia Beverly Hills’ latest launch is Glidr — a $34 smude-proof, 12-hour-wear eyeshadow stick. It comes in 25 shades, including a metallic royal purple, a gold-flecked emerald and a silver-flecked fuchsia.
Glidr is the perfect bridge to where Soare sees makeup going. Like Vanngo, she does not predict a full swing back to matte skin with blocky highlighter and contour, but rather a “hybrid, because things evolve, and it’s natural that they do,” she said.
Soare called the Glidr sticks a well-timed launch because, having taken a back seat for nearly five years, eyes are ready for a renaissance. “Eyes are definitely what everyone [is going to] play up right now,” she said. “And we’re going to go back to talking [about] eyes.” According to Soare, the sticks will offer the ease of use that today’s younger generation prefers, while also providing the optionality of the palettes from 2016.
As for what’s next, Soare is figuring that out in real time. On the one hand, “you never know” how long today’s social media trends will stick, she said. And, while the brand has posted some collages paying homage to best-of-2016 looks, Soare said there are no plans to post anything similar, nor would such content work on in-store gondolas. She said she also wants to avoid veering into being so nostalgic it’s “cringe.” What the brand does plan to do is lean into some of the ways it had fun with its community 10 years ago, like hosting artistry competitions on Instagram.
“I think people are bored, and they’re ready for something more individualistic. … It feels like high school where everyone was dressed the same. It’s like, ‘OK, [it’s time for] something different.”
Week in Review
New fragrances — and formats — hit the market
The fragrance category is not slowing down in the new year. This week, Michelle Pfeiffer’s fragrance brand, Henry Rose, launched London, its 14th eau de parfum. The scent, inspired by Pfeiffer’s memories of King’s Road circa 1983, features notes of fig, black pepper, water lily, jasmine, musk, blonde woods and vetiver bourbon. The brand describes the scent as a “second skin musk.”
Also in fragrance, Noyz, the Ulta-exclusive, approachably priced brand, aims to disrupt the very format of fragrance itself, with its new Eau de Mylks. The products’ bottles look like they contain a trendy new milky toner, but instead, they hold a light, lotion-like formula with the same perfume concentration as the brand’s traditional sprays, infused with hyaluronic acid for skin hydration. They’re launching in Noyz’s three bestselling scents: Only Human, which is a vanilla-heavy skin scent; Detour, a white floral and apple blossom scent; and Unmute, a classic vanilla gourmand. Each is $95. Perfume creators, such as Paul Fino (@paulreactss; 605,000 Instagram followers) and Kudzi Chikumbu (@sircandleman; 166,000 Instagram followers), have begun to tease the launch, informing their followers that they can sign up to receive one of 1,000 available free samples.
Finally, for the first time, E.l.f. entered fragrance this week, in partnership with H&M, introducing three scents, each inspired by one of its bestselling franchises: Power Grip, Halo Glow and Camo Blend. Each scent will be priced at $29.99 and will be available online and at select H&M locations beginning January 29. “The world is craving more liberation, imagination and self-expression. E.l.f. and H&M answer the call with a multi-sensory journey. … This is the best of beauty made accessible to the happy many,” E.l.f. CMO Kory Marchisotto said in a press release.
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