Growing up we all had our beauty heroes whose looks we wanted to try but knew deep down we could never pull off. Hours of scraping our hair back with gel and a really fine comb to perfect that ponytail with two strands of hair pulled out at the front and that blue eye shadow we blended oh so well (not!), we’ve all had our fair share of beauty disasters. More often than not we drew our inspiration from Live and Kicking, Grange Hill or our weekly edition of Top of the Pops Magazine.
Looking back at my top three beauty looks I lusted over in my tweens makes me laugh and gasp in horror, what was I thinking?!
Gwen Stefani and her CRAZY but ever so cool weird top knots/buns (what do you even call those?!) The front woman from No Doubt is undoubtedly the only person on the entire planet who could pull this off.
Two words. Lip liner. Whilst it’s making a come back this season, once upon a time in the days of the Spice Girls it was a thick, heavy and unblended line. Geri Halliwell in the Say You’ll Be There video gave me serious lip liner envy. I used to try to emulate it many times only to look more like a cartoon clown than a Girl Power enthusiast/bombshell/general babe.
Lastly for me the one woman who’s hair still to this day is a constant source of inspiration and jealousy is Jennifer Aniston. The Rachel hair. Growing up in the 90s this was the only style of hair you’d ever ask your hairdresser for and yet it never looked like a Rachel. No matter how many times you said layers it just didn’t look the same.
After discussing with the rest of the office their beauty fails growing up I had to share just a few of my favourites.
An unnamed person on the beauty team admitted to drawing on a Marilyn Monroe beauty spot teamed with bright pillar box red lips. I think I speak for the majority of us, we’ve all tried it ‘just to see what we’d look like’.
Another admission from the office was Cindy Crawford. Those bushy brows and big hair combo was always spot on. In fact, I’d happily wear this look today – Cara’s brows with Blake Lively’s hair = perfection.
Another beauty mishap from the CCD office was the Christina Aguilera braids come dreadlocks in her Dirty days. Long after Genie in a Bottle, Christina reinvented herself with leather chaps and blonde braids…we all wanted those braids (she can keep the chaps though!).
Lastly, another beauty disaster I can relate to is the Avril Lavigne smokey eye. When Avril burst onto the scene in 2002 (now I feel old) we abandoned our glittery pink lipglosses and instead opted for the darkest, smokiest of black eyeshadows we could find, teamed with lashings of mascara and black kohl eyeliner. Avril was the antithesis of our previous beauty icons. Her baggy jeans and panda eyes were the coolest thing we’d ever seen.
I love beauty trends from times gone by – the good, the bad and the ugly. The good ones always make a come back eventually while the bad and the ugly make us look back and wonder how naive were we to think that looked good. I predict (and pray) that the ‘Rachel’ comes back one day. That’s a trend I’d happily embrace in 2015.
By Clodagh Coward