With each new year, the beauty and fashion community asks itself “what’s next?”

Enthusiastic followers of beauty trends take it upon themselves to innovate and herald in new ways to style our hair, draw our brows and file our nails to help keep the industry fresh and exciting. Eventually, these trends trickle down and find their way into our homes and every-day beauty regimens.

The clean girl look has been going strong for over two years now, but one up-and-coming trend we are seeing–thanks to the popularity of films like Saltburn and Gen Z discovering old favourites like The Sopranos–is a move away from perfection.

In 2024, we’re embracing the mess. This departure from overly-manicured aesthetics is perfect for anyone who’s a fan of the frazzled English woman trend on TikTok or who wants to emulate the oh-so-fabulous ’90s party girl. It also leaves more room for why we fell in love with beauty and makeup in the first place: It’s not all about keeping up with the It Girls, most days it’s about self-care and self-expression.

Moving away from clean girl and into a frazzled English woman, ’90s party girl, and mob wife era

TikTok declares the clean girl is out and the mob wife, in all her big hair, glitzy jewellery glory, is in for 2024. This trend is likely to only increase in popularity with the release of Netflix series Griselda starring Sofia Vergara as Columbian Queenpin Griselda Blanco.

@ktrivz manifesting a 24 carat diamond tennis necklace to match my mob wife energy #greenscreen ♬ original sound – kayla trivieri

Additionally, we’ll see more of the frazzled English woman aesthetic à la Bridget Jones, Kate Winslet, and Keira Knightley, which includes a fresh face with messy hair thrown up in claw clip (or maybe a beanie), and of course an oversized scarf.

Another addition to the stylized messy makeup trend is inspired by characters like Venetia, played by Alison Oliver, in Saltburn. The look includes textured hair and heavy eyeliner rings around the eyes.

@lilachilds Replying to @Amanda Lamb Venetia from Saltburn makeup tutorial! I’m obsessed😭 #saltburn #saltburnmovie #saltburnedit #saltburnfilm #saltburbmakeup #venetiasaltburn #venetiasaltburnedit #venetiasaltburnmakeup #2006makeup #lindsaylohan #lindsaylohanmakeup #lindsaylohanmakeuptutorial #mid2000s #mid2000smakeup #messygirlaesthetic #messymakeup #jacobelordi #jacobelordisaltburn ♬ original sound – Lila

What do all three have in common? They’re imperfect on purpose. They feel real, lived in, and accessible while bursting with personality.

Bold eyeliner

During the clean girl era, eyeliner was pretty subtle and minimal. Usually it was limited to a soft brown wing with pale eyeshadow, but in 2024 we’re going to see a return to bold graphic liner. Tutorials for coal liner along the waterline are making a comeback on TikTok, and Instagram It Girls are reaching for colourful liners and pairing them with mismatched eyeshadows for an interesting take on the trend.

 

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Colour mixing

Bold brings us to another trend: colour mixing. This technique uses different complementary colours to build a beauty look from nails to eyes. Take, for instance, Hailey Bieber’s sunshine yellow nails paired with pink graphic eyeliner.

Square nails

Much like arbitrary rejection of the side part, oval nails are over. Gen Z has spoken and it’s square nails only for 2024. Square nails also means the rise of shorter nails and the fall of nail art. This year will be the year of minimalist monochrome nails and french tips. Red will always be a classic choice and it’s unlikely people will be giving up the glazed nails popularized by Hailey Bieber last year.

Bows and braids

Bows. Bows everywhere. The bow trend continues in 2024 but this year, we’ll be seeing it incorporated into hair styles involving braids and more complicated ponytails.

Multi-step haircare routines

The bow-in-hair trend comes part in parcel with another blossoming area of the beauty world: hair care. As people streamline their skincare routines to a handful of products, the hair care shelf of their shower is filling up. Curl creams, heat protectants, hair oils, leave-in conditioners, scalp detoxifiers and more. Healthy hair is the new clear skin.

French Pharmacy

When it comes to trends, it’s hard to get the internet to agree on much but there aren’t many out there who would argue against french pharmacy skincare. French pharmacies have brought us buzzy brands such as La Roche Posay, Vichy, and Avène that have found viral success in the North American market and it’s likely the love and attention for these products will increase in 2024 as the hunger for performative skincare at an affordable price point continues to grow.

Blue is the new black

It’s been said that peach will have its moment in 2024, but another strong contender for colour of the year was first seen on the Prada fall 2023 runway. Models were sporting blue flasies.

Launchmetrics Spotlight

Many 2024 trend prediction lists have included jewel-toned blue as a staple colour for makeup this year. It makes sense, since frosty, glazed makeup has been in vogue for a while now and it usually calls for cool colours like blue. Blue eyeshadow, blue liner, and blue nails is the natural progression of the blueberry milk trend we saw last summer–but this time, it’ll involve more shimmer and sheen to marry the two makeup looks.

90s lips

We’re calling it now: 2024 will be the year of the ’90s lip, whether that’s frosted–or glazed as we’re calling it now–or ombre, or a combination of the two. Brown lip liner and russet lipstick combos are already trending, and it won’t be long before everyone rediscovers the beauty of the MAC frost lipsticks we used to steal from mom’s vanity. As much as Gen Z is trying to make Y2K happen, the ’90s continue to persist.

 

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Body care

Last but not least, body care will be a priority in 2024. The rise of the Sol de Janeiro’s Brazilian BumBum cream was a green light for brands to come out with more high performance body care products infused with heavenly scents. Dry brushing, body oiling and the everything shower has only fuelled this interest to the point where The Business of Fashion identified body care as a major area of growth and predict it will only continue to rise.

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