Fashion

I Tried Spring's "Hottest" Beauty Trends IRL

by Tess Yocom

Confession: I’m not a beauty person. At all. Sure, I’ll make the occasional trip to Sephora to browse/try on every lipstick in the store without making awkward eye contact with the sales associates, but that’s pretty much it. Sitting through YouTube beauty guru videos? Ha. I’ll pass. Even Fashion Week's minimalistic beauty trends had me feeling a little uneasy.

My personal makeup routine? It’s been pretty much the same since high school: Start off with a touch of foundation, add some pink lipstick and blush, apply some brown eyeshadow, and finish it off with mascara and a touch of brown eyeliner — you know, just the basics. Nothing fancy here. Hey, I have my moments though. Last weekend, I put some of my mom’s Clinique shimmer highlighter under my eyebrows. How very YOLO of me.

Even though I’ve never entered the scary world of liquid eyeliner, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the Fashion Week beauty trends. Pierced brows at Rodarte? Pale skin and black fingertips at Thom Browne? Faux star tats at Tommy Hilfiger? Um, yes please.

So, I had a brilliant idea: Why not try these trends out myself? Look — it sounds a bit ridiculous coming from me, but I was at home with a big imagination and a giant Ulta makeup palette that I got for Christmas in 2007. It was time to have at it.

Ben Gabbe/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Was I able to pull off these fabulous runway looks and instantly become a beauty guru? LOL. Nope. Not at all. You know how little kids break into their mom’s make up bag and smear every color on their face? It was more like that.

What did I learn from my trip into shimmery eyeshadow land? Some people are really good at trying out new looks. Me? I’ll stick to my Clinique chubby sticks.

White Eyes From Nanette Lepore

So, it was time to begin my makeup adventures. Of course, being the bore that I am, I didn’t own a single white or glittery eye pencil. My solution? Coat my entire eye lid with shimmery powder from my 2007 Ulta makeup kit (which — by the way — I’m 99 percent sure isn’t sanitary anymore.) Because that will look great!

Nope. Instead, it pretty much looked like Olaf melted all over my brows. “Please,” I begged my sister as she tried to capture this hot mess in a nice little photo, “Take a picture before this glitter gets in my eye. Ugh. HURRY!”

Lesson learned? Invest in some liquid eyeliner. Your eyes will thank you.

Colored Brows And Hair From Badgley Mischka

Will green eyebrows ever be socially acceptable in real life? Probably not. Was I still going to test them out? Sure.

I headed back to my trusty Ulta palette and applied some green glittery eyeshadow across my brows. “Um...will this stuff actually come out?” I thought to myself. If it actually stained, I’d be rocking the Kermit the Frog look for a few days.

Did I match the tips with dye? Yeah right. I said a little prayer and put the shadow on the ends of my hair. I’m sure that’s exactly what the models did during Fashion Week.

How’d it look? Not terrible, but by no means chic. Maybe I’d wear it to class the next day. Or not.

Bleached Brows From Givenchy

The bleached brows. How did Cara Delevingne pull these off? Did they pour it on her face and she shrieked in terror at the thought of her signature brows possibly dying a painful death? Or did they just spend a few minutes coating them with some sort of magical concealer? We may never know.

But really — how did they pull this off? I tried everything. Coating them with foundation—didn’t work. Putting a light powder over them — nope. Eyeshadow? Still showing. Was I going to have to grab a bottle of Clorox in order for this to work?

So, feeling defeated, I went and took a photo. With my brows still showing. Guess we all can’t be Cara.

Go Big Or Go Home Everything From Betsey Johnson

Oh, Betsey. Thank you for gracing us with your totally out there yet badass presence. Now, for her Fashion Week looks. Teased hair. Smokey eyes. Red lips. Oh boy. What was I about to get myself into?

By some miracle, I found a black eye pencil in my bathroom, so I applied it under my lid and put on some black shadow from — you guessed it — the Ulta kit, and finished it off with dark red lipstick.

Now, for the hair. The models did some sort of teased curls, but there was no way I could pull it off with my stick straight strands. I tried to look up how to properly tease my hair, but after tons of YouTube browsing I was still coming up dry. My solution? Bend over, coat my hair with enough hairspray to ruin the ozone layer, and flip back up.

It was… interesting. By this time, I had completely given up on trying to pull off any Fashion Week beauty look. A shrugged my shoulders, took the picture, and went right inside to take a shower.

So, after teasing my hair, literally putting concealer on my brows, and trying to dye my hair with green eyeshadow, how do I feel about makeup trends? Eh, I’ll stick to the basics. Hey, someone has to put all those neutral shadow palettes to use, so it might as well be me.

Images: Getty Images (5); Taylor Yocom Photography (4)