10 Terrible Beauty Mistakes I’ve Been Guilty Of Over The Last 26 Years

Like most people out there, you probably have a stash of old photos lingering deep down in your Facebook page that you’d rather never saw the light of day. But thanks to social media, they’re searchable and very much a part of your internet history.

One positive consequence of that though, is that you can feel pretty damn smug about your current self whenever you stumble upon a photo of you decked out in a turquoise halter neck and grape-scented body glitter in 2006.

With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of ten of the most heinous beauty mistakes I’ve made over the years – with photographic evidence of course.

For the record, this is me now – on a good day and heavily filtered.

Rewinding nine or ten years, here are some of the beauty errors I fell foul of…

1. Thinking purple eyeshadow was a good thing
A smear of Boots 17 lilac shadow across the eyelid with no other make-up is never a good look, but I ‘worked’ it consistently between the ages of 13 and 15.

2. Trying a zig-zag parting
It looked passable at best on Scary Spice. On me, it looked like I’d lost my hairbrush.

3. Picking any shade of foundation and hoping for the best
“Blending” and “matching” were two terms I would learn much, much later in life.

4. Caking on the black eyeliner
Not just a subtle flick, no. All around the yes. Always.

5. Overdoing it with the GHD
Dead straight hair á la Avril Lavigne was the order of the day. With a centre parting, obvz.

6. Over-plucking my eyebrows
These days, we know it’s all about the heavy, natural brow. But in 2008, the less eyebrow hairs, the better. So I had roughly ten.

7. Thinking that having two strands of hair “framing” my face when wearing a ponytail was cool
Very Sporty Spice. Except she stopped doing it in 1998, and I stopped a whole decade later.

8. Refusing to match my fake tan to my face
White face, brown neck. Is there anything sexier?

9. Or just wearing too much fake tan, full stop
We’re really working the Club Tropicana via Dublin look here.

10. Trying to dye my hair “chestnut brown” at home
I ended up with a shade closer to jet black and it wasn’t pretty.

If you’re thinking it’s just us mere mortals that suffer from beauty disasters, think again – we’ve your definitive guide to Taylor Swift’s decade-long beauty transformation here!

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• beauty mistakes
• noughties beauty