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

So much eyeliner. So much.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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

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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.

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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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