Why Messy Makeup Has Replaced the Clean-Girl Aesthetic

Intentional chaos and visible expression—maximalism, if you will—is back in the world of beauty.

It all started with Brat summer. Charli xcx wore winged eyeliner, smudged for a lived-in effect, through the album’s June 2024 drop and beyond. The look had an “I went out last night and didn’t wash my face” appeal. Like the release itself, the pop star’s makeup was unapologetic and individual. By 2025, Jenna Ortega was walking the red carpet and sitting front row in bleached brows; dark, smoky eyes; and burgundy-stained lips. Julia Fox sported bleached brows and a nude lip, accented with purposely visible liner, for the Vanity Fair Oscars party last February. Around the same time, Gabbriette channeled a ’90s Angelina Jolie in cool-tone Goth look.

The spring 2026 collections brought a wave of color, with vibrant plum, orange-red, and berry–lacquered lips by makeup artist Lucy Bridge at Haider Ackermann’s Tom Ford. There were also deep wine-red and neon-green eyelashes by Isamaya Ffrench at Thom Browne, along with fluorescent pink lips by Yadim Carranza at Chloé. At the Golden Globes just weeks ago, Audrey Nuna wore a matte black lip and Odessa A’zion finished off a blurred eye with a seductive spidery lash on the drive to the ceremony.

For years now, “people have been shying away from makeup,” says Hanna Khymych, aka @not_another_hanna, the Brooklyn-based photographer and beauty influencer known for her love of cool-tone aesthetics. She’s among the forward-looking creatives who see that the tides are starting to turn. “Finally last year, makeup artists started working on their own projects,” she explains. “The ‘clean-girl’ took over for such a long time—now, people are looking for perfectly imperfect makeup. It’s almost a fuck-you to the basic vibe.”

Many have called the new look “messy makeup,” perhaps in reference to Charli’s party-girl styling or simply as a marketable reaction to “clean girl.” The minimal, class-coded look has been dominating runways, red carpet, and consumer trends since late 2021. Not anymore.

If you speak to artists, the move away from invisible application represents a more pointed cultural statement. “I don’t think it’s just about messiness for the sake of it. I see a shift toward makeup as character-building,” says Isamaya Ffrench, the artist known as much for her subversive and conceptually driven work as her eponymous line. “People aren’t trying to look effortless or undone, they’re trying to become something. Messy makeup is a signal that you’ve stepped into a role, a mood, a version of yourself that feels intentional.”

Ffrench’s line includes products like her viral penis-shaped lipstick and the Edge Lash Control Kit, a winged lash application set with a visibly precise finish. On her Instagram, you can see her experimenting with hand-painted masks to give the face a Frankenstein-esque metamorphosis. “Culturally, people are exhausted by neutrality,” she adds. “When you look at someone like Jenna Ortega and her Goth looks or Charli xcx embodying the messiness of partying, the makeup is inseparable from the persona. It’s not trend-led, it’s character-led. Makeup becomes a language to signal where you stand, how you feel, what world you belong to.”

She suggests selecting products that “behave unpredictably. Creams, stains, things that move on the skin. Apply them in ways that feel slightly wrong. Use fingers, disrupt symmetry, let things blur.”

Lucia Pica, Byredo’s creative image and makeup partner, says her vision of the new, post-clean beauty aesthetic is based largely on intuition. “I like the idea of playfulness and self-expression that this trend could bring, allowing us to see a singularity to every woman using makeup,” Pica explains. “I don’t think of it as messy, but more as instinctive and human. I personally have a desire for makeup that feels alive, where edges and pigments move. It is not chaos, but freedom, to me, allowing emotion and personality to shine through.” She’s just finished working on a new product that leans into vibrant, colorful hues.

Fara Homidi, meanwhile, is also coveting boldly expressive looks. “Doing makeup for the last few show seasons, I’ve been inspired to incorporate a bit of wildness,” she says. “For example, for Duran Lantink fall 2025, I painted full bodies in leopard and zebra skin We have been locked into this minimalist makeup and wardrobe for so long that makeup maximalism has come roaring back.”

Her line features a lip compact that lends itself to a perfect blurred-edge lip and creamy liner that smudges with ease. Friend and collaborator Paloma Elsesser can be seen wearing the duo on the regular.

“There is a return to emotion and expression. Eyes feel layered, atmospheric, and personal,” says Pica of the current beauty era. Ultimately, whether Goth or life of the party, organic or posthuman, the mood enhanced by today’s messier, highly pigmented and visible makeup is about something other than “natural” beauty and minimal makeup.

“A smudged eye or imperfect skin isn’t about carelessness, it’s about identity. You’re deciding who you are in that moment,” says Ffrench. “That feels much more interesting than trying to look universally attractive or correct.”