Editorial makeup, or makeup specifically meant for photos, advertisements, and runways, has created memorable and innovative looks, and yet it has become obsolete in an increasingly visual world.
Historically, the best example of an editorial makeup look is the Gibson Girl style of the 1890s to the 1910s. The Gibson Girl was not merely a fashionable face. It was an ideal, a deliberate construction of American womanhood. Charles Dana Gibson’s illustrations depicted tall, confident women with soft waves of hair, flushed cheeks, and refined features. Achieving this look in real life required more than just natural beauty. Women relied on tightly laced corsetry, subtle makeup, and specific lighting techniques in photographs to imitate the glowing, airy quality of Gibson’s drawings. In that sense, the Gibson Girl represents one of the earliest moments in which beauty became editorial, carefully crafted, visually aspirational, and widely consumed.
Today, celebrities walking red carpets use the same tricks. Many gowns include built-in corsetry, boning, and shaping meant to sculpt the body into an hourglass silhouette. Makeup artists apply makeup with the camera in mind, using strategic highlighting, contouring that reads softly under flash photography, and long-wearing creams that maintain radiance under hot lights. The concept has not changed much. What has changed is how frequently these looks enter the public consciousness. In earlier decades, a red carpet moment was a cultural event. It lived longer in magazines, on TV recaps, and on the early internet. Today, the sheer volume of celebrity content makes any single look fade within hours.
How the internet changed editorial makeup
This shift is especially striking when we consider the early days of online beauty content. During the 2000s and early 2010s, creators frequently recreated specific red carpet looks. A single celebrity appearance could inspire dozens of tutorials. PopSugar Beauty, for instance, recreated Ashley Greene’s makeup from the Twilight saga premieres in 2010. Beauty YouTube was filled with videos titled “Kim Kardashian Red Carpet Look,” “Angelina Jolie Oscars Tutorial,” or “Taylor Swift VMAs Makeup.” The fascination with celebrity mystique was high, and creators served as intermediaries, translating those glamorous moments for everyday viewers.
Pat McGrath created one of the most standout runway makeup looks of recent years with her porcelain doll-inspired makeup. Long considered the mother of modern editorial beauty, McGrath achieved a surreal, glassy finish by airbrushing a clear peel-off mask over foundation. Under runway lights, this technique transformed the models into living porcelain figures, blurring the line between skin and sculpture. It was a rare moment when a high-fashion look became a viral topic beyond fashion circles, capturing the imagination of casual viewers as well. It reminded the beauty community of how editorial artistry can still stun, surprise, and influence.
However, these types of looks are not as popular as they used to be. Celebrity makeup no longer holds the same mystique. This shift likely comes from the widespread availability of makeup education on the internet. Celebrity makeup artists once kept certain techniques as trade secrets, but now they share them widely through tutorials. Artists like Lisa Eldridge, Patrick Ta, and Charlotte Tilbury have made their professional knowledge accessible to anyone with a smartphone. They not only show the exact products they use on celebrity clients but also often recreate the iconic looks themselves, removing the aura of exclusivity.
Is there still a place for editorial makeup in the 2020s?
Viewers of the 2020s crave authenticity rather than the luxe, aspirational lifestyle that fascinated the 2010s viewer. Influencers today highlight “getting ready in my messy room” rather than a glamorous behind-the-scenes studio environment. This cultural shift has contributed to the overall decline in recreations of red carpet or runway looks. The polished, sculpted, and often time-consuming techniques associated with editorial beauty feel out of place in an era dominated by relatability.
A desire for natural beauty is also tied to the rise of the clean girl aesthetic. The clean girl favors minimal, creamy, fresh products that enhance rather than transform. Her makeup is purposeful but practically invisible. A hint of blush, a sheen of gloss, a brushed brow, all working together to create a subtle effect. The goal is effortless beauty, or at least the appearance of it. Editorial makeup, with its bold lines, strong shapes, and theatrical elements, stands in contrast to this trend. Explaining why fewer bold, avant-garde looks break through to the mainstream.
Still, certain editorial-influenced trends manage to grab public attention. The most recent example is Sabrina Carpenter’s iconic pink blush paired with old Hollywood curls. Her signature flushed look turned the Armani Beauty Cheek Tints into viral products. With consumers rushing out to buy the two specific shades said to recreate the exact Sabrina Carpenter glow. The trend was not extreme or theatrical, but it had just enough character and charm to feel editorial while remaining wearable.
For those craving truly bold or colorful makeup, there are brands that cater to that audience and are widely accessible. Half Magic and About Face stand out as two mainstream lines available at many Ulta locations nationwide. Half Magic, founded by Donni Davy after her work on the show Euphoria, benefited from the massive TikTok trend of graphic eyeliner and jewel-embellished eyes. The brand carries glittery shadows, iridescent liners, and high-quality tools designed to inspire creative self-expression. Meanwhile, About Face, created by pop star Halsey, markets itself directly toward artists. Its products encourage experimentation, offering punchy pigments, unusual textures, and packaging that leans into a rebellious editorial spirit. These brands keep the flame of artistic makeup alive at the consumer level.
The horrors of AI-generated makeup
However, the final issue, and perhaps the most concerning one, that makeup artistry now faces is the rise of AI-generated makeup videos. On many social media platforms, one might stumble upon clips of lipstick that appears to be made of bricks or eyeshadow that morphs into fluttering money. These fantastical visuals are engaging, but they are impossible for real artists to replicate. The danger is that AI blurs the boundary between achievable artistry and digital fantasy.
As a result, industry professionals, beauty creators, and makeup artists find themselves competing not only with each other but also with synthetic content that is designed to be more stimulating than anything reality can offer. The pressure to create standout videos that hold a viewer’s attention is higher than ever. This environment makes it harder for genuine artistry, true craft, technique, and expression to thrive. And strangely, it mirrors the journey from the Gibson Girl to now. Beauty is once again shaped not just by faces and products, but by the technologies and cultural forces around them.
Although minimalist glowy “clean girl” makeup has been the trending style of the 2020s so far, innovative brands like Danessa Myricks add some color and sparkle to Sephora shelves. Her brand includes multi-use paints in a variety of finishes that can be used on eyes, lips, and cheeks, and duochrome formulas in eyeshadows.
Going into 2026, when the color of the year is a boring white, “cloud dancer,” it is hard to find a place for bold makeup in a neutral world. However, indie makeup brands, social media creators, and anyone who dares to play with color on their face keep this style alive.
