Eye shadow died two years ago. Gen Z’s clean girl beauty army buried it with the side part, skinny jeans, and going out tops and danced on its grave, their mouths slicked with lip oil and cherub cheeks dabbed with pocket blush. For years, millennials and Gen X watched paralyzed, fearful of dipping back into their half-used Naked palettes lest they become the subject of a devastatingly-edited TikTok declaring them cringe.
Now, at last, the drought in the shadow space has ended: A steady stream of big, bold palettes are being launched this fall. Palettes with eight, 12, even 18 (!) wells holding hypershine multi-chromes, soft-touch mattes, multidimensional pearl pigments, molten metallics, astral sparkles, and sueded satins have hit the market, largely from makeup artist-founded brands like Pat McGrath Labs, Danessa Myricks Beauty, and Makeup By Mario.
Among the liberators of the clean girl movement is makeup artist Hung Vanngo, who recently debuted his makeup brand with a robust eight eye shadow palettes, each with varying shades of a specific color, like purple, green, or red. “I actually went into the creative process with [even] more than eight palettes, if you can believe it,” he says. (More are coming soon.)
A few seasons ago, launching a brand with more than one eye shadow palette—or even a single eye shadow palette—might have seemed like overkill. But, according to Alexis Androulakis, a product developer and one half of The Lipstick Lesbians duo, today, it feels like meeting the moment. “I think we’re seeing the reinvention tour of palettes,” she says.
But the plot twist no one saw coming in this beauty fan-fic is that Gen Z is now into eye shadow, too—the clean girl look be damned.
Just look at the lids of some of the buzziest stars among Gen Z: Chappell Roan is obviously an eyeshadow queen. Jenna Ortega’s been serving up gothy-glam with lots of shadow-based contouring on the eyes. Katseye’s Lara Raj and her pop star sister Rhea are constantly in high-impact shadow looks, ranging from the smoky to the sunset eye.
Even fashion runways have returned to color: there were brightly-hued lids at shows from Anna Sui to Zankov and everything in between (Collina Strada, Area, and Private Policy).
How Eyes Became Everything
For those wondering why eyes have started trending again, makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench has a theory: “We will do clean girl core until we’re bored and then we will do the complete opposite. Happens annually!” She’s right.