Honestly, so many things…and that makes me wonder what I’m doing now that will make me cringe in the future, ha ha ha!
A couple have been relatively recent, like not washing my hair every day. This was during the phase when my hair was long and caramel brown with blonde streaks, and so to help retain the color and keep it from getting too dry, I would try to see how long I could make it through the week without washing my hair. Some weeks I’d go four or five days without washing it.
On the one hand, this saved me SO MUCH TIME in the morning because I could just do my hair on day one, and then not really have to do it until after I washed it again, so my hair styling time was like one minute in the mornings, which was FANTASTIC.
Also, not having to spend the time in the shower washing and conditioning was great too, but ya know…eventually I just got tired of dealing with an itchy scalp and greasy-feeling roots, and I slowly got back into the habit of washing it every day. This really kicked in when I started working out consistently. Now the thought of having even one-day roots grosses me out.
I also went through a spell where I was wearing full-coverage base every day — primer, foundation, color corrector, concealer, powder, the whole nine yards. It looked great in pics! — but dang, girl…it was WORK. I think at that point I was blocking out at least 45 minutes just to put on makeup.
Now I rarely wear full-coverage base because I can’t tolerating feeling like I’m wearing a ton of stuff on my skin, and the thought of wearing full-coverage all day, every day makes me go YEEOUCH!
And, of course, there were the many questionable beauty decisions I made in the ’90s. The one that haunts me the most is plucking all my eyebrows away!
How about you? What’s something beauty related you used to do that makes you cringe now?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Rachel Runyan says
Wearing foundation that didn’t quite match back in the day. It was nigh-on impossible to find a match for pale skin with neutral undertones until the last 5 or 6 years, so I spent a good decade and a half settling for “close enough ” that wasn’t. My acne was more severe, so I wouldn’t go without foundation. I should have looked harder.
Not doing anything with my brows for so long. I should have gotten into waxing sooner.
Karen says
I know that feeling of settling for “close enough.” In the ’90s though it was ROUGH. I have many pictures of my face with a completely different color than my neck. Thank goodness social media wasn’t a thing back then, LOL!
Sami says
Another fair girl here who can relate! I used to have to settle for foundation that was either way toooo pink & I looked crazy or too yellow. I usually preferred the too yellow lol
Carina says
Girl, a fellow neutral pale girl here.. I can feel you so much!
I never wore foundation if I could pass (read: if it was not THAT time of the month), because of the hassle: I could look like a pig with too much pink – and almost all fair foundations were to pink – or with too much yellow like I had full-on war-paint on even using the tiniest amount 🙁
I had to get 34 years old to find a matching foundation… hallelujah. That was about a year ago.
Savannah says
Whoooo boy! Well… I haven’t changed my foundation much at all (except to add moisturizer and primer which makes it look better). My skin doesn’t tolerate liquid foundation it just hates it, so powder foundation until I die, I guess. Top things I can think of is too many dark crease colours that only aged me, same with too much eyeshadow/eyeliner on my lower lash line which is dragging my eye down instead of it looking light and perky. In my high school days I made the mistake of crimping my eyelashes after mascara. Yup, did that quite a few times.
Karen says
I used to do so many things that probably aged me, too, like wearing a pound and a half of concealer. LOL! Ahh, oh well. You live and learn, right?
Christine says
I actually thought what I was doing makeup-wise was pretty bold and unique for a tween; folks would ask me if my mom did my makeup but nope, all me! (E.g., halo eyeshadow, Arabic eye/cat eyeliner, blue eyeshadow on my lips to deepen fuschia lipstick).
BUT — Seabreeze astringent is what I used religiously and the thought of even smelling it now, not to mention stripping away any chance at hydration…just…no.
Oh, also, not ever touching my eyebrows. Totally jealous of my younger self now but looking back at my high school eyebrows — so bushy. Where have my bushy brows gone???
Jennifer Baird says
Oh my gosh seabreeze astringent! I used to use that through my entire teen years! Whyyyy??!!! I can still smell it, lol!
Karen says
Haha. I can still smell it too! I had a brief period where I swapped it out for Ten-O-Six Lotion (remember that?), but I eventually came back to Seabreeze. I think I used to use it *after* scrubbing the life out of my face with St. Ives Apricot scrub.
Christine says
At the time it seemed that industrial-level squeaky clean was the way to go???? *awkward face emoji*
Karen says
Back in the day I did have super oily skin, and it *seemed* like the math checked out at the time. LOL! But dang, if I did that now I’d be a mess!
Christine says
Holy crap, I know. I get dry after an oil cleansing these days!
I’ll forever be grateful for the one time I got a facial (this was in my 30s and I was still having acne and treating my skin like it was oily) and the aesthetician informed me that I actually have DRY skin and I need to hydrate and moisturize more (and to stop touching my face). Skincare GAME-CHANGER.
Karen says
The first time I felt tight cheeks after oil cleansing I was SHOOK. Not all oil cleansers are created alike (mind blown).
You know what tactics I used to stop touching my face? 1) Cutting my nails super short and 2) straight up bribery. I’d allow myself to buy a new pair of shoes or a piece of clothing if I kept my hands off my face for a week. What can I say? It worked!
Karen says
My high school brows were awesome. I rue the day I decided to pluck them into oblivion! (I blame the ’90s.)
Christine says
Yeah, what was up with the 90s?? Did it all have to do with the club scene + grunge thing??? Questions, questions….
Karen says
Don’t even get me started about my questionable lip liner choices back then! I loved purplish-black! I would’ve laughed at the idea of a nude lip.
Christine says
I didn’t even know what lip liner was. Haha!
omg if you’ve seen Robert Welsh’s latest YT (using techniques I hate to do my makeup round 2), he talks about “beef steak lips.” It’s too hilarious.
Karen says
You were lucky then. I have so many terrible pictures of me wearing unblended — and uneven, YIKES — lip liner from my dancing days. 1998 was THE WORST. Let’s just say there was a frosty silver lipstick involved HA HA HA!
Jennifer Baird says
I admit I don’t wash my hair everyday but I only go about 3 days, no longer! Or my head feels gross. I do use dry shampoo and a conditioning rinse (not together lol) on the non wash days.
Things I cringed at that I used to do, wear to much makeup! I blame the 90’s! Full face to the heavens! Also not knowing how to blend my eyeshadow and wearing it straight up to the brows! Eeekk! This next thing is really a what I wish I had done and that’s use a tinted moisturizer with spf or a light weight primer! I can’t live with out those things now! Oohhh a good skin care routine! I cringed that back in the day I had no clue about proper skin care! Lastly not using a good lip balm! Now I have them in my purse, bathroom, car lol!
Karen says
I wore a ton of makeup in the ’90s, too! I think everyone did it back in the day. lol
Sabrina says
Not wearing enough blush, not doing enough with my (so) light brows and sticking with pale pink lipstick. Basicaly I was a ghost LOL
So… I actually started using more makeup.
kellly says
Not knowing what colors actually looked good with my coloring and using them anyway. Everybody wore too much makeup in the 90s (80s too, for me) so I don’t feel like I stood out from what everybody else was doing then. I watched a movie from the late 80s the other evening and the thing that stood out to me was the fashion! The things those women were wearing were HUGE. Too big, too long and way too much shoulder pads! I have real shoulders so even then I used to pull the shoulder pads out because I would have looked like a linebacker otherwise. But those insane bright colors and the oversize, over-long stuff, I’m sure I was guilty of that. I also managed to wreck my lower back by wearing too-high heels. I don’t think I could even walk in them now.
Karen says
I ruined my feet and toes wearing high heels. 🙁 I have a bunch of them that I’ll probably never wear again.
Funny that you mention that about ’80s fashion because I’ve been watching a lot of old ’80s music videos and everything was just so over the top. It wasn’t just the ladies, either! The dudes were wearing LOTS of liner (mostly unblended) and big ol’ dolman sleeves.
Amy says
Karen, speaking of feet needing TLC, did you order the kidzerts slippers? There’s another brand, too, Olukai. They’re also super ergonomic and obvs much cuter. I still wear kidzerts around the house because they are really, really supportive. But Olukai makes a great footbed and very nice looking flip flops. I ordered my first pair last week 🙂
Karen says
No, I haven’t! I received a pair of Reefs for my birthday and have been hobbling around in those. I just looked up the Olukais and they have so many cute styles. Which pair did you order?
Amy says
I ordered the Kaekae in silver and tapa. But it was hard to choose, there are so many cute styles!
Suzanne C says
I think my worst thing was keeping makeup way too long, but I’m sure there was a very long list of makeup no-nos that I was guilty of. None of the women around me were big makeup people, so I had to figure it all out for myself in those pre-YouTube days.
Karen says
Seriously I wonder how we all looked walking around in our makeup everyday pre YouTube and pre phone cameras. In my head everyone I knew was pretty fab but now I wonder if that was truly the case and we were all a mess!
Jennifer Emmett says
Sleeping in makeup, then just adding more over top the next day. It looked OK because I was young but bleh
Anne says
Turquoise pencil liner, very thick, with a circled up flick – I must have looked like a colorful Egyptian wannabe.
Michele DiCola says
Happy 4th Karen ,
Plucking the you know what out of my brows . Now they are microbladed.
Lipstick, I have at least 300 choices. Why?
Why can’t I find the right color ?
My hair . I
Now take meds because minoxidil lotion doesn’t work !
At age 70 I put a freeze ? on or the Cabash on any makeup ordering !