\u201cWhenever you\u2019d open Vogue<\/em>, People,<\/em> or Allure<\/em>, it would always be Mila Kunis with that sparkly-ish smoky eye, or Nina Dobrev, Vanessa Hudgens. Those were the smoky eyes [I remember],\u201d says Lila Childs, a New York City-based makeup artist and podcast host who\u2019s been posting beauty tutorials online since 2012. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t even [considered] loud makeup. It weirdly looked like it was part of the face. The tones matched [the client\u2019s] eye color and skin tone, making the eye appear lower contrast and softer\u2014even though they were wearing lashes and a full Naked palette on their eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n Tom Munro<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n My morning routine now consists of rolling over, working from my bed until noon, and getting ready for the day by applying skin-care products to my face. Even on nights out, my eyes remained relatively naked, save for mascara. It seems like the rest of the world traded their once, tried-and-true palettes for cream blushes and clear brow gel (unless they\u2019d gotten really into Euphoria<\/em>).<\/p>\n Childs believes this new era stemmed from the age gap between trendsetter and consumer. As the celebrities and vloggers Gen Z and Zillennials took inspiration from matured, their looks became subtler. She adds that brands that featured more of a luminous, refined glam\u2014like Charlotte Tilbury and Hourglass\u2014rose in prominence during this period. \u201cIt was a little bit more Victoria\u2019s Secret bombshell\u2014a bit more natural. And then Glossier was so minimal. There were just beauty brands that were coming out with this whole concept of wearing a more natural face.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cClean\u201d beauty looks became the standard (perhaps due to trend cycles, exhaustion from a world shut down, a growing emphasis on wellness culture, or all of the above). A TikTok search shows an abundance of glowy no-makeup makeup looks, centered around brushed-up brows, tinted cheeks, and blurred lips. Pop stars like Sabrina Carpenter and Haily Bieber further popularized this angelic, coquetteish aesthetic, which is arguably the antithesis of the sultry, dark vibe the smoky eye embodies. With this shift, lids are essentially neglected.<\/p>\n If you opened any social media app during the first couple of weeks of this year, you were met with every Zillennial It-Girl posting that \u201c2016 is the new 2026.\u201d King Kylie made her return, along with the Snapchat dog filter. All of this reminiscing revealed that what most people missed about this time period (along with blissfully ignorant hopecore) was the playful experimentation. \u201cDoing my makeup like it\u2019s 2016\u201d quickly took off as a trend, with beauty creators posting tutorials set to Roses by the Chainsmokers, placing pieces of tape along their cheekbones to create the sharpest cat eye and minimize shadow fallout.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Mila](\"https:\/\/media.allure.com\/photos\/6a079fa42d94ca381881ea43\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/0313-AL-XX02.01_medium.jpg\"\/)
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