When we look back at vintage glamour or old school style, we usually look back with nostalgia. However, some vintage beauty trends can be eye-catching, but not in a good way. Here is a rundown of the craziest beauty trends of all time.
Once upon a time, back in the early 1900s, there was a London-based company called Radior that began selling beauty products such a night cream, rouge, and hair tonic. This might sound like your run of the mill beauty company but hence its namesake, all the products contained radium. More companies such as Tho-Radia began following suit in 1930s so yes, you can sleep with the thought that for decades, people were incorporating radium into their beauty routines.
Back in the 1930s, Jean Harlow was all the rage due to her extremely light blonde hair – a look that many women will imitate. She claimed that her platinum blonde hair was “natural” but in fact, to achieve this look, she used a noxious combination of peroxide, ammonia, Clorox, and Lux flakes, according to her stylist, Alfred Pagano. Yikes.
No vintage beauty trend dates an era than the beehive hair-do.
In the 1970s, figure skater Dorothy Hamill became an unexpected beauty icon for woman across America. Everyone wanted Dorothy’s wedge haircut. And this look will forever be buried in the vault of bad vintage beauty trends and hopefully, never make a comeback.
5. 80’s Pink Blush
Pink blush was how people used to contour in the 1980s. There is nothing wrong with pink blush in general but to use it obsessively on your face, the results can be pretty heinous. You will look like you just emerged from Barbie’s dream house.
Yes, the 80’s was a bad decade for beauty. And all that hairspray helped deplete the Earth’s ozone layer.
This vintage beauty trend dates back to the 1930s but it regain traction in the 1990s-2000s. Some of us are forever haunted by our old middle school and high school photos and shutter by the catastrophic mess that a pair of tweezers can create. No face looks good with overly plucked eyebrows. Even A-list celebrities, from Gwen Stefani to Jennifer Lopez, cannot make them look good.
Long ago, if you wanted to go lighter but didn’t want to go completely blonde, you got the atrocity, also know as chunky highlights!
Oh the 90s, back when both skinny eyebrows and crimped hair were a thing.
Another bad 90’s vintage beauty trend. For some reason, everyone suddenly became obsessed with blue eyeshadow and incorporated it into their daily makeup routine like how we use brow pencils and concealer today. Bonus if you deliberately matched your eyeshadow to your outfit…
Nowadays, we use smartly use lip liner to make our lips look more defined and fuller but once upon a time in the 1990s, women used dark lip liner around their lips and filled their lips in using a very light lipstick. Nobody could not make this look work.
Oh the glorious 2000’s. We had still skinny eyebrows, chunky highlights and fake tans; the trifecta of a hot mess. Not only do fake, Oompa Loompa tans make you look like you are on a casting call for Jersey Shore but they are extremely tacky.
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