The No-Make-Up Make-Up Revolution: Are You Wearing Any?
Glossier may have helped usher in our current 'you get better' era, but the origins of natural-looking make-up go back decades. Here, a brief history of who started it, who ran with it, and how it transformed the way we think about beauty
In the autumn of 2014, on the top floor of a makeshift office space in an old brick building in Manhattan where SoHo melds into Chinatown, Emily Weiss gathered the 12 employees of her then nascent beauty brand, Glossier, in front of a wall of images of glowy, fresh-faced, smiling models against a sky-blue backdrop. She asked her team to put little dots on the images they liked best.
At the time, 'Glossier' was just a mysterious Instagram account populated with behind-the-scenes images, cute little stickers, and a distinctive pastel shade that would become known as millennial pink. No one really had a clue what Emily, already a fixture in the beauty world herself, thanks to the popular four year-old beauty blog Into the Gloss, was up to, but it didn't matter; whatever Glossier was or wasn't, it piqued readers' interest.
'You don't see any make-up in those pictures,' Emily recalls of Glossier's inaugural campaign. 'You see these amazing women who are themselves and very present.' She's right; they all look eff ortlessly beautiful, seemingly make-up free, and dewy – the now omnipresent descriptor popularised by Glossier that refers to radiant, luminous, hydrated, and moist but not oily skin. Of course, the models were wearing make-up in this campaign, including Glossier's new pigmented skin tint designed to even out tone but still look like skin. You just wouldn't know it.
These images would be pivotal in launching a brand that changed the course of the modern beauty industry, creating an aesthetic that would become one of the most copied, not only within beauty but also in direct-to-consumer marketing. Besides the way the products looked and what they were named (Balm Dotcom was simply a cleverly marketed salve, similar to Vaseline or Aquaphor), Glossier talked about beauty in a new way, and it conveyed a lifestyle. Glossier redefined young people's relationship to beauty and the concept of 'no-make-up make-up,' a decades-old approach to thinking about and applying cosmetics that is subtly enhancing and imperceptible.
The Glossier look stood out against the prevailing beauty landscape at the time, which was dominated by strobing, baking, overlined matte lips, dramatic eyebrows, and perhaps the Kardashians' biggest contribution to mid-2010s' beauty trends: contouring.
But it was simply an evolution of what make-up artist Bobbi Brown had been doing since the late '80s. 'I started looking at a natural, beautiful face in the best lighting and trying to figure out how I could use make-up to make people look like that,' says Bobbi. In 1990, she started selling lipsticks out of her home that 'looked like my lips, but a little more intense.' A few years later, French make-up artist Laura Mercier introduced the concept of tinted moisturiser to the masses, and it quickly became a staple for people who didn't want to wear foundation. No-make-up make-up wasn't just gaining popularity at department-store beauty counters; on TV, make-up artist Victoria Jackson, who publicly started talking about the idea in the 1980s, had success selling Victoria Jackson Cosmetics through infomercials and QVC appearances in the 1990s.
In more recent years, a number of newer make-up lines have taken off – Westman Atelier, Saie, Ami Colé, Merit, Brown's Jones Road, and Rhode among them – all of which subscribe to a similar less-is-more philosophy but differ on key points. Some offer advancements in formulations that combine efficacious skincare ingredients with color; Merit comes in multi-use forms that make it 'impossible to mess up'; Ami Colé has created its products specifically for 'melanin-rich' skin first, addressing the dearth of inclusivity in complexion make-up.
The concept of no-make-up make-up has withstood decades, recessions, a pandemic, multiple social-media platforms, the Kardashians, and several generations. The reason the look resonates so deeply now owes much to the Covid skincare obsession. Sheerer formulas, dewy highlighters, and barely there lip and cheek stains are great ways to show off skin perfected by a carefully crafted routine.
The story of no-make-up make-up really starts with Clinique, which in the 1970s began to offer foundations that more closely matched people's skin tones. At the time, natural-looking make-up was barely on anyone's radar. Eyeshadow was blue and purple; lipstick was red, fuchsia, or pink and frosty. Customers' needs for complexion make-up were far more rudimentary; they wanted to find something that was the same colour as their neck.
Clinique, which has sold cosmetics alongside skincare since its 1968 launch, was groundbreaking for merging the worlds of make-up and skincare. 'The make-up was formulated in the same way and not only could do no harm but could also enhance your skin,' says Jane Hertzmark Hudis, executive vice president and chief brand officer of the Estée Lauder Companies. 'It was designed to work together.' At the time, the company owned just three brands: Estée Lauder, Clinique, and Aramis.
It would be years before Bobbi hit the scene, but the make-up artist's philosophy wouldn't just push this budding beauty movement forward; Bobbi Brown Cosmetics would later become the Estée Lauder Companies' newest brand. Bobbi says that while working as an editorial make-up artist in the 1980s, she would go to theatrical make-up stores to buy yellow, orange, and red to 'fix' foundations for more accurate shade matching. In 1992, fed up with the existing offerings, Bobbi introduced Bobbi Brown Cosmetics foundation sticks in 10 shades, from fairest to deepest, designed to more closely match one's skin tone. She was on to something, and in 1995, the Estée Lauder Companies paid a reported USD$74.5 million for her brand.
Another make-up artist saw an opportunity. A year after Laura Mercier released her namesake brand in 1996, her tinted moisturiser made make-up more approachable to people who were hesitant about foundation. It became a cornerstone of the no-make-up-make-up movement. To this day, Laura Mercier's tinted moisturiser is the second-best-selling prestige tinted moisturiser in the U.S., according to the brand. (BareMinerals' Complexion Rescue tinted moisturiser is the first.)
Victoria actually trademarked the term 'No Make-up Make-up' in 2002, after she concluded a 10-year QVC run that she says generated a billion dollars in sales for the network. Last year, she introduced a second brand, the on-the-nose-titled No Make-up Make-up, which sells a cream-balm foundation for Dhs200. 'People say it's trending now, but I don't think it's ever not been trending,' Victoria points out. 'There are always the women out there who want to look great but want to look like themselves.'
The next generation of beauty consumers, made up of millennials and Gen-Zers, had little interest in buying lipstick from late-night infomercials. Many were too young (or not even born yet) during Bobbi's heyday, and others were seeking something more natural than some of the bolder offerings from M.A.C, Nars, and Urban Decay. An 'artistry' point of view propelled M.A.C and Nars to prominence, making them make-up-artist favourites in the 1990s, and Urban Decay's anti-pink stance popularised edgier items like black nail polish and oxblood lipstick.
Although plenty of new beauty brands were born in the two decades following the introduction of nude lip colour and tinted moisturiser, it wasn't until Glossier came along that no-make-up make-up became the look. Glossier's modern repackaging of these ideas – which largely mirrored those of Emily's predecessors – made these products appealing to a younger customer who lived online. Instead of relying on books and Today Show appearances, Glossier won with sprawling stores outfitted with life-size products and sales associates in pink jumpsuits. It helped that Glossier's rise dovetailed with Instagram's, which had launched only a few years before. Glossier used the platform to build its brand and, crucially, a community before many other brands or make-up artists were even active there. Its values – looking like yourself, only better – resonated on Instagram, where there was an expectation to post photos of yourself and your 'real' (but still enviable!) life.
It's true that when Glossier came out, there was another dominant trend running parallel to Emily's cast of dewy faces. Make-up was in the midst of a YouTube tutorial boom, and influencers and brands like Huda Kattan, Kylie Cosmetics, and Anastasia Beverly Hills gained massive followings for their expertise in contouring, elaborate eyeshadow and eyeliner application, eyebrow enhancing, and more. Their product offerings yielded highly pigmented, full-coverage looks, giving rise to an entire beauty subculture online. There was also Kim Kardashian, who, along with her longtime make-up artist Mario Dedivanovic, made the contouring technique a sensation of the 2010s.
Emily says this is the beauty landscape she was trying to go up against. 'We were so passionate about mainstreaming the adoption and accessibility of a set of values and way of living, which was about freedom in the present moment and acceptance of you in the present without any additional modifications,' she explains, adding that the inspiration behind Glossier was make-up artists and how they prepped and primed skin. The whole point of Glossier was to reject 'the current landscape of 'befores and afters.' It was about 'Wait a second, what's in the middle?'' In other words, Emily was selling the antidote to transformation.
Countless brands sprang up in Glossier's wake, hoping to capture that lightning in a bottle (or balm). Glossier alum Diarrha N'Diaye-Mbaye launched Ami Colé in 2021 as a make-up brand that embraced the no-make-up-make-up look, but with products designed specifically for women of color. Growing up, Diarrha says, there was no 'permission and space' to embrace no-make-up make-up, and as a result she spent much of her life and career 'transforming' to the degree that she wouldn't leave the house without a full face of make-up on.
This stopped once she started working at Glossier. 'I walked into this space where I can put on face oil and actually be okay with the insecurities with my brow,' Diarrha says. 'I was shocked at how much that affected my confidence. It was okay to look like you and lean into those imperfections or perfections. 'Th is is me; take me as I am.' '
In 2019, Diarrha decided to take the leap and start her own brand. After securing funding (Ami Colé shares an investor with Skims and Glossier), the line had entered more than 270 Sephora stores by the end of 2022. Diarrha says her point of difference is that she formulates for darker skin tones first, not the other way around. 'I knew there was magic in this make-up form,' she says, 'but there was no one talking to this customer the way I knew her or understood her.'
One of the most indelible beauty moments of the last decade occurred on May 19, 2018, when Meghan Markle (now Sussex) married Prince Harry. Everything about the moment bucked convention: Meghan was a Hollywood star, a commoner, and a woman of colour marrying into the most royal of families. Expectations for how she should look could not have been higher. Yet she did things her way, right down to the beauty look she chose for that historic day. Rather than adhering to the more formal, full coverage foundation and heavier make-up often favoured by brides, the duchess looked natural; her skin was luminous, and her freckles were visible. Online reactions ranged from celebratory to downright vicious. 'It made people realise, 'I don't need the pomp and circumstance of looking a certain way on my wedding day,'' Daniel Martin, Meghan's make-up artist, says of this 'cultural fork in the road.' He adds: 'When you saw her make-up, you saw her. Not the make-up first.'
A few years later, Covid would solidify the appeal of skin forward make-up. Lockdowns, quarantining, and social distancing led to plummeting make-up sales. A collective obsession with self-care and skincare emerged in response, including a newfound emphasis on ingredients and what they do. This, coupled with advances in formulations and, more recently, skincare's inclusion in make-up and vice versa, pushed the idea of no-make-up make-up further into what has become known as the 'skinification' of make-up. The idea was that if your skincare routine was on point, barely there make-up would simply highlight a poreless glow.
Brands like RMS Beauty and Ilia, which focus on sheer, minimalist, and easy-to-apply make-up, took off, and newcomers like Saie, Merit, Kosas, and Westman Atelier developed cult followings. Hailey Bieber launched Rhode as a skincare line in 2022, and it was an instant success, thanks to Hailey's massive social following and obsession with 'glazed donut skin,' as well as the fact that the products were actually good. She has since expanded into colour cosmetics that contain ingredients like peptides and lactic acid, more commonly found in skincare.
These newer labels promised innovations (lighter-weight formulas with superior coverage, pigment added to unconventional skincare items, multi-use products, and more) with modern messaging, but most importantly, they offered 'better for you' ingredients that emphasised skincare benefits.
'Glossier was the first to boldly call out 'skin first' when skincare related to make-up was only 'How do you remove your make-up?' and 'How do you prep for make-up?' ' says Cassie Cowman, co-founder of View from 32, a beauty consultancy. 'Ultimately, no-make-up make-up works at its best when you have good skin, and that's why it resonates so much today. Yes, it's still about covering up, but it's about putting good things on your skin.'
Even Bobbi Brown has followed up on the success of her original brand with Jones Road, a make-up line she introduced in 2020 that feels refreshingly new. Jones Road's Miracle Balm, which became an instant bestseller, can be used almost anywhere for a hint of glow or tint. She says her newest product, a tinted moisturiser called Just Enough, has 'coverage and luminosity' yet 'looks like you have nothing on.'
And then there's Gucci Westman, the celebrity make-up artist who launched her own make-up line, Westman Atelier, in 2018 with a skin-first focus. Her Vital Skin Foundation Stick was part of the original line-up and remains a hero product, and Gucci has expanded upon the concept with complexion drops and a concealer. Her products are beloved because they sit at the intersection of 'real skin' and this idea that one can wear make-up, including foundation, but also see skin.
As for Emily, she admits that, at the time she was launching Glossier, she wasn't even thinking about no-make-up make-up. 'I don't think we've ever historically even said the words… I don't think we've ever even talked about ourselves in that way,' she says. 'It comes back to a higher order, mission, spirit, purpose – and the industry has gone in that direction. It's also allowed for something really beautiful – which is choice.'
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