Well, it's the end of the year, so you know what that means – time to reflect on beauty in 2014 and the big trends. This is by no means a definitive list; it's just what caught my eye this year.
First, 2014 was all about the eyebrow. With sales for brow products hitting record highs and women getting brow extensions and donning face merkins, it's clear that we all went a little nuts for full, bushy brows.
(image from elle.com)
Another major trend was unconventional lip colors, which personally was my favorite trend this year. (See my post here and a quote from me at the Huffington Post on the topic.) It was slightly leftover from the tail end of 2013, but the trend gained even more traction in 2014, with NYX's Macaron Lippies and Wicked Lippies collections featuring a veritable rainbow of lip colors, and Avon, Milani and Melt all released summer collections with bright aqua, dark blue and grey lip colors, respectively. Later, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics offered an array of blue lip products in their fall collection, while new budget brand Colourpop debuted with several unusual lip shades, including an emerald and mint green. Finally, the end of the year saw the Tom Ford Lips & Boys collection of 50 lipsticks that included several oddities, including a pearlescent white and a mauve-grey. There was also Lipstick Queen's Ice Queen, a sheer shimmery white.
(image from nyxcosmetics.com)
Since I love crazy lip colors, it's no surprise I had zero interest in another 2014 trend: the no-makeup look. So incredibly boring to me! The minimal approach to cosmetics had fairly benevolent beginnings with the #nomakeupselfie (with the purpose of raising money for charity) in the early part of the year, but then morphed into a trend in its own right by the end of 2014. The result was a spate of neutral palettes and other products designed to make one look as though they weren't wearing any makeup (the look was supposed to be "you but better"), which frankly I find to be painfully dull.
(image from style.com)
Finally, the resurgence of the '90s was so huge this year that it deserves its own post, so I will not go into detail now (see my post on why an exhibition on '90s beauty and its comeback was far too daunting a task for me). However, we did see a real return to '90s beauty in terms of celebrities rocking '90s trends and a plethora of tutorials showing you how to get a modified '90s look. Additionally, between the release of Urban Decay's Pulp Fiction collection and a nail polish line by the founder of Hard Candy, even new products had a nostalgic feel.
(image from style.com)
Hairwise, we couldn't get enough of the lob (that's beauty speak for the long bob). It seemed nearly every celebrity ditched their long locks for a shorter, shoulder-skimming cut. We also were fans of temporary hair color, with Kevin Murphy, Rita Hazan, Garnier, Bumble and Bumble, Redken, and L'Oreal all releasing products to sate our demands.
(images from brit.co and lookfantastic.com)
That's all I got for 2014. Stay tuned for part 2 of the year-end wrap-up, where the Curator will peer into her crystal ball to predict the trends for 2015. :) In the meantime, which of these trends were your favorite? Are there any others you think should be included?