These 90s Beauty Trends Are Making A Comeback And Why It’s A Good Thing For Women With Medium to Deep Skin Tones in Bangkok

Growing up as a teen in the late 90s and early 2000s I never really understood makeup and didn’t really wear any like other girls in my high school who had started experimenting with lip glosses, eyeshadow, mascara, blush and so on. I’ll be honest I simply wasn’t allowed to wear makeup but that didn’t bother me as much as being so self-conscious of my darker skin tone and genuinely believing that the makeup and products used by my lighter skin-toned peers were not made for me and my deeper skin tone. And to some extent it’s true, in the early 90s inclusivity in the beauty industry wasn’t an area of focus but today the game has changed.

Today most cosmetic companies and brands in the beauty industry are focusing on inclusivity and making it a priority to ensure all the shade categories (light, fair, medium, dark and deep) are considered when it comes to product development and marketing.

And that brings me to the topic of this post with 90s beauty and style trends making a comeback women of colour actually have product options and I wanted to share some of them as well as some tips on how to elevate and make these 90s trends more current for 2019.

Body Glow

In the late 90s body shimmer and glitter was a thing; celebrities such as Britney Spears styled crop tops / tube tops and then applied body glitter to bare shoulders and stomachs. Today that sparkly trend has returned and evolved into the concept of “body glow”, which is simply highlighting certain parts of the body such as face, shoulders, upper chest area, or legs to create a healthy glow. For the summertime I think adding a body glow to any makeup look or outfit amps up the whole impact, not to mention it looks great in photos. And especially for medium to deeper skin tones, the body glow effect makes skin looks extra healthy and radiant.

Fenty Beauty recently launched Body Lava, a gel-based body luminizer with very, very fine shimmers resulting in a dewy-like, high shine finish on the skin. And Huda Beauty also launched Liquid Pantyhose N.Y.M.P.H, which is a body highlighter with a water-based formula with light-reflecting pearl pigments. Both brands offer 3 different shades to include all shade ranges and the recommended way to use the body highlighters is to use a few pumps and then buff it into your skin with a kabuki brush.

One hack that I like to do with body highlighters/luminizers is to mix a little into my foundation and that way the face gets an immediate, natural radiant “glowing from within” effect. I like to use this trick for anytime my skin feels dull or sallow — it’s a quick, instant pick me up.

Brown Lips

The brown lips with a dramatic lip liner is definitely a look that was very popular when I was a teen. I wasn’t really into lipstick back then and didn’t really know how to work my way around one anyways. And again, the thought of brown lipstick against my brown skin just didn’t really make sense to me.

The trend has made a huge a huge comeback today and I think it’s a nice one because it’s a look that can be worn with literally anything. Brown lips are neutral enough for every day wear but it can even look great with a dramatic eye look for the nighttime and/or events.

The truth is brown lips actually suits every skin tone but the trick to making it work is finding the right brown for your skin tone. I have a medium skin tone with an olive/yellow undertone and what that basically means is I need to find a more peachy/red-toned brown lipstick and a slightly deeper shade lip liner that matches the lipstick. Overall, I really like the 2019 version of the brown lips trend because I think it can look really elegant and understated on medium to deeper skin tones and it’s kind of a trick for achieving a “nude” lip look too.

The best way to make the whole lip look flawlessly blended without any harsh outlines when using a lip liner:

• First, line the lips and fill them in a little bit by colouring the lips in a bit more
• Fill up the bottom lip with lipstick
• Blot the bottom lip with the top lip a few times — the colour transfers onto the top lip and blends in with the lip liner flawlessly

Another way I made this trend work for me because I don’t actually wear a lot of lip liner is to apply one layer of a deep brown coffee shade as a base and then add a little lighter nude / peachy shade just in the centre of my lips. And gently blot my lips together to get a smooth ombre effect. My go-to combo is: Huda Beauty Power Bullet Matte Lipstick in Interview as my brown base and MAC Cosmetics Matte Lipstick in shade Kinda Sexy as my centre peachy nude colour.

Lip Gloss

Lip gloss was probably the first makeup product I ever owned as a teen. It was everywhere and super popular in high school. I also remember how I used to keep my favourite sticky strawberry-flavoured lip gloss in my pencil case at school. It was such a thing.

Lip glosses then disappeared for a really long while because so many other kinds of lip products (mattes, liquid lipsticks, lip stains etc) hit the market over the last two decades. Recently, wearing glosses over lipstick has made a really big come back and I didn’t quite feel the trend because lip glosses just look so goopy.

Since it’s summer in Bangkok, I find that wearing only lipstick makes my lips feel extra dry and heavy so I decided to try the lip glosses recently launched by Persona Cosmetics and try out the whole look. The reason I chose these particular lip glosses is because the shades appear to suit every shade category. So the way I like to wear lip gloss is to first lay down a single layer of lipstick and then apply a little bit of gloss just to the centre of my lips and that way the lips look healthy and fuller and it doesn’t get sticky in the edges.

Note: Persona Cosmetics does ship to Thailand but you might have to pay extra duty and taxes. 

No Makeup Makeup

Sometimes when I look back at my own photos I seriously wonder how I left the house without applying foundation and concealer? But if I think about it everyone around me was doing the same thing and it was totally normal.

Today, the whole no-wearing of foundation and concealer has translated into the no makeup makeup look, which is basically applying makeup in such a way that it looks like you have none on while enhancing certain features. I think it’s a great trend for all women in the medium, deep, and dark shade categories to embrace because it celebrates being comfy and showing off the “skin you’re in”.

If you do a search for “no makeup makeup” on YouTube, a whole bunch of videos in the search results will show you how to achieve this look. My favourite products to achieve look are listed in this post.

Colourful Eye Looks

In my teen years me and every girl I knew owned one bright blue shadow. One single pot of shadow smeared across the top lid and that was it. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie sported the statement look back in the late 90s too.

Today, colourful eye looks have made a comeback but with an elevated aesthetic. And it’s another great trend to experiment with because colours such as purple, green and blue make brown and black eyes pop and standout. Check out the brand Colourpop based in the USA; it is known for its incredibly reasonable prices and for embracing bright colours in its products. Colourpop recently launched a whole range of colourful mascaras, liquid liners and colour pencil liners. (Note: Colourpop does ship to Thailand but you might have to pay extra duties and taxes).

My personal favourite ways to wear and/or experiment with colourful eye make up are shown in the pictures below.

What are your thoughts on the 90s beauty trends making a comeback? Have you tried any of them?

As always, please share your comments and concerns below.