2015 was a creative year for beauty. Thanks to social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram, all sorts of weird and wonderful looks and techniques were shared with the world, many of them going viral. Here are five of the biggest.
Aquarium / Bubble nails
‘Bubble nails’ or ‘hump nails’ had already been around for a while, but they had an online revival over the summer. The look involves sculpting acrylic gel onto the nail to create a dome shape which is then filed down to create a short, square and very arched shape, and it divided the opinion of nail lovers everywhere. This led swiftly to the trend for “aquarium nails” — a painstakingly time-consuming concept whereby two false nails are filled with oil and glitter to create a ‘snow globe’ effect for the fingers.
Brony hair
The trend for Brony hair came from an unexpected place — 1980s TV show ‘My Little Pony’. Led by celebrities including Katy Perry, Kelly Osbourne and Georgia May Jagger, the look, which involves dyeing the hair the pastel and candy-colored hues of the famous toy ponies, hit Instagram during the summer. Brony hair could be as simple as taking on a mint or violet all-over color, or could be mixed up by using several different shades at the same time.
Clown contouring
Although the words ‘clown contouring’ might sound like a joke, it is a pretty effective makeup technique. Beauty blogger BellaDeLune kickstarted the trend when she posted a video to YouTube showing how an extreme-looking theatrical clown base of makeup could be blended into a subtly contoured look. Beauty lovers everywhere pounced on the idea and women all over the world are now testing it out and showing off the results on Instagram.
Heart hair
When supermodel Kendall Jenner lay down on a hotel carpet and arranged her hair into heart shapes, she probably didn’t realize that her photo, which became the most liked picture on Instagram, would set off a craze for heart halos. But the cute snap struck a chord with hair and beauty lovers everywhere and before long, sentimental Instagrammers were delicately arranging their tendrils into romantic compositions and #hearthair was trending.
Rainbow armpits
The springtime trend for technicolor underarms was brought into the spotlight by pop singer Miley Cyrus, who posted a picture to her Instagram account showing her wearing a white crop top accessorized with some daring bright pink body fuzz. This led to a flurry of publicity and lots of beauty tutorials about how to set about jazzing up your pits, with popular colors including blues, pinks and purples.