Over the last year, the beauty industry has been shifting the standard toward a more stripped-back, “natural” appearance—if “natural” means being a genetically blessed 17-year-old with perfect bone structure. Society has obsessed over youth since ancient times—Cleopatra did not bathe in donkey milk for nothing—but the latest beauty standard is almost pre-life: women trying to look like cherubs that just exited the womb, still covered in placenta.
Widely known as the “clean look,” it involves plump features; poreless skin; a perfectly pink, over-filled upper lip that rests effortlessly on the bottom one as if glued there; sun-kissed cheeks and nose; and wet—yes, wet—cheekbones, portraying how weak and vulnerable you are by giving the illusion you’ve spent the entirety of your day in bed crying.
