Beauty Trends: Weird, Painful & Deadly

Women’s desire to remain beautiful has had them doing crazy, weird things to their hair, nails and skin for as long as recorded history.

Whether from ancient or from modern times, these gross beauty trends are outrageous and have had women everywhere feeding into their popularity.

Ultimately, there are always beauty trends that have many of us shaking our heads. Here are some of our favorites that are really “out-there.”

Pale-Face Makeup

When too much is too much!

Made popular in the Middle Ages, the pale face fashion helped to hide scars and sores from smallpox. However, many beauty pros still think this whiteout look makes the face more dramatic for fashion shows and even everyday life.

To accomplish the look in the Middle Ages, women used white lead on the face, which resulted in many deaths from lead poisoning.

Teased Hair

Bad for your hair, and for your fashion reputation.

A popular facet of the ’80s, teased hair had women puffing the hair out from the roots of their hair.

To accomplish the look, women used combs and an up-and-down brush stroke to give the hair excess volume and have it stand on end. Due to the motion, hair easily tangled. Women not using conditioners to detangle the hair on a daily basis saw major hair breakage from repeated teasing.

Today, “The Jersey Shore’s” own Snooki (Nicole Polizzi”> has popularized this signature 1980s look by “poofing” and teasing the hair upward, creating a poof on the top of the head. The trend has exploded across the world, and teens and women alike are exposing their inner poof. Yikes!

Bright Eye Shadow

Still a Halloween staple.

Remember Mimi from “The Drew Carey Show”? This makeup trend had women applying bright blue, purple, pink and any other pastel color from the lash line to the brow bone. The result? A bright mess of rainbow colors that looks like frosting.

What were we thinking?

Sanding Hair Away

No pain, lots of hair gain!

While we understand that tweezing, threading, shaving and waxing hair off of our bodies isn’t ideal, but sandpaper—well, that seems worse.

During the Renaissance, people would use depilatory creams made from home with arsenic and quicklime.

The most shocking technique occurred in the 1940s when women used sandpaper to remove unwanted body hair. Ouch!

Drawn-On Eyebrows

Heck, some are even stick on!

Made popular by Annette Funicello in the 1950s, this shaved off brow look creates a harsh brow line on the forehead. Many runway models, and celebrities such as Pam Anderson, have adopted this weird beauty trend.

In fact, now, many women are opting for tattooing the brow on. We hate to call out our fair-haired sisters, but come on—the idea is a little weird.

Deadly Lips

In nature, red does mean stop…

Cleopatra herself popularized one of the most outrageous beauty trends in history. She made perhaps one of the first ever lip plumping concoctions—it consisted of beeswax, ants and beetle blood. After crushing the ingredients and mixing them, the concoction was applied to the lips.

The look gave the red lipstick appearance women still love today, but many experts agree that Cleo’s mixture was poisonous. This sure makes fish scales in lipstick seem like kid’s play.

Crimped Hair

Oops, they did it again.

Remember going to bed as a kid with wet, braided hair and waking up with that oh-so-popular crimped look? For kids, the look is quick, easy and takes hairstyle woes off parents during a quick and busy morning rush.

However, in the 1990s, crimping irons began showing up in malls across America, and musicians such as Alanis Morisette and Brittany Spears took the trend to an extreme by showcasing their crimped, long, frizzy locks in music videos, at award shows and in pictures none of us will ever forget. What a frightening sight!

Let us know what you think!

• What weird beauty trends do you follow?
• What common trends now may make a list just like this in the future?
• Are these back in?