Tired Girl Makeup Is Makeup's Answer to Winter Blues

Many beauty trends are about enhancing one's features. In a roundabout way, tired girl makeup is the same. It's just enhancing what makeup has traditionally tried to hide. 

Tired girl makeup is all about embracing the imperfectly sultry look of an all-nighter. It’s about taking the look of nine-to-five sleep deprivation and making it glam. (Let’s face it: We’re all a little sleepier during the wintertime.) Why not amp up our complexions missing sunshine and dark circles under the eye for a look that embraces the inevitable nature of the season? It's not goth (though a bit adjacent to the aesthetic).

With modern figures like Gabriette and Lily-Rose Depp championing the look of dark, sultry makeup, a deeply shadowed under-eye is starting to reign in beauty trends. In the depths of winter, with freezing temperatures and gray skies, tired girl makeup feels especially timely, as becoming the summery and glowing goddess look may feel a bit out of reach. Lara Violetta, content creator and founder of magazine Violet Papers, captured how many social media users feel about tired girl makeup in a recent Instagram Reel. 

In the video, Violetta offers a tutorial on the tired girl makeup look: She embraces nude lips and blush while concentrating the color around the darkness of her under eyes. She gets creative with her makeup application, adding light pink Mac lipstick to her eyelids, giving the impression she just rubbed them after waking. Her eye look goes even further as she uses the Haus Labs concealer as mascara, enhancing her pale skin and muted color palette. By the end of the short clip, Violetta looks a bit like a Tim Burton character, with her hollow eyes and pale skin. She definitely took tired girl makeup to the extreme, but the look is somewhat refreshing, especially as it diverges from the beauty's dominant attitude of hiding imperfections.