When did so many famous faces start looking the same? The use of ever more sophisticated appearance-modifying methods has converged to a point where it can be hard to tell who in a red-carpet photo is who.
The Kardashians are the most obvious example. Looking back at photos of the family from when their reality show started in 2007, the famous sisters looked different, like individuals. In 2023, it can be hard to tell them apart.
At the L.A. premiere of her Renaissance tour film, Beyoncé wore a futuristic silver strapless dress by Versace with long, flat-ironed, snow white-blond hair; in the oversaturated lighting, many fans commented they had mistaken her for a Kardashian.
In early December, actress Kate Beckinsale appeared at a Hollywood Reporter event with blond waves and a heavily made-up face that could pass for a long list of current celebrities. “I had no idea it was her,” said makeup artist Sheri Stroh.
Stroh, who works on editorial and advertising shoots and is known for natural makeup, the exact opposite of this trend, puts much of the beauty shape-shifting down to face sculpting.
Celebrities have makeup artists who layer on products to heavily contour the face, hollowing out the cheekbones, making the jaw sharper, visually altering the shape of the forehead. “The look is smaller nose, bigger lips created by a mix of filler and overliner, and high, prominent cheekbones,” said Stroh. Basically, a lot of people want to look like Hailey Bieber in all her 27-year-old supermodeldom. “It has never been more achievable,” said Stroh.
You might be interested in
It's why Pamela Anderson’s approach to beauty this year was so striking. Once a beacon of heavy makeup and plastic surgery, Anderson committed to wearing no makeup on even the dressiest of red carpets, allowing her unfilled eyebrows and 56-year-old skin to be on full display. The contrast was stark, because we are so unused to seeing an unadorned face in that setting.
@meredithduxbury Replying to @Second page ♬ original sound - Meredith Duxbury
On TikTok, a makeup application video topped charts of most-watched content in 2023. The platform is full of people radically transforming their faces with makeup: See TikTok star Meredith Duxbury, who has over 18 million followers (and another 2 million on Instagram), who has documented getting lip filler and is known for using 10 pumps of foundation in her beauty routine to cover up her freckles.
Stroh describes content creators dumping literal handfuls of foundation onto their faces, drawing heavy skeletal lines around the contours of the face, and closing their lips tight to draw on an entirely new, larger set of lips. “They are doing it for the phone camera,” she says. “You put on a lot more makeup for red carpet events, for tutorials, for Instagram.” She has worked with influencers who confided they don’t actually leave the house wearing the makeup they apply for their videos.
This is not a look Stroh has ever done on a client but she has played with contouring on her own face. “On camera, it looks almost natural,” she said. “In person, your face just looks like it is covered in dirt.”
Of course, online, you can get that look without any makeup at all. Face-altering filters that distort and homogenize features are wildly popular: they have names like Cute Noise and Pure Baby Face and Skin King; it is like putting your face into a sausage machine that turns out identical links. Globally, the fourth most popular TikTok tool (which includes sounds, effects and filters) this year was the AI Style filter, which morphs you into a cartoonish heart-shaped, huge-eyed version of yourself with reflective, pale skin.
@toktitiktok Nak ikut trend la katakannn… tibehhh
♬ die (sped up) - lucidbeatz & key kelly
It's an example of how AI is used to morph an individual’s characteristics into “idealized” attributes that often lean white.
“Who better to challenge that than a Black model?” said Sinead Bovell to afrotech.com. The Guelph-raised, New York City-based tech and business consultant and advocate wants to change the narrative of who gets to talk about AI.
In a recent Ted Talk, Bovell brought up Shudu, the world’s first AI model and influencer; she’s “shot” for Nylon magazine and has 240,000 followers on Instagram. Bovell pointed out that while Shudu “identifies” as Black and female, she was created by, and earns money for, white men. “The future is heading in a direction where people can create and control identities outside of their own ethnic groups,” said Bovell. “This creates ample opportunity for exploitation of already marginalized communities.”
Toronto esthetic surgeon Dr. Jamil Asaria worries about AI and filters because “now we can press a button to see how our face could look [with homogenized features]. It is now within reach.”
Known for the diversity of his patient base, Asaria is sought out for specialty surgeries specific to ethnic features. His approach is to encourage people to preserve their individuality and to use cosmetic surgery to subtly correct imbalances, instead of aiming for cookie-cutter esthetics.
Recently, Asaria was at a conference in Amsterdam where surgeons from around the world were discussing why people everywhere are trying to look the same. “Everyone is going down this freight train,” he said.
The Kardashians did have something to do with it, he said. “The sisters all looked very different, with individual features and characteristics, then they started looking the same. Then their peers and associates started looking the same.”
Having been exposed to so many images of these faces and bodies on social media, people began wondering, “Maybe she’s not just born with it? Maybe I can look like that too.” He said the pandemic brought this tendency to an extreme. “We lived online, staring at our own faces all day.”
Thus the phenomenon of the plumped-up lips, the overfilled cheeks. Fillers are often used to create “the golden ratio,” the renaissance ideal of the beautiful faces broken down into thirds and fifths. “That’s what these fillers are doing to eyebrow slope, width of cheekbone, shape of jawline.”
But the “formula” is changing, said Asaria, who adds that filler use in general is down this past year, and surgery is up, because more subtle repositioning is possible with surgery. “People were overfilled. Think of Madonna,” he said. “You can’t look at parts of the face in isolation. The face doesn’t work like Mr. Potato Head. Cosmetic enhancements work best when you ask instead, How can I look less tired, angry or withdrawn?”
Beauty, after all, is dependent on context. “What works for one person does not work for another. It’s about the whole,” said Asaria. “Looking different is good. Don’t think that becoming ‘perfect’ means your life is going to change.”
Let’s hope we can all start to believe that’s true, and stop wanting to look like an identikit mask.
Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be a registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free).
To join the conversation set a first and last name in your user profile.
Sign in or register for free to join the Conversation