Yes, Winged Eyeliner Is the Skinny Jean of Makeup

Collage: Bella Geraci; Source images: Courtesy of brand; Getty

I went to high school from 2009 to 2012 and that means I rarely left the house without putting on two things: a pair of skinny jeans and winged eyeliner. Things pretty much stayed that way through college and onward into my 20s, and the same can be said for many other millennial women.

We all know what wound up happening to skinny jeans at the start of the 2020s: According to a suddenly-grown Gen Z, they became outdated. To see a person wearing skinny jeans in public became a calling card for millennials, and “millennial” suddenly became synonymous with “old” and therefore “cringe.” The same goes for ankle socks, using the cry-laughing emoji, and, it seems, our beloved winged eyeliner.

For the past year or so, the internet has been rife with debate about whether or not winged eyeliner is out of style. But despite many’s insistence that it’s a timeless look that’s always been around (true!), the fact that we’re even having to ask the question probably means that it is out of style, at least in the eyes of the generation that currently dictates what’s considered trendy. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I’d go so far as to make the assertion that winged eyeliner is the makeup equivalent of skinny jeans.

Just like skinny jeans, winged eyeliner became part of a uniform of sorts that all femme millennials in the 2010s were expected or encouraged to wear in some capacity (for examples of said uniform, see: early-stage Pinterest, Tumblr, paparazzi pictures of Emma Stone leaving Starbucks). They were both things we adopted at large because, as we entered our teens, we wanted to adopt an aesthetic we felt like we had ownership of—one that differed as much as possible from the generation of teens before us (see: ‘90s grunge). As a result, they have both become a signifier of our age and have both become “outdated” simply as a result of our getting older.

It can feel like a personal attack to be told that the makeup we like to wear has gone out of style. It didn’t do so just because the fashion or media industry replaced it with something new to sell to us; it became outdated because at some point younger people collectively decided that we are outdated. And that’s the important part to remember: trends become outdated, but people themselves cannot. People’s worldviews can certainly become outdated and cause all kinds of havoc, but maybe people wouldn’t hold onto outdated ideas so begrudgingly if we didn’t treat each other as if we have expiration dates stickered on our foreheads, our opinions automatically invalidated after we hit a certain age.

But when did we decide that looking one’s age is a bad thing? We might get cajoled by 14 -year -olds on the internet for it, but I don’t think we should be granting 14 -year-olds on the internet the power or influence to make us feel insecure about the way we look. We’re adults! We have jobs and bills to pay! We don’t have time for this!

As I write this, I am exactly one week away from turning 30. And being the somewhat stereotypical millennial white woman that I am, I still prefer tight pants over wide legs and a big cat eye and over clean-girl makeup (in fact, it’s my signature). If I took the advice of The Youths and let my shirts hang out and wore wide leg pants exclusively, I’d look and feel like that Steve Buscemi “how do you do, fellow kids?” meme.

What we should be more concerned about is letting our signature style become a crutch that prevents us from evolving. At some point in life, my skinny jeans became such a part of me that I didn’t feel like myself without them (I was an emo kid, after all). I ascribed my identity to them, so taking them off felt like shedding my personality, an indicator that my sense of self wasn’t all that secure. I haven’t totally given up skinny jeans since their falling out of fashion, but opening myself up to wearing different styles gave me a sense of freedom and self-assurance that what I wear isn’t who I am. My emotional attachment to the winged eyeliner, however, is still a work in progress.

One day, not all that long from now, Gen Alpha will go through puberty, form their own generational aesthetic, and start mocking Gen Z for the baggy clothes and slick-backed buns they’re likely to keep through their adulthoods. Hell, maybe Gen Alpha will even re-adopt skinny jeans and winged eyeliner as their own. Feeling outdated seems to be an inevitability of getting older regardless of what generation we’re born into—I just hope we only become outdated because we’re standing up for the things we love without letting them devour our individuality in the process.

More beauty discourse:

• The "Morning Shed" and the Prison of Being Perpetually Hot

• Undereye Concealer Is Dead

• No, You Never Had “Eyebrow Blindness”

Now, watch a cosmetic chemist stack up budget versus luxury eyeliner:

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Originally Appeared on Allure