In recent months, there are more and more people with rhinestones and small self-adhesive and colored figures stuck on the face as decoration. Many of these face stickers have been seen, for example, at Pride parades, the month of events celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community around the world, and at summer music festivals, but it’s not uncommon to see them in less festive and flamboyant contexts as well Makeup is usually used near the eyes, on the body and on the nails.
Face stickers have become widespread in the world of entertainment, music and TV series, and then have been taken up primarily by young people of Generation Z (10 to 25 years old). They like it because they allow you to be creative and express your originality by creating a thousand different combinations, but at the same time they are very cheap and easy to use. Some attribute this trend to a broader return to early 2000s youth fashion and the “maximalism” of the time in the use of hairstyles, makeup and accessories; others claim it’s one of the many expressions of playfulness and self-deprecation that are highly prized on social media.
The first use of face stickers to reach and influence large young audiences was probably that of 19-year-old American singer Olivia Rodrigo. On the cover of her first album, released in May 2021, she was portrayed in a playful and childish way with her face (and even her tongue) completely covered with small colored stickers in the shape of butterflies, suns, flowers and stars , combined with the bored expression and tongue, gave her an overbearing look. Something similar was also seen in the Italian music world when singer Mahmood published the promotional image of his musical tour in March: it depicts him with his bare chest covered with colored images that look like “decals”, which are temporary tattoos made for the kids.
To anticipate the aesthetic of these two photographs, it may have been the proliferation of small spots for pimples in 2020 that some companies, the most famous of which is Starface, began producing in bright shapes and colors — rather than flesh-colored and small visible — on to concentrate the disposition of the new generations to reinforce faults and imperfections instead of hiding them as has been done in the past.
The stickers had already been removed in the decoration for the nails, which probably contributed to the fashion of putting them on the face or on the rest of the body. Already in 2020, the stickers of brands of nail products such as Ciaté London and Deco Miami were very successful: their founder Julianna Dahbura said that it immediately seemed clear to her that those who followed her and bought her products had a great interest in stickers. «We have seen that the products are designed to be more playful […] are more popular on platforms that cater to a slightly younger audience, like TikTok,” said Charlotte Knight, founder of Ciaté London: “And the more elegant designs, like metallic ornaments, will have more functionality in the Instagram and YouTube videos the millennials”. In December, Gucci made a limited edition nail decal kit featuring 20-year-old singer-songwriter Billie Eilish.
Parallel to this amusing use of face stickers, a market for more elegant face stickers has spread, which has reached the general public through luxury fashion. The cultural product that most contributed to this phenomenon was the second season of the American television series Euphoria, broadcast in Italy between January and March of this year: some female characters, teenagers in a high school in the American province, use rhinestones extensively and adhesive decorations around the eyes, often with very sophisticated designs.
Euphoria has spoken a lot about herself for the diligence in choosing costumes and makeup, and for helping to shape the imaginations of American youth in recent years. The face stickers used by Donni Davy, head of makeup and hairstyling for the series and founder of Half Magic Beauty, are from the Face Lace brand, which was launched in 2012 to “create elaborate makeup that applies can become seconds that look precise and symmetrical and stay perfect until they come loose ».
Other brands that have become famous in this field are PaintLab, which makes eye contour and nail adhesives and was bought by Urban Outfitters, and Simihaze Beauty, which was founded less than a year ago and sells colored and holographic cosmetics alongside more traditional ones Stickers to decorate the eyes. In November, South Korean influencer Pony (nearly 6 million followers) launched a range of beauty products that also included face stickers.
In January, Fendi had its models’ faces filled with self-adhesive rhinestones for the Haute Couture (ie French Haute Couture) spring/summer show and at this year’s Met Gala (perhaps the most famous American fashion night where celebrities compete in extravagance and extravagance). Euphoria actress Storm Reid, 19, poet Amanda Gorman, 24, and model (and Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter) Ella Emhoff, 23, sported makeup on their eyes and adorned with sticky glitter.
In February, an article in Vogue India incorporated the face sticker phenomenon into an aesthetic that journalist Hasina Khatib calls “sleepovercore” (something like “pijama party aesthetic”) because she uses nostalgia for this type of teenage night out, She typifies the early 2000s (or Y2K) and habit of embellishing with do-it-yourself decorations. According to some experts Khatib interviewed, playing with our looks with rhinestones and stickers like we did as children is a way to rediscover a pleasure that takes us back to childhood at a historic moment of great uncertainty about the future.