Brutalist make-up is the subversive answer to Instagram homologation

No more flawless skin that shines like an inviting donut. No more lipsticks applied with surgical precision, no more arrow-straight eyeliner and no more contouring that sculpts the face like the scalpel of the best plastic surgeon. The new aesthetic, which is catching on under hashtags like #uglymakeup and #brutalismmakeup and has even reached the catwalks of iconic brands like Gucci, Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood and Viktor&Rolf, eschews makeup as an amplifying tool of beauty and homologation to encourage creativity and free expression of personality. The face is no longer (or not only) subject to the trends of the moment or the purpose of arousing desire, but it is the canvas on which everyone can create their own personal work of art.

The world of art and architecture is echoed on the Instagram account @MakeUpBrutalism,  where make-up artist Eszter Magyar "mixes human aesthetics and social critique" by creating black contoured mouths, blood-stained teeth, pollock-style tinted lips, moss and gelatinous substances dripping from eyelashes, pigments that extend beyond the eyelid and penetrate the cornea, lettering that crosses the face and colorful pencils that decorate the eyebrows. The only limit is the imagination. Color, texture, three-dimensionality are the keywords. Each image is meant to disturb, provoke, divide, act like a slap in the face or cut into the flesh like the deadliest knife. The result is brutal and brutalist. Like the architectural current from which it takes its name, it often has a rough and unfinished, in some ways almost childlike, appearance that departs from what is considered aesthetically harmonious, pleasant, and attractive. Only instead of imposing concrete constructions that are disturbing in their expressiveness, eye shadow, rouge, lipsticks, mascara and eyeliner are used in an unconventional way.

The elements that characterize the philosophy of the Ugly Make-up Revolution aim to make make-up grotesque and surprising. Brutalism in beauty coincides with the birth of the Ugly Make up Revolution, an aesthetic current in which the conventional notion of what we call beautiful bows at the altar of expressiveness and turns to the ugly, the disturbing, the bizarre and even the grotesque. Her following continues to multiply, including such high-profile names as Isamaya Ffrench and Julia Fox. No philtres to make perfect, no glossy lips and artfully brushed blush. Eyelashes are bundled in clumps and adorned with vegetables or broken contact lenses, teeth are covered in silver foil, edamame takes the place of eyeshadow, plastic pods are the unexpected and irreverent element added to lipstick.

It is important that we reclaim make-up as a means of communication and personal expression, rather than a means of homologation, breaking down stereotypes and promoting creativity. So forget the glossy and often unattainable perfection of Instagram photos. The new make-up is forcing a revolution of what is conventional "pretty" in order to move towards a more democratic and diverse notion of beauty.