The 'Natural Look' Is In; Yet It's Anything But Natural

It’s honestly kinda wild watching how fast the beauty industry does a 180 on what’s considered “ideal.” Like, think about the last decade. The Kardashian-style hourglass figure was everywhere: big butt, tiny waist, full curves. People were flying across the world for BBLs, celebs were openly (and not so openly) getting implants, waist trainers were trending like crazy, and that exaggerated silhouette became the blueprint.

Fast forward to now, and suddenly that look feels outdated. Celebs are allegedly getting their butt implants removed, some are even rumoured to be going as far as rib removal to achieve this slimmer, more angular frame. What was once the “goal” body is now being erased in real time.

And it’s not just the body. Facial trends have flipped, too. Remember when plumped lips were everything? Kylie Jenner built a whole empire off that one trend. Now, a lot of celebrities like Kylie herself or India's Uorfi Javed are dissolving their lip fillers and showing off a thinner, more “natural” mouth. Same thing with cheeks instead of youthful, pillowy faces, people are suddenly chasing hollowed-out cheekbones. 

Buccal fat removal (where fat is taken out of your cheeks to make your face look more sculpted) has blown up in popularity, to the point where even stars like Jenna Ortega got dragged into speculation after some red carpet pics made her look a little different. Whether she actually had it done or not almost doesn’t matter, but the fact that people instantly jumped to that conclusion shows how normalised cosmetic tweaks have become, and how hyper-aware we are of them.

The Era Of 'Barely Noticeable' Cosmetic Procedures

Here’s the irony, though: this whole “natural look” movement isn’t actually natural at all. It’s not like celebs are ditching all procedures and just embracing whatever their face and body naturally look like. Instead, it’s just the same cycle of cosmetic intervention, only this time it’s being marketed as subtle, effortless, and authentic. The new “natural” face still usually involves procedures; it’s just about making them less obvious. It’s like a curated version of “authenticity.”

And honestly, that’s the exhausting part. Beauty standards keep shifting in ways that make it literally impossible to keep up unless you’ve got endless money and access to surgeons. The “hourglass” body that was hyped up ten years ago is suddenly passé, and now people are being told a slimmer frame is what’s desirable.

Lips that once “had” to be plump now look “better” thin. The same full cheeks that were considered youthful are now being slimmed down. And when celebs undo their old procedures, they can quietly move on to the next trend, but the regular people who spent money and time chasing those looks are left stuck, sometimes with irreversible changes.

At the end of the day, the beauty industry isn’t about embracing individuality or being natural; it’s about constantly shifting the goalpost so there’s always something new to sell. Whether it’s plumping, dissolving, removing, or “going natural,” the cycle just repeats itself under a new label. And the message that trickles down to the rest of us is the same as it’s always been: whatever you naturally look like is never quite enough.

Views expressed by the author are their own.