Some of us are born with beauty bred into our DNA, blessed with an instinctive knack for all things chic. The rest of us, erm, aren’t. Finding ourselves is a long, painful journey, with trends tried on for size and often proving a terrible fit - even if we don’t realise it at the time.
We’re talking, of course, about the teenage years. No stage of our evolution is more unflattering or embarrassing, and there’s invariably photographic evidence of our beauty crimes to be whipped out or Whatsapped by tittering friends.
Sounds familiar? We share your pain. To prove that a career in beauty and fashion journalism doesn’t necessarily stem from a lifelong grasp of the cool, we GH ladies are offering up our most cringeworthy youthful blunders, from shocking hair to disastrous brows. And no, we don’t know what we were thinking either.
Susanne Norris, deputy digital editor
My teenage years were heavily dominated by “scene kid” culture. From stomping about to metal music in my Doc Martens to getting tattoos of song lyrics and having my septum pierced (sorry Mum), it’s safe to say I was full of teenage angst.
My biggest mistake during this time was trying to dye my hair lilac in the hope I’d stand out should Fall Out Boy come to town. Bleaching your hair at home isn’t recommended at the best of times — and certainly not if, like me, your natural colour borders on black. The result? Straw-like. Worse still, I’d bleached my hair so unevenly the lilac dye then wouldn’t take on certain areas, so I ended up with a patchwork of yellow and purple hues.
This time, my mum wasn’t even angry. She just sighed and paid for my salon trip to restore my hair back to its former glory - and I couldn’t thank her enough.
Amanda Marcantonio, fashion director
This is me aged 17 on my first girls’ holiday (to Magaluf, of course!). What can I say, I was the absolute cliché of mid-90s teenage beauty: pencil-thin eyebrows, lipliner, Rimmel Heather Shimmer lipstick, Sun-In hair lightener and Exclamation perfume. What would I tell my teenage self? Your lipliner looks absolutely ridiculous – get yourself a lip brush, pronto - and put the tweezers down!
I wish I had been more relaxed about hair removal in my teenage years. Being a naturally dark brunette, I was incredibly self-conscious of my self-perceived ‘hairiness’. I constantly plucked my eyebrows, waxed my ‘tash’, shaved the hairs on my legs and arms (yes, arms) and used Jolen to bleach the hairs on my tummy (90s crop tops). I feel sorry for my poor parents having to endure the weekly waft of eye-watering ammonia coming from my bedroom.
Bethan Rose Jenkins, assistant features editor
The year was 2012 and Topshop reigned supreme. Nestled amongst the sale items by the counter, I spotted what I thought would allow me to channel my inner Jessie J: lip transfers. Essentially, these were lip-shaped temporary tattoos which you applied to your mouth with a sponge and water. The transfers came as a pack of three in various patterns and I chose leopard print, which I wore for a night out that weekend – to the awe of my friends.
Over a decade later, the same friends now post close ups of those lips in light-hearted ridicule every birthday. Now, I can’t help but wonder how any of us ever thought they looked even remotely close to cool! However, nostalgia prevented me throwing out the final transfer in the packet and, you never know, with Y2K trends on the rise, maybe their time will come again one day…
Lynne Hyland, beauty editor
When I turned 13, there was only one thing I wanted: a perm. No matter that I already had a mullet, which meant the result looked uncannily like Kevin Keegan circa 1985. I’d love to say I instantly recognised my folly but no, I actually thought my perm looked fantastic. In fact, this woolly-textured monstrosity provided the springboard for further iterations, each larger and more appalling than the last.
There was my Deirdre Barlow era, which plonked a middle-aged bouffe onto a nerdy teenager’s head (oh, the irony of my “Summer Style” t-shirt), then the extensions experiment, where I paid a fortune to have two flaps of hair glued over my ears to ‘’blend out’ the mullet. It looked so ludicrously mismatched that my dad marched me back to the salon and demanded they remove their handiwork and refund my money. (They agreed instantly, so there’s no photographic evidence I’m afraid.)
Finally, there was the gel-scrunched rock chick perm, backcombed with volume right up to 11, reeking of L’Oréal Studio Line and inspired by my worship of Cher. If I could turn back time.. I’d have a firm word with myself.
Anna Lao-Kaim, beauty editor
Ever since my dad cut my hair around a mixing bowl as a toddler, a fringe was my safety blanket. This continued into my teenage years, when its protective canopy handily deflected from both shyness and hormonal spots. Somewhere between mixing bowl and impending adulthood, however, it took on a life of its own, migrating above my eyebrows in an uneven line, with chunky ‘sideburns’ as a stylish garnish. I’m not entirely sure how it came to this, apart from the fact that fringes generally require meticulous upkeep, and as a teen I took ‘light trims’ into my own hands.
Straighteners were also not long on the scene. I had a cheap model from the Argos catalogue, and probably did at least six passes of my fringe with the irons before school each morning, leaving my lengths and roots in their naturally wavy state for an altogether incongruous mish mash. When I eventually saw the light and decided to let it go, it took months of pinning my fringe back with roughly 1,000 kirby grips to grow it out.
Bella Evennett-Watts, deputy features editor
Teenagers of today – Gen Z and Gen Alpha – champion skincare over all else, but when I was 15, it certainly didn’t reign supreme. I’d happily forgo a well-moisturised, hydrated base for lashings of fake tan, which inevitably became patchy and gave a generous dose of tangerine. Ce n'est pas Saint-Tropez! The icing on the cake? Haphazardly stuck-on false eyelashes, which were a party prerequisite.
Florence Reeves-White, senior beauty writer
It’s 2010, Jason Derulo’s Ridin’ Solo is soaring up the charts and my comb-over side parting is moving ever-closer to my left ear, where it would take up residence for years. I don’t think I’m alone in noticing that my tadpole brow look – thicker and rounder on the inside, with a long thin tail arching above the eyelid – is highly stylish. To perfectly complement this trend, I have a fascination with raising my eyebrows in every photo, having heard it’s a great way to make small eyes appear doe-like. Hmm. As a result, I look permanently surprised in every photo from 2007-2012.
And coincidently, I knew nothing of true shock at that point, as I was yet to look in the mirror and see patchy blue, pink and purple hair staring back at me – created DIY from a box; no professional would have subjected me to this. My Harley Quinn era was ushered in the very night before I travelled to Thailand for the first time in 2014, and I must say it worked perfectly with my elephant harem pants. Does it get any more cliché?
