2016 was the tipping point for a slew of beauty trends. Some of them had been building for a while but they broke through in spectacular fashion this year.
Let's review.
1. Oils
We know sugar is out and fat is in, which explains why coconut oil is being lauded as the cure-all for just about every ailment known to humans. Troubled skin? Coconut oil. Wild hair? Coconut oil. Digestive issues? Coconut oil. Relationship dramas? You get the idea.
But 2016 saw rosehip oil, which is a great antidote for redness and inflammation, come to the fore and it's now going into everything. Then there's Arian oil for nails and hair, and the classics like grapeseed oil, which is supposed to help with collagen production. A raft of beauty companies are blending all the oils into bigger oils, to great success.
A personal favourite is Dermalogica's range. But oil, once generally confined to the moisturising portion of your skin routine is now very much starring in cleansers.
Shu uemura is the king of cleansing oils, and for good reason – they 've been pumping them out since 1967, way before they were this hip. Also, they work. In 2016 they released Anti/oxi+, a pollutant and dullness clarifying cleansing oil. It's $120 for 450ml and totally worth it.
2. Advancements in hair care tech
Oh this one has been terribly exciting to watch. This was the year that Dyson, formerly known as the vacuum cleaner brand, released a $700, light-weight, super-speedy-yet-gentle hairdryer with a design worthy of a cameo role in one of the many space movies right now. Oh come on, there's Rogue One. And Passengers. The comparison works, right? Guys, the hairdryer is shaped like a magnifying glass!
Anyway, not to be outdone, GHD, leaders in the field of hair straighteners have gone and invented a straightening wand that you can use on wet hair.
I mean, 2016 has been rough, but an appliance that dries at the same time as it styles? Sometimes God gives with two hands.
3. Diversification
Yes, there have been slightly more women of colour appearing in beauty campaigns this year, but not enough to warrant a trend. The diversification I'm referring to is that trend where women don another hat.
Celebrities and their cosmetics began as a thing three or four years ago when Jessica Alba and Drew Barrymore rolled out their lines. But it reached a tipping point when Gwyneth Paltrow, part time actor, full time lifestyle guru, expanded into skincare this year and promoted it on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. The range, called Goop by Juice Beauty, sold out immediately.
Emily Weiss, the founder and editor of the beauty and lifestyle website, Into the Gloss, branched out into cosmetics line Glossier in 2015, and morphed it into a company this year. Meanwhile, media personality and beauty expert Zoe Foster Blake capitalised on her already successful skincare range, Go-to Skincare by adding a men's range, Bro-To.
4. Fantasy makeup
This has a lot to do with the renegades of the biz, the beauty vloggers. They are to makeup what street style was to fashion a decade ago, and they are artists. Michelle Phan, Kandy Johnson, Nikkie Tutorials, our own Chloe Morello... the list goes on. These ladies (and men) love to experiment not just with different makeup, but entire looks.
Johnson, for example, just uploaded a clip where she transformed herself into Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Nikkie transformed herself into a demon for Halloween. But even on an average day, the vloggers are throwing buckets of glitter and highlighter on their faces and contouring themselves into transcendence.
The effect of this can be seen at shows like Marc Jacobs' resort, which was full of dramatic yet fun makeup, and Chanel in Paris where models sported the famous Chanel quilting motif on their eyelids.
5. Event Hair
Gone are the mermaid curls of a few years ago. The trend right now for event hair is to make it look as if you had it done yesterday, scraped it back into a ponytail, only to let it out minutes before you stepped onto the red carpet.
Alexa Chung is a pioneer in this field but Chrissy Teigen and Rosie Huntington-Whitely are now leading the trend of slightly-kinked hair (that's in reality been given a good going over with voluminising spray and hot tongs).
However, In some cases, the hair stays in the pony - think of Jodi Gordon on Melbourne Cup day. It's a wonderful way to draw attention to a spectacular outfit or dramatic makeup, while also showing how deeply laid back you are about formal events.