Do TikTok’s make-up tricks work? ‘Soap brows’, contouring using fake tan… FRAN HORNAK spends a week testing social media trends

After ten years of small children and working from home, I am aware that my interest in care has plummeted. I need a restart.

What better place to go for the latest tips and a general sense of youth than TikTok?

After an initial deep dive, it strikes me how nostalgic TikTok beauty is. People still recommend putting toothpaste on the spots and using Vaseline all over.

The only development seems to be contouring – professional-level highlighting and shading, aimed at making teenage cheeks disappear in selfies.

My current level of contouring is a novice, so this is high on the agenda.

But first the hair.

SUNDAY

I’ll taste it tonight ‘leggings’ curls. This is what it sounds like: part your hair and, with the insert of leggings on your head, braid a section of hair around each of the legs.

It is demonstrated by a serene blonde girl, who seems to see nothing unusual.

“Now take the butt part and make it into a hat,” she instructs – much to the delight of my children (all boys under ten) – once the braiding is done.

I tuck my pant braids neatly into the back part to make it look like I’m wearing a Tudor beret. In the morning my hair is wavy, but no more than if I had braided it normally.

On the plus side, the spectacle showed my sons how much effort goes into maintaining feminine hair behind the scenes.

MONDAY

I’m going to Maria Philips – Hailey Bieber’s makeup artist – for contour tricks.

After repeatedly watching her daub her face like a tiger, then whip it away with the quick, pouty blend that TikTok influencers excel at, I’m still none the wiser. My own effort looks terrible.

I usually feel sorry for teenagers. It was bad enough to avoid a Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse tide line in 2000.

TUESDAY

I’m late ‘soap eyebrows’ – use a bar of soap on a clean mascara brush to fluff out the eyebrows.

On my first attempt I use Dove, which looks like I have paint in my eyebrows.

But once I switched to Pears soap, I’m quite happy: my eyebrows look naturally thicker. Then my son asks why I have “dragon eyes,” and I think about it again.

WEDNESDAY

Since Monday’s contours were a flop, I’ll give it a try ‘fake tan contours’ instead – hoping my fake bone structure will last for days.

I watch my chosen TikToker slap dark brown spots on her cheekbones and begin a more pressing blend.

As she works, she warns, “You want it to look good enough to go out and not have anyone say, ‘What the fuck is on her face?’

This is healthy living and beauty advice, so I’m joining in frantically. Hours later, my face looks tanned, but not—disappointingly—like I’m sucking from a straw all the time.

THURSDAY

I’m going out tonight so when the tutorial is on perfect eyeliner does not deliver. I’m trying another TikTok hack – removing failed eyeliner with Sellotape.

I accidentally waxed an eyelash and still have eyeliner on my temples.

FRIDAY

Today on TikTok someone named Hayley Buix warns me, in such a brazen voice that I feel compelled to obey, “If you don’t fade your blush below your eyes, you’re missing out. Just sayin’.’

Despite the comments that say, “I can get this look by crying!”, I follow the instructions and swipe the blusher upward into my under-eye concealer.

It feels strange, but looks pleasantly shiny – like I’ve been practicing.

SATURDAY

I’m now exhausted from scrolling through the groom.

The ideas I won’t repeat? How about a layer of powder between the mascara layers (clumpy)?

There is pinching in my lip line for a pout (painful) and fake freckles with brown eyeliner (looks like I drank a cappuccino too enthusiastically). The one tip I will remember is the upwardly mobile blusher.

I end the week somewhat relieved that I don’t have a daughter, and that TikTok didn’t exist in the 1990s when I might have shared my own fake tan tricks.