Eesha Kulkarni

Instagram has taken other-worldly makeup to the next level with its latest beauty trend — angelic or celestial makeup. Think ethereal sheeny skin, delicately flushed cherub cheeks and silky sparkling eyelids that truly look like heaven. Or, think off-kilter alien aesthetic meets glitter girl meme. Shimmers and sparkles are applied around the eyes, cheeks and bridge of the nose in an act of glittery defiance in this playful look.

Everyone and their mother is donning this imperfect, after-after-party, post-club makeup look on and off the internet. Pat McGrath created a celestial eye look for Andreādamo SS23, and Ganni embraced under-eye glitter for its collaboration with zero-plastic glitter brand Submission Beauty. Online, MUAs like Julian Stoller and Grace Ellington are spearheading this shimmery style.

There was a time, during the height of YouTube tutorial era make-up, when eyeshadow fallout was public enemy number one. Eyeshadows were rated by how much pigment would end up on your cheeks, beauty gurus gave tips on how to avoid it, and concealer was applied to clean up any oopsies. However, we are in a new era now – and fallout is officially hot!

2022 was the year of the micro-trend; a slipstream of styles and plentiful beauty inspiration ricocheting from utopian to dystopian on a bi-weekly basis. In beauty, as in the world at large, 2022 chose chaos. Celestial eyes, a hyper-sparkly evolution of messy make-up that rejects the traditional rules and beauty standards while truly embracing creative expression, epitomises this chaos and brings it into the new year.

The first big make-up trend of 2023, celestial eyes brings together all of our favourites from the past year. Combining the dreamy sparkle of Euphoria glam, the nonchalant messiness of indie grunge, the glitter tears of the ‘crying girl’ aesthetic, the romanticism of fairy core, the rule-rejecting ethos of ‘ugly beauty’, the emphasised dark under-eyes of the ‘tired girl’, the fun of dopamine glam and the supernatural shimmers of mermaid or Edward Cullen-esque vampire make-up, celestial eyes have set the tone for 2023’s beauty seasons.

As we embrace experimentation and continue down the anti-perfectionist path, celestial eyes make us look and feel otherworldly, with a focus on shimmer applied not only to the eye but to the cheeks, brows, under-eye and bridge of the nose. Reaching into both the past and the future, this eye look calls on the childlike sense of wonder that comes with early, boundary-free experiments with make-up and identity curation.

So how can you recreate the eye look?

Simply apply shimmer toppers, glitter shadows, rhinestones and metallic pigments under and around your eyes with reckless abandon to create this club-kid adjacent aesthetic. Play with colour, placement and product to go as ethereal or as apocalyptic as you’d like. And remember, fallout is your friend.