1Using frosted shadow to get oh-so-shiny eyelids.
Media Platforms Design Team In theory, it makes your eyes appear bigger. In actuality, it makes you look like you belong in a cheerleading competition. And unless you were a cheerleader in high school, this probably wasn't a good thing.
2Sweeping bronzer all over your face.
Media Platforms Design Team Sure, it's safer than hanging out in a tanning bed or laying around in the sun, so naturally, we all thought it was a great idea to load it on our cheekbones, foreheads, chins, noses, and necks. Our punishment: Looking like carrots.
3Penciling in your eyebrows with one single line.
Media Platforms Design Team Be honest: We have all messed up our eyebrows at some point. Let's all hold hands and pray for those poor, sad brows. Amen!
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4Using the sponge-tip applicators that come with your eyeshadow.
Media Platforms Design Team Why are companies still putting this in eye shadow compacts? Now we know better, but nobody told us anything about makeup brushes when we were a kid — and these tiny things seemed like our only option for pretty eye makeup. Albeit, badly applied eye makeup.
5Wearing dramatic colored contact lenses.
Media Platforms Design Team This seemed like such an easy way to get a totally different look — and it was! A really creepy, unnatural look that wasn't remotely believable, especially in photos. Your mom was right, these looked awkward.
6Showing off a visible foundation line.
Media Platforms Design Team When you were a teenager, you were just happy your mother bought you your own concealer and powder. What she didn't tell you is that this "base makeup" wasn't exclusively for your face — you still needed to blend it down your jawline and neck. Thanks mom!
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7Experimenting with acrylic nails.
Media Platforms Design Team Every middle schooler eager to become a "real lady" wanted a pair of these elegant talons — until you realized they're actually uncomfortable and impractical in every single way. Bonus points if you had these with a French tip.
8Applying thick kohl liner all around the eyes.
Media Platforms Design Team 9Dropping your allowance on giant makeup palettes.
Media Platforms Design Team When you were a kid, buying one of those 100-eyeshadow palettes from the department store for $20 seemed like such an amazing deal. But then you quickly realized that all the colors were just translucent, slightly tinted shades of beige that wore off in about half an hour. Um, not cool.
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10Going wild with glitter.
Media Platforms Design Team Glitter in the hair, glitter on the nails, glitter below the brow, and on the cheekbones, and in your lip gloss. Glitter was everywhere in the '80s, '90s, and 2000s. If you grew up in the past 30 years, you simply couldn't escape it.
11Caking on the opaque blue eyeshadow.
Media Platforms Design Team While thick blue eyeshadow can be worn well, let's be real, none of us did it right when we were teenagers.
12Overdoing it with gooey lip gloss.
Media Platforms Design Team Did your younger self ever think, If I wear lots of lip gloss, people will want to kiss me? Don't worry, you weren't alone, but as your adult self now knows, this is not true — nobody likes to kiss someone wearing globs of lip gloss. Seriously, why did we subject ourselves to a makeup product that made our hair stick to our lips nonstop?
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13Swapping normal nail polish for press-on nails.
Media Platforms Design Team The perfect nail art in just a few minutes with minimal work on your part? It sounds almost too good to be true! Because it was. It was way too good to be true, because these always looked far too awkward to be real.
14Picking the wrong foundation color — and using it anyway.
Media Platforms Design Team Too yellow, too pink, too light, too dark — we all kind of went with whatever drugstore foundation seemed reasonable. And if it wasn't a perfect match, we just used it regardless because hey, nobody will notice, right? Big mistake.
15Overloading on the mascara.
Media Platforms Design Team One layer of mascara? Awesome. Two layers? Absolutely! Middle school logic: OK, so why not five? Because spider lashes. That's why.
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16Slathering on the self-tanner.
Media Platforms Design Team "I just need a little glow," you insisted just before summer break started. Two weeks and a bottle of self-tanner later and you were basically an Oompa Loompa.
17Applying your eyeshadow up to your brows.
Media Platforms Design Team Eyeshadow has "eye" right in the name, so naturally you thought that meant your whole eye, right?
18Using Wite-Out as nail polish.
Media Platforms Design Team Even if this wasn't your school supply weapon of choice, at the very least, you probably colored in your nails with a Sharpe. Call it "primitive nail art" — it sounds better.
Sam's enthusiasm for makeup is only rivaled by their love of all things relating to cats. In their spare time, they enjoy watching scary movies, putting avocado on everything, and seeing how many shades of the rainbow they can dye their hair before 30.
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