OPEN POST: Generation X Beauty is Changing the Game and a Bonus: When Animals Take Out the Trash

Gen X beauty, the cool, detached, slightly subversive aesthetic embodied by women like Winona Ryder, the real Supermodels (Linda, Christy, Naomi, Kate, Shalom, Helena), Sade Adu, Lisa Bonet, Angelina Jolie, and Uma Thurman, to name a few, is having a quiet but very intentional resurgence, and companies are paying attention. This is the anti-performative face of beauty: matte skin, undone hair, minimal fuss, a kind of emotional distance that reads as power rather than effort. In a market saturated with hyper-curated routines, poreless skin, and influencer maximalism that no one with a life has time for, brands are rediscovering the commercial appeal of restraint. 

You’re seeing it in campaigns that lean into healthy, realistic skin,  pared-down makeup, and a return to individuality over algorithmic perfection. It’s not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, though; it’s strategy. Consumers are fatigued by overkill and searches for unrealistic optimization, and Gen X beauty ideals offer something that feels rarer now: credibility. 

The beauty of the original It Girl era is coming back now that everyone has exhaled and returned to sanity. When we say matte, we don't mean literal 80s dry matte that sucked all the moisture from someone's skin and the atmosphere around them; we mean healthy skin and glow. This was before the surgical interventions and extreme dermatology. For us Xennials, Gen X, and Boomers, we remember that people actually did look good before all of these interventions, and we also recognize that all these young women botoxing and getting procedures now look far older than their youthful chronological age. I find it strange that Bella Hadid looks strangely preserved. As many of them do.  

Bella is giving South American 90s pop star affectionately
known as Argentina's Celine Dion. 

Kate never Bella'd herself. And her face was hers and not cyborg
adjacent. 

I am glad to see this return. I have been hardcore about skincare, water, healthier life choices, sunscreen, and a lighter hand with makeup since I was old enough to pay attention to my skin. My mom has beautiful, deep tan skin. She takes care of it, never been extreme, and since in my childhood mind, she was the most beautiful woman ever to walk the earth, she set the tone. Beauty has forever been linked to her clean, soft, subtle, healthy, and effortless look. This ideal is psychologically healthier and more realistic. It is a bellwether of sorts. When the pendulum swings from ostentation, like it did before in my lifetime, we got the 90s. A lighter time in every sense. Let's hope this time it is the same and that we are coming into a better timeline. Fashion and societal shifts often reflect each other. Why should this time be any different?

Sade now at 66:

**** Because the world feels heavy right now and we are overrun by wealthy psychopaths doing horrible things and getting away with it, I thought I would add this to give you a pep in your step. Something life-affirming and a confirmation that when Mother Nature strikes back, she hits hard, and it doesn't matter how much money you have. Your money won't save you. I give you the story of a 75-year-old American big-game hunter, a millionaire named Ernie Dosio. 

Ernie and his guide were tracking a type of antelope (a yellow-backed duiker) in the dense rainforest in Gabon when they accidentally came across a herd of female forest elephants and a calf. That right there tells you how this is going to end. The elephants' reaction was swift. They threw aside the guide and trampled Dosio's ass to death. No prelude. Just charged him and stomped the life out of him. 

There are corners of the internet that claim he was a philanthropist, conservationist, and was well within the law. Like a bunch of elephants give a damn about the law. Seriously people? They say he was an avid outdoorsman, as if that is supposed to mean something. The man was a trophy hunter and had killed elephants and slaughtered beautiful animals so he could mount their heads like he was Ernest Hemingway reborn. 

Looking for a photo of him was painful. So many 
photos of him proudly showing off the 
corpses of majestic animals. I cried like a baby.
He got what he deserved. May his fetid soul never
find peace. 

Sometimes nature reminds us of the hierarchy, though. The one that men like him don't respect or understand. You don't own nature. You don't own primal instinct. While we may feel helpless to change the way the world works right now, we can rejoice in this and remember why animals are better than us. They deserve so much more than we ever give them. 

Those elephants saved the lives of animals that man planned to murder; they rid the world of a man deluded into thinking he was a good guy while sipping single malt under the tragic heads of animals who didn't deserve their fate. The big game hunter got hunted, and he died the way he should have. The last thing he saw was rage and fury, and he knew what was coming. I hope the fear was stark, cold, dark, and ugly. I hope he felt every stomp acutely. 

He, however, deserved his fate. This is justice served. 

photos: Getty, Instagram, National Geographic