A rainbow-filled trend leaning heavily on Y2K-childhood nostalgia, kidcore embodies a joyful and fun attitude, favouring a maximalist mash-up of playful and eccentric styling. Its appreciation for childlike creativity and imagination is key, with highly saturated colour palettes and kitsch facial stickers speaking to its core values of joy and happiness.
Make-up applications reflect personal explorations, with TikTokers experimenting with lucid colours, graphic illustrations and psychedelic patterns alongside liquid face paints, punchy blushers, and saturated glossy lips.
As we explore in our report, available to members, Gen Z Big on Beauty, youthful consumers are practising feel-good make-up looks with no judgement, emboldened by a hedonistic post-pandemic lust for life. Trashy 00s aesthetics and eclectic layering are booming in response to the ‘Euphoria effect’, as well as the rise in new nostalgia-tinged beauty brands reverting to cult Y2K teen products.
"I think it's popular because it's all about the dopamine effect – or the mood-lifting effect – of wearing things because they bring you joy and are just fun to look at," Donni Davy, Euphoria’s make-up artist and co-founder of vegan beauty label Half Magic, told US magazine Allure.
