As a makeup wearer I, like many, watch YouTube videos from beauty gurus on the regular. That's how I got into wearing makeup in the first place, and as the years have gone by, I have definitely taken note of the constant ebbs and flows of the beauty world. I've seen the good, the bad, and the interesting.

Lately, highlighting and contouring are the dominant trends in the beauty community. What I find interesting is how trends reflect the expectations of how women are primarily meant to look, or how women impose trends onto themselves. One of my favorite makeup artists on YouTube, Wayne Goss, created a video making fun of this "new" trend going on called "non-touring", which was the inspiration for this article.

Basically, non-touring is a "trend" in which one does not contour their face at all. It main focuses on the use of highlighter and having natural looking makeup on the face. The reason why this trend is so amusing to me is that it really highlights just how ridiculous trends can become (and it's not restricted to makeup alone; may I remind you of JNCO Jeans?) First, it's highlighting, then contouring, then strobing; what will the makeup gods come up with next?

While I have been non-touring since before it was cool, what we can learn from non-touring, and trends in general, is that we have the amazing and hilariously entertaining capacity to create and derive trends into our current culture. We have the power to create and destroy trends. Another makeup artist, Lisa Eldridge, brought attention to this power in a video about makeup trends throughout history, which I recommend everyone to watch, regardless if you wear makeup or not.

In short, what we learn from trends overall is how much it underscores our capability to be creative. Makeup is an art form; our canvas is skin, not fabric. It's nice to remember how much we are capable of, and for many it started with a brush and some eyeshadow.