Is Mascara Disappearing? How Ghost Lashes Took Over the Internet

Spooky or sultry? You decide.

Some of our more ill-advised beauty choices are pure nightmare fuel. Whether you overplucked your brows in the '90s or went through a bad sun-in phase in the aughts, we've all been there—even the pros.

The latest makeup regret making the rounds? Heavy, fuller-than-full lashes. "I wore strip lashes to my corporate office—like, what the fuck?" says celebrity makeup artist Kelli Anne Sewell. Early morning demi wispies seem so far removed from the less-is-more energy dominating the beauty industry that it feels almost unfathomable in 2024. In fact, these days, the girlies aren't even wearing mascara.

"I actually feel more like myself when I'm wearing less makeup," says Sewell. "No mascara or brown mascara goes hand in hand with that."

Blame the online pendulum swing, but fluttery lashes have gone from a routine necessity to an optional step in the past few years. The industry moved from the 2016 cut-crease and heavy brows to the clean girl aesthetic right around 2022. And now, we're somewhere in the middle. Glam is coming back in subtle ways—think, a smudged, smokey eye or strong lip color that's diffused around the edges. But lashes remain featherlight.

"Everything feels undone in a way, to balance the face," says Sewell. "You can still rock a bold, muddy burgundy lip and do no mascara, and it's just such a vibe." And this particular vibe is found everywhere today, from runways to TikTok.

At Dior's recent Fall/Winter 2024 show, models sported smudged Bordeaux-colored lips, a strong brow, and not even a single swipe of mascara. Instead, makeup artist Peter Philips used a flat brush with a bit of dark eyeshadow and pushed it into the roots of the lashes.

"It makes your lashes look full without using mascara," Philips, who is the creative and image director at Christian Dior Makeup, shared backstage. "And it's not an eyeliner—it's just something in between. It's a difference that you see when you do one eye, and you see the other eye. But once you do both, it looks like there's no makeup."

The lashes at Prabal Gurung's Spring/Summer 2025 show took a similar, albeit more extreme, approach to the ghost lashes trend. "We really believe the new no-makeup look is no makeup—just our glass skin," Alicia Yoon, the founder of skin-care brand Peach & Lily, shared backstage (the band served as the show's beauty partner).

The models at Ulla Johnson's Spring/Summer 2025 presentation put a different spin on the ghost lashes trend, donning brown mascara instead of the traditional black. "I wanted the eyes to just feel very grounded and easy," makeup artist Romy Solemani shared backstage at the show.

For those unwilling to ditch lashes altogether, brown mascara is having a major moment. And not just on the runway—beauty lovers everywhere are trading in sooty, ink-black formulas for more subtle shades of chocolate and chestnut. Plus, there are over 200 million TikTok videos on brown mascara showcased by creators of all complexions—one of the latest coming from Olivia Jade, who used the one from Tower 28 to round out her "fall glam" makeup look. Beauty brands have responded in kind, with brands like Lash Princess, Beaubble, and more releasing new brown mascaras in the past year.

Whether it's brown mascara or none altogether, it's not hard to see the appeal of demure lashes for everyday looks: "I've been wearing brown mascara for four years," claims Sewell. "Every time I was wearing black mascara, I just felt so done up. So, I switched to brown mascara. I liked that I could get away with more natural glam. I could build it up and add more layers if I wanted to feel more full glam, but it's just so much more chic."

Regardless of the approach, though, dark and heavy lashes are slowly disappearing—at least, for now. Instead of cloaking lashes in layers of product and falsies to emphasize your eyes, things are trending towards keeping it light to better draw you in. And though this departure may be a bit frightful for some, there's nothing scary about letting your natural beauty shine.