Y2K Makeup & Hairstyles: Recreate the Look With FaceApp

Y2K Makeup, Big Hair, and the Beauty Trends We Never Really Forgot

Ready for your Y2K makeover? Explore FaceApp’s makeup, hairstyle, and hair color effects to recreate your favorite early-2000s looks.

How to Recreate Y2K Makeup and Hair Without Making It Permanent
The Y2K Aesthetic Is Back
How to Recreate Y2K Makeup With FaceApp
Y2K Hairstyles
How to Create Your Own Y2K Look With FaceApp
FAQs

How to Recreate Y2K Makeup and Hair Without Making It Permanent

If you’d asked us back in the early 2000s which two things were visible from space, we’d have answered without a moment’s hesitation: the Great Wall of China and the eyelids of every girl wearing enough frosted eyeshadow to interfere with satellite communications.

So, now that there’s all this talk about the grand return of Y2K makeup and fashion style, we’re feeling a little conflicted. On one hand, nostalgia is a wonderful thing. On the other, some of us are still recovering from the emotional consequences of wearing low-rise jeans, or even thinking about how we wore them, for the better part of a decade.

So Y2K fashion is firmly filed under maybe, but we’re absolutely here for the great return of Y2K makeup.

If you’re Gen Z, we cannot even begin to explain how we managed to take selfies in bathroom mirrors with digital cameras that had seven megapixels between them, with a straight face. The flash was powerful enough to temporarily blind a small village, followed by the agonizing wait to transfer the photos to a computer and find out whether we’d actually captured our good side. Good times.

Fortunately for you all, technological progress has been considerably kinder than fashion’s recurring obsession with the Y2K questionable fashion choices. At least with FaceApp, you can experiment with Y2K-inspired makeup, hairstyles, and photo effects without having to commit to a haircut you’ll spend the next six months regretting.

To our fellow millennials, this is your chance to revisit the early aughts with all the beauty experimentation and considerably fewer regrets. We’ve already lived through the original. This time, at least, we get an Undo button.

The Y2K Aesthetic Is Back, and People Are Having a Field Day

The sheer number of content creators recreating early 00s looks suggests that time travel is possible, at least in the style department. We could give you their names and links, but where’s the fun in sending you down an internet rabbit hole when we’ve already done the digging? What we can tell you is that FaceApp has found its way into the photo-editing routines of Y2K enthusiasts, although most are keeping their exact tools and effects close to their chests. Fortunately, we’re not nearly as secretive, and we’re more than happy to spill a few beauty-editing secrets of our own.

How to Recreate Y2K Makeup With FaceApp

Frosted Eyeshadow: Apparently, Subtlety Wasn’t Invented Until 2010

If there’s one beauty trend that deserves its own chapter in the history books, it’s frosted eyeshadow. Blue, silver, lavender, anything that looked like it could double as Christmas decorations was enthusiastically applied to our eyelids, sometimes all the way up to the eyebrows. Restraint wasn’t exactly our strong suit.

For a modern take on the look, open FaceApp’s Makeup category and try Glitter Glam. It adds shimmering eyeshadow that catches the light without emptying an entire tube of the most shimmer-packed shade of Lancôme’s Juicy Tubes.

There are three intensity levels to play with, so you can start with a subtle sparkle or turn things up for a more dramatic finish. Pair it with other makeup filters if you’re feeling particularly nostalgic.

Glossy Lips, Dramatic Eyes, and the Art of Doing the Most

We said times and times again, but saying it one more time won’t hurt: Y2K makeup had a rather complicated relationship with moderation. Glossy (in most cases, stuck-on-hair) lips were practically mandatory, and don’t get us started on glitter. The rule was anything that shimmered was considered appropriate for almost any occasion.

FaceApp’s Makeup category offers more than 20 styles to experiment with, so just queue up your playlist and go play. Our fave thing is experimenting with different intensities to see which look works best with the original photo. Think of it as the most fun virtual makeup counter where nobody tries to sell you six products you didn’t come in for.

Y2K Hairstyles: Your Hairdresser Can Thank Us Later

Straight Hair That Could Double as a Ruler

Remember when having perfectly straight hair was practically a competitive sport? If your hair had so much as contemplated forming a wave, the straightening iron was immediately summoned.

FaceApp’s Hairstyles category includes Straight and Straight 2, which help create a sleeker, smoother silhouette. FYI, some of us couldn’t afford a hair straightener, so we used an iron.

Try them on a photo where your hair is clearly visible, and experiment until you’ve achieved the kind of straight-haired perfection that would have made a 2004 pop star proud.

Bonus points for hair that doesn’t smell like it’s been introduced to an industrial heating element.

Big, Bouncy Hair Deserves a Comeback

Not everyone spent the early 2000s trying to flatten their hair into submission. There were also lots of hairstyles that required a considerable amount of volume.

Try Volume, Lush, or Blowout in FaceApp’s Hairstyles category to experiment with fuller-looking hair.

You can even use Multiselect to combine compatible hairstyle effects, giving you more control over the final result.

The Y2K Flip: Bend It Like It’s 2002

For a generation that spent an unreasonable amount of time making sure every last strand of hair was perfectly straight, we were surprisingly enthusiastic about bending the ends in the opposite direction. The Y2K flip was one of the early 2000s’ greatest hair contradictions, championed by Jennifer Lopez and a few other (okay, millions of) people. Unlike the original 60s polished, well-behaved look, the Y2K flip featured pin-straight lengths with ends that curled outward, because apparently even our hair needed a dramatic exit.

FaceApp’s Y2K Flip filter in the Hairstyles category recreates those playful, outward-facing ends without the wrist gymnastics or the straightener’s third-degree burns.

The Hair Color Decisions We Can Finally Make Without Consequences

The early aughts gave us enough dramatic hair transformations to keep celebrity magazines in business.

Fortunately, FaceApp’s Hair Colors category allows for experimentation with considerably less commitment.

Use Colored to test pink, purple, blue, and other adventurous shades. Or try Transfer if you’ve found a particular hair color online that you’d love to see on yourself.

And if you have an old photograph of your favorite Y2K celebrity hairstyle, FaceApp’s Hairstyles → Transfer feature lets you upload a reference image and preview a similar style on your own portrait.

That means you can finally find out whether that haircut you desperately wanted in 2002 would have actually suited you. Some mysteries deserve to be solved. Others, perhaps, are better tucked in the family photo album.

How to Create Your Own Y2K Look With FaceApp

Ready to bring the early 2000s back without revisiting your questionable beauty decisions? Here’s how to experiment with a Y2K-inspired look using FaceApp.

Choose your selfie. Pick a clear, well-lit portrait where your face and hair are easy to see. The bathroom mirror is optional. The blinding digital-camera flash is not recommended.
Experiment with Y2K makeup. Open the Makeup category and try Glitter Glam for shimmering eyeshadow. Adjust the intensity to find your preferred amount of early-2000s sparkle.
Try a Y2K hairstyle. Head to Hairstyles and experiment with Straight, Straight 2, Volume, Lush, or Blowout.
Play with hair colors. Use the Hair Colors category to explore bold shades, or try a reference-based effect to preview a different color.
Fine-tune your look. Experiment with compatible effects using Multiselect, where available, until you’ve recreated your favorite version of the Y2K aesthetic.