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Another year, another wave of “must buy” products and beauty trends we’ll look back on with fondness or bewilderment in a decade’s time.
From face tape to salmon sperm facials, beauty in 2025 had few limits. While some were innocuous (a skinny brow never hurt anyone), others have, well, raised eyebrows. I’m looking at you, facelifts for under 40s.
So, as the New Year approaches, let’s reflect on the best and most outrageous things we did to look and feel our best this year.
Face wraps, beef fat and perms: 2025 was a whirlwind of wild beauty trends.Credit: Compiled by Matt Willis.
Perms for men
Move over, mullet, and welcome back the perm. Over the past year, the permanent wave – a hairstyle largely associated with the ’80s – had something of a renaissance. But this time it’s mainly men rocking the ringlets.
Thanks to K-Pop stars and male influencers, the stigma around men curling their hair or using perm solution has largely disappeared. Male perms have even made it onto the big screen, with Hollywood stars such as David Corenswet rocking a Broccoli Cut in Superman, one of the biggest films of the year.
Clean girl aesthetic goes up a notch
It was all about the “clean girl aesthetic” last year, but 2025 set this into overdrive. Hygiene has been big business, with whole-body deodorants taking over chemist shelves and TikTok feeds.
These spray, stick and cream formulas can be used anywhere to mask odours – yes, anywhere. Which is all well and good, but it ignores the fact that odours are a natural part of the human body, and therefore don’t necessarily need to be obsessively eradicated. There’s also the pesky detail that different areas of skin have varying requirements, meaning one product may not suit every part of the body.
A deodorant you can put absolutely anywhere? It sounds ideal, but could it be too good to be true?Credit: Getty Images
Face tape
Would you pay $104 to look like Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs? If the waiting list for Kim Kardashian’s “sculpt face wrap” was any indication, many would.
This year triggered an obsession around snatching the face – finding any means necessary to slow the sagging effects of gravity. This included Kim K’s Velcro face strap, face tape and even face yoga. Hello, 2005, “surgery style” appears to be back.
Visible face tape snatched more than faces this year – it snatched attention.Credit: Compiled by Matt Willis
Skinny brows
Julia Fox, Gabbriette, Bella Hadid, Doja Cat – they’ve all embraced the skinny brow, one of the year’s least expected comebacks. Popularised in the ’90s by Kate Moss, Pamela Anderson and the like, the ultra-thin, plucked brow was all over runways and Insta grids.
Similar to face tape, the idea behind plucking one’s brows to oblivion – or even shaving off the entire outer third portion – is to “snatch” (slim) the face.
Hair growth mania
The bob may be inching its way back, but the majority of the year was all about length. Celebrities including Demi Moore and Charli XCX helped to herald the return of the ultra-long look, inspiring a slew of TikTok videos about “hair growth journeys” featuring an array of expensive hair oils.
TikTok girlies also became fixated on their scalps. Video after video showed people getting their heads checked at South Korean scalp clinics, ending with a list of scalp serums and supplements to supposedly help their dome thrive.
Fragrance boom
Smell that? It’s all those designer fragrances teen boys are spritzing. This year saw hashtags such as #smellmaxxing and #scentmaxxing break into daily conversation, with scents from Armani Beauty and Maison Margiela becoming massive hits with the under 18s. In fact, teenage boys are among the fastest-growing cohort of consumers in the fragrance category.
If this means we can say goodbye to the suffocating smell of Lynx, it is a trend we can all get behind.
The rise (and rise) of the facelift
The plumpness and pout of our lips used to steal our focus. Now, however, it’s about the entire face.
More young women appear to be opting for invasive surgeries such as facelifts as opposed to simple injectables like filler or Botox, hoping to achieve a more “natural” youthful look. More than a third of Australians are considering plastic surgery in the next 10 years, and Millennials are the group expressing the most interest. It’s no longer about reversing the ageing process – it’s about preventing it entirely.
Tan lines galore
Despite health warnings, having a bronzed body is still top priority for many, but the evenness of said tan no longer matters. Visible tan lines have been everywhere in 2025, with influencers even posting tutorials on how to create lines without sunbathing (spoiler: it involves ruining a bikini with fake tan or plastering masking tape all over your body).
However, oncologists seriously warn against achieving tan lines in the sun, noting that Australia has the highest rates of melanoma in the world. No tan line is worth the risk of cancer.
Salmon sperm and beef tallow
Smearing beef fat on your body and injecting fish sperm into your face may sound foul, but they both had “SkinTok” in a chokehold this year.
Whether beef tallow (a thick fat) can cure conditions such as psoriasis and eczema is up for debate, and the effects of salmon sperm remain anecdotal. Yet celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Charli XCX have sworn on the latter and “clean beauty” TikTokers used beef tallow as if it were going out of fashion.
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Eyelash serums
As difficult as it can be to grow out your hair, it’s even harder to grow out your lashes. Enter eyelash serums.
According to “BeautyTok”, these over-the-counter serums offer “miracle” results, making lashes both longer and thicker. As with most of the trends on this list, proceed with caution because Latisse – the only eyelash serum with a scientific study to back its claims of longer lashes – can cause dry and red eyes, and even permanently darken the iris. As for over-the-counter serums, there’s no evidence yet that they do anything to benefit lashes.
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