2025 In What Did They Do To Their Face!
Time to be a catty bitch!
Hello fashionistas! Put on your most ill-fitting red sheath dress and overline your eyebrows so they look like giant weird commas, because we’re getting ready to talk about the MAGA year in aesthetics. Why? Because I’m shallow and petty, that’s why.
I had assumed this would not be a very exciting year for MAGA aesthetics, what with our gal Kellyanne being MIA and all — and I was correct, because it largely was not — but it was certainly atrocious in its own way. Mind you, I’m not necessarily opposed to atrocious when it comes to fashion, as long as it is fun and interesting, but there’s nothing fun or interesting about what Republicans bring to the table.
MAGA face, I think we can all agree, is not the fun kind of atrocious!
Mar-a-lago Face!
Those smokey eyes. Those weird duck lips. The gallons upon gallons of filler and Botox — and all of it surrounded by cascading bayalaged barrel curls. The signature look of MAGA world is the facial equivalent of a Cybertruck — telling the world “I have enough money and power to not care about how I look as much as I want people to know that I am a complete asshole.” It’s a strange, uncanny valley version of attractiveness, like those people who spend insane amounts of money to look like Barbie or Ken, where they have all of the technical elements of what we consider to be good looks, but it just comes out all wrong because it’s just weird to try and put the tiny plastic face of a doll on the face of a human-sized person.
But it makes complete sense when you think about it. Republicans don’t like it when everyone isn’t the same. They’re het up about immigrants and changing culture and people not feeling the same way about the gender they were assigned at birth — so it only makes sense that they would eventually get to a weird “The Number 13 Looks Just Like You” or “Eye of the Beholder” Twilight Zone place where they all just have the one look to go around. No surprises, here! Of course, if I learned anything good from America’s Next Top Model (other than how to smize), it’s that real beauty is in the surprises, even if they have to drill a space in your teeth to achieve that. It’s the “something that’s a little off” that makes it high fashion and not just catalog.
Republican Women Are Just Hotter, They Insist
Despite its obvious strangeness, Mar-a-Lago face is the the face that caused thousands of Republicans to proudly spend the year obsessively proclaiming that “Republican women are just hotter!” the same way they spent 2016 claiming to be “punk rock” (while still, of course, whining about “blue haired feminists,” because it is very punk rock to get het up about weird hair colors).
They were particularly obsessed with the rumor that actress Sydney Sweeney was a Republican and the idea that she was dropping white supremacist dog whistles in an American Eagle ad.
“My advice to all the ladies, our side is better, and you get hotter, right?” Fox’s Katrina Campins screeched earlier this month. “All Republican women are hot! Tell me that’s not true.”
It’s not, but I’d say that if being “hot” is more important to you than human rights and common decency … you’ve actually been a Republican all along.
Here! Let Karoline Leavitt Show You How Not To Apply Makeup!
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As she’s apparently not afraid to be servicey, Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt published her makeup routine to Instagram this year. Here she employs time-honored techniques such as:
No moisturizer!
Wearing foundation that is a shade too dark and not blending down, so as to ensure that the face and neck are two entirely different colors!
Putting eyeshadow on, without primer, after applying foundation, so that if there is any fallout, it just clings to your face!
Applying concealer over the whole bottom of the eye instead of just at the corners, and then just kind of … smearing it off! With an eyeshadow brush!
Taking eyebrows that are perfectly fine and adding a fuckton of eyebrow mascara and combing them into the shape of commas!
Thick, thick lines of contour!
More eyebrow stuff!
Applying blush all the way down to the lips!
Smeary lip gloss with no liner!
It’s definitely a look.
But perhaps her best look this year was in the Vanity Fair profile, in which her glossy lips were on full display.
Most of us, were we to have filler scars all over our lips, would have opted for a matte that would have covered all of that up. Not Karoline! Nope! She also opted, once again, to forgo the lipliner and put orange blush all the way down to her lips and on her nose, the latter of which I imagine must be a … loyalty statement of some kind?
The Kristi Noem Of It All
Just to show that I’m not entirely biased, I will certainly admit that Kristi Noem’s somewhat excessive hair extensions are a vast improvement over her previous coiffure — if only because that hairstyle could have only been caused by an enormous beaver pelt in search of a manager to speak to (although I, too, would want to speak to someone if I walked out of a salon with this).
Far worse, however, is the way she wore the approximately 30 lbs of extensions to join ICE on their kidnapping spree — because there’s no product or injectable on earth that can make that less ugly.
I will tell you. I actually think she hates herself. Like, she has a naturally pretty face, but then she fucks it up with that first hairdo and then goes and fucks it up with all that plastic surgery and 18 layers of dry, crusty foundation. There has to be some kind of psychological weirdness behind all of that, though I might be projecting because I, myself, would feel terrible about myself if I were Kristi Noem. Because of how she is a bad person.
Can We Take A Moment To Acknowledge Rob Schneider?
I don’t think anyone has ever expected Rob Schneider to be dressed well, but the guy who made his bones on “makin’ copies” really outdid himself at Turning Point’s AmFest by sporting a velvet suit and a fedora that literally matched the stage’s decor, and not in a good way.
On the other end of the spectrum … Tulsi Gabbard just swimming in a hideous beige suit most recently seen on Heaven’s Gate leader Marshall Applewhite.
OK, But What Is With The Enormous Bow Sleeves?
I am, admittedly, a big fan of bows. I love a bow as a much as any twee-pop loving, ukulele-playing adult woman with bangs and many pairs of Mary Janes loves a bow. I mean, do you even know how cute I would be in this Valentino dress?
What I cannot comprehend, however, are the enormous bow sleeves favored by much of the MAGA crowd. Like what is this?
Pam Bondi, giant fucking bow sleeves:
Kimberly Guilfoyle, giant fucking bow sleeves:
Ivanka Trump, giant fucking bow sleeves:
Honestly it’s just weird.
Thing!
It’s hard to tell which is more strange: Trump’s mystery hand bruises or the choice to cover them up in this particular fashion — especially given how easy it is to find concealer that oxidizes to an orange that would match his usual tinge perfectly.
My entire occipital lobe just said "FUCK IT!" and walked out of my right ear.
Re Kristi Noem going around in really long hair while dressed for combat: there's a reason all neckties worn by uniform cops are clip-ons, namely, if you find yourself in a physical altercation, the last thing you want is some appendage around your neck or head that your opponent can use to pull you with and bash your face in.
Just saying the look is not convincing.