15 New Beauty Jargon Words You Need to Know About

Do you know the difference between strobing and contouring? Can you tell a cut crease from a garage door? And what does dupe stand for? Well now you’re set to know it all, as online hair and beauty retailer Hairtrade.com has compiled a handy beauty jargon buster, to explain what all those phrases actually mean. With new trends and beauty secrets appearing every few weeks it can be near impossible to understand what all these new words mean.

1. Strobing

Strobing is basically another word for highlighting. It’s adding light reflecting makeup to parts of your face to create a dewy finish. Apply this kind of makeup to the top of cheekbones, under the eyebrows, along the bridge of your nose and the Cupid’s bow.

2. Cut Crease

A cut crease is achieved by adding a line of a dark eye shadow just above your eyelid crease, to define the eye. This is then blended out and softened with other shadow shades.

3. Multi-Mask

This is using multiple facemasks at once, but on different areas of your skin. This could be done by using a clay mask on the oily areas versus a hydrating one on the dryer areas.

4. Dupe

Dupe is a shortened word for duplicate, and is basically used to describe a beauty product that is similar to an expensive product, but cheaper in price. Remember though – dupes are not the same as rip-off/fake products.

5. Baking

This technique is achieved by layering translucent powder over your foundation and concealer for few minutes. This allows the heat from your skin to ‘melt’ the powder into the face, before you dust it off. It achieves a completely flawless finish, and is a technique that’s well loved by the drag queen community.

6. Garage Doors

This is an eye make-up look is achieved by wearing a single shade of eye shadow all over your eye. This was a popular look in the 80’s, but beauty gurus have been mimicking the trend a lot recently.

7. Ring Lights

Ring lights are simply a light that’s in the shape of a ring. Beauty vloggers absolutely love using these, as they cast a flattering glow of light onto your face, which make your selfies look flawless.

8. Hitting Pan

Beauty vloggers usually refer to reaching the bottom of your make-up palette as ‘hitting pan’. Usually you only hit pan when you love a product a lot, so this is a good thing – although not a good thing for your bank balance.

9. BB and CC Cream

BB cream is lighter than foundation and provides coverage with added benefits like SPF and anti-oxidants. BB creams usually contain SPF, moisturiser, primer, serum and foundation.

CC cream stands for ‘colour corrector’ and has a bit more coverage and SPF than a BB cream. It’s generally used to help redness and sallowness in the skin.

10. Haul

This is basically doing a show and tell of your new or favourite beauty products. Beauty vloggers usually do these after they’ve splurged on some new products and they want to tell their viewers about them.

11. Holy grail (HG)

Referring to something as your ‘holy grail’ make-up product, or HG, means that it’s essential to your beauty regime and you can’t live without it.

12. Tightline and Waterline

The waterline is your lower lash line (the bit of skin between your eyes and your eyelashes) and this is where you usually apply kohl liner. Tightlining is when you apply kohl liner to both your lower and upper lash lines.

13. Nontouring

A new favourite with Kim Kardashian – this technique is a softer version of contouring, and focuses on finding the light through strobing techniques instead of dark powder. Say goodbye to your contour kit because this trend is set to be big this year.

14. Bleed

A ‘bleed’ happens when your lipstick smudges onto the outside of your lips. By using a good lip liner before applying lipstick, you can stop this from happening.

15. Swatch

Testing out makeup shades on your skin (usually on your arm) is referred to as a ‘swatch’. This is a way beauty gurus can show the pigment and colour of the product without having to apply it to the face.

Alicia Joy