Trending: Clean Grunge
Clean Grunge
Tightlined eyes, soft-smudged edges, tufted lashes, and oxblood lips on luminous skin. Undertone-smart. Camera-ready. Built for IRL.
This fall, the face has a name: Clean Grunge. You’ll see it from the pitch room to the afters, waterlines tightlined, a soft blur hugging the lower lashes, and a near-black cherry lip that looks rich without swallowing the face. The skin stays moisturized (not greasy), so the mood sits on top of care. That balance is the point: polished at the center, grit at the edges.
Why now? Because the moment wants contrast that behaves. We’re bored with beige. Clean Grunge gives glow and a little smoke, controlled, not chaotic, so it survives a full day and still hits under a phone flash at 9:47 p.m. You’ve already clocked the references: inner-corner khôl that deepens the gaze (Dior), waterline liner with a diffused lid haze (Rabanne), a vinyl oxblood that feels luxury, not cosplay (Tom Ford), and lashes tufted into clean little exclamation points (Chloé). Different houses, same message: detail where it counts; restraint.
The ’90s alt memory bank that taught fashion to enjoy a little darkness, and you get today’s face: depth without dust, smoke without soot, meant for the commute, the call, and the nightcap everywhere else.
How to wear it:
Tighten the upper rim. Trace the lower waterline. Breathe a soft haze of liner just past the outer corner and melt the edge with a fingertip and the tiniest tap of balm.
Go easy on lower-lash mascara so the shadow can speak. Build lashes into tidy tufts—apply, comb, apply, comb—so they punctuate without crunch.
Night mouth: lacquered oxblood. Day mouth: the same shade pressed in and blurred over chocolate liner.
Base stays hydrated, not slippery. Five minutes in a decent mirror, then outside where life happens.
You’ll spot the polished grit first, where the cool girls pressure-test product in real time, dinners, packed rooms with too much rock and just enough country.
Shopping list, not a 40-step cart: a waterline-safe pencil that actually sets, a mascara that spikes without crumbs, and an oxblood with a brown spine that stays lush on deep skin.