These TikTok beauty hacks will change your life

The viral beauty tricks you need to know about

tik tok beauty hacks

The viral beauty tricks you need to know about

Ah, TikTok. An endless source of joy, laughter and bewilderment.

Whether it's an American woman's terrible tea making skills driving the Great British public to the brink, or TikTok fashion trends fast taking hold of our wardrobes, there's no denying the impact the app has had on our lives over the past year.

And our beauty routines are just one more thing that have been taken over by TikTok.

Yep, for every comedy gem and adorable #PatienceChallenge vid, there's a stellar TikTok beauty hack worth knowing about. Even the most seasoned of beauty experts could learn a thing or two from Gen Z's ingenious beauty shortcuts – whether that's curling your hair with a pair of socks, or using a bobby pin to print your winged eyeliner on. (Game changer.)

Here are some of our all-time favourites. Trigger warning, they may make you think you've been doing beauty wrong all this time.

Apply your foundation on top of the rest of your makeup

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No, we're really not joking. According to some TikTokers, abandoning the fundamental meaning of 'foundation' and applying both setting powder and setting spray to your face before applying your foundation is the way to stop creasing, and give your make-up some serious staying power. Who knew?

Find your perfect shade match by dotting colour all over your face

Apparently, the secret to finding your best foundation shade is just dotting primary colours all over your face and blending them in. Decorate your face with white, red, yellow and blue dots, blend them together and voilà: meet your dream second skin foundation.

Use the end of a bobby pin to get pretty polka-dot nails

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It's as easy as it looks. Just dip the end of your bobby pin into your nail polish, shake off any excess, and carefully dab onto your base coat.

... Or colour a bobby pin in for the perfect winged liner

Who knew that mastering the art of winged eyeliner was easy as colouring in a bobby pin and just stamping it to the outer corners of your eyelid? Surely that doesn't work, you say. It absolutely does, say the TikTokers. Simply colour in the two prongs at the end of your bobby pin, and stamp it to where you want the wing of your eyeliner to go. Once you have the perfect outline of your wing, simply colour in the rest. Ingenious.

Turn your old sweet wrappers into the metallic manicure of dreams

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Or chewing gum wrappers, or anything you have lying around that's paper on one side, metallic foil on the other. Just peel the paper and foil layers apart, place the foil silver-side down onto your nail, and scrape it onto the surface. Then, fold the edges and trim the excess paper.

Mind blown.

Kate McCusker

Kate McCusker is a freelance writer at Marie Claire UK, having joined the team in 2019. She studied fashion journalism at Central Saint Martins, and her byline has also appeared in Dezeen, British Vogue, The Times and woman&home. In no particular order, her big loves are: design, good fiction, bad reality shows and the risible interiors of celebrity houses.