The freckle factor

Who knew that freckles were going to become such a major beauty hype? Certainly not me, freckles are the bane of my life. Each morning I’d frantically apply copious amounts of make-up on to my face to hide, what I thought, was an ugly blemish…until now. Thanks to the Meghan Markle hype of portraying her natural ‘freckle’ beauty on the biggest day of her life, freckles have now become a major buzzword in our industry.

On Saturday May 19th, the nation witnessed a fairy-tale wedding held in the grounds of Windsor Castle. Not only did the dress (naturally) spark conversation, but so did her make-up. Markle looked effortlessly flawless, and what the press did pick up on was her freckles, which surprisingly were never really revealed before. Former make-up artist Lydia Sellers told the nation prior to the big day “I think Meghan will go with a classic, timeless look with natural, dewy-looking skin, with her freckles peeking through.” It was always a prediction that Markle would embrace her freckles, but we never would have thought the world would have gone so crazy for it.

Over the past 12 months ‘freckles’ as a search term has grown globally by 31% and ‘fake freckles’ by 72%. But now, thanks to Markle, the demand has surged 47% - and that was within 24 hours of the royal wedding. 

For those (in my view) lucky enough not to have freckles, the surge in ‘fake freckle’s has now become a major beauty trend. Thanks to the wonders of semi-permanent make-up brands have seen a demand in clients requesting to have freckles semi-permanently tattooed on to their face. 

“Freckles have been on-trend since last year and the general public are only now catching up,” says El Truchan, founder of microblading service Perfect Definition.

“It always starts in magazines, on the web, Instagram, catwalks and then migrates to everyone else. With summer coming up, a lot of people are looking for that already sun-kissed freckles splash across their face.”

However, the growing demand for freckles also reflects the increasingly diverse outlook towards beauty. The Western market in particular has decided to embrace freckles as another step of breaking the traditional beauty mould. 

“I think there is a huge movement for diversity, acceptance and embracing different features,” adds Knight.

“It’s wonderful that people in the public eye like Adwoa Aboah, Emma Watson and Alicia Keys are showing off their freckles.”

That said, if only freckles were transferable…

Emma Baron
Editor
@emmatheeditor