The Best And Worst Makeup Challenges To Hit YouTube

More than a decade ago, if you were to ask your average 20-something how they learned to do their makeup, chances are they'd tell you they picked it up from watching their mom when they were young, from experimenting with the worst drug store brands out there, or from trying to recreate looks that they'd seen in magazines. Makeup today is completely different. High end brands have become more readily available — and more financially approachable — as retail chains like Sephora and Ulta have expanded since their opening days.

Access to makeup tutorials has changed, too. Since YouTube launched in 2005, it's transformed into a haven for makeup gurus and novices alike. Pros like Kat Von D and Nikkie de Jager post how-tos to audiences in the millions. Even YouTube old schoolers like Jenna Marbles aren't immune to the draw of a good beauty vid. Over the last few years, makeup vloggers have upped their game with challenges. Some are out of the box and incredible to watch. Others... not so much. Here's every YouTube makeup challenge worth watching (and every one you should definitely skip).

The 100 Layers challenge was actually inspired by a weird nail art trend dubbed "bubble nails," that hit Instagram hard in 2015. Basically, the original idea (which, according to Nails Magazine, has been around since at least 2009) was to layer acrylic in a way that rounds out the nails. Where it evolved into something else — and inevitably went completely off the rails — was when Simply Nailogical posted the first #PolishMountain video in mid-2016, which consisted of painting on 100 layers of nail polish.

YouTubers rolled with it, for better or worse. The challenge evolved into 100 layers of foundation, 100 layers of liquid lipstick, and, for some, 100 layers of everything. While watching Jenna Marbles coat her skin with 100 layers of self tanner alongside the 100 layers of foundation she put on her face and the 100 layers of false eyelashes she glued to her lids held a certain amount of entertainment value, mostly it was just kind of scary. And the thought of trying to wash all of that off? We'll pass.

The Full Face Using Only... challenges have been around on YouTube for a few years. Videos like Full Face Using Only Liquid Lipsticks (inspired in part by Kat Von D's One Product Only challenge) or Full Face Using Only Food began popping up in 2016. Some are certainly better than others, but some have left us wondering if beauty vloggers have just completely run out of ideas. 

Take the Full Face Using Only Art Supplies, which originator Tiffany Ma said was "the best video idea ever." It involves putting only things purchased from the local arts and crafts store on one's face. In Ma's case, she got her cache of supplies from Michael's and put together an entire look by blending different colors of face paint, sidewalk chalk, glitter, and Crayola poster markers. The finished product looks just as bad as you'd imagine, but it has the added bonus of being completely terrible for your skin.

While we aren't exactly sure when, why or how tiny hands became the phenomenon it did, we can probably narrow it down to sometime around the early 2010s and Kristen Wiig's portrayal of Dooneese on Saturday Night Live. Since then, YouTubers have been creating tiny hands videos for all manner of everyday tasks, like playing games or finger painting. So it was really only a matter of time before beauty vloggers took the challenge a step further and decided to do their makeup using only tiny hands.

At the beginning of 2017, Alyx Weiss posted the video Drunk Tiny Hands Makeup Tutorial. Since then, Tiny Hands Makeup videos have managed to crop up in YouTube feeds periodically, with some well-known beauty talent hopping on the bandwagon. Early in 2019, Manny Gutierrez posted his own version of the challenge to his channel, which, at the time of publication, had been viewed nearly 500,000 times. While it's good for a few laughs, the challenge isn't worth much more in terms of longevity or watchability.

Doing a makeup challenge that attempts to recreate an iconic look is one thing. Doing a makeup challenge that attempts to recreate one of the creepiest mis-proportioned dolls to ever hit the market is quite another. In 2017, Promise Phan introduced YouTube to the Bratz Doll Makeup Transformation. In her description of the video, she said she took inspiration from Instagram user missgaymatte, whose entire feed is littered with looks pulled straight from the MGA Entertainment lineup.

The talent required to complete this challenge is certainly undeniable. At the same time, though, the end result is that you look like a Bratz doll. As impressive as the talent required to do this is, it isn't something the average YouTube subscriber could do on their own. And the fan base for a Bratz doll transformation isn't as wide-reaching as many of the other challenges out there. Bottom line: it's impressive from a skills-perspective, but it winds up looking more creepy than anything else.

As makeup challenges have become more common on YouTube over the last several years, the push to make them harder and more extreme has become evident. Hence, the Underwater Makeup challenge, which began with Cloe Breena in June 2018. Breena's channel has a playlist dedicated to Extreme Makeup Challenges, as well as two separate underwater playlists, so it probably shouldn't be all that surprising that she would make the choice to try and combine the two into a single, really awful, impossible challenge. 

Aside from just trying to deal with the logistics of keeping your eyes open underwater and holding your breath long enough to (hopefully) apply some bronzer, there's the fact that doing this challenge quite literally will destroy every piece of makeup you use. While there are lots of silly challenges that are equally pointless, at least some of them have solid entertainment value. This is one of those challenges that unfortunately falls short — it just lacks the laugh value needed to offset how bad it is overall.

Drunk makeup tutorials are nothing new to YouTube. A quick search will take you down a rabbit hole of various videos all based on the premise of drunkenness stretching back at least to 2012, and new videos are uploaded all the time, with slightly different variations or mashups — blackout drunk and drunk boyfriend are both clickable titles. So how does one top the Drunk Makeup challenge? If you're Lanie Edwards, you mash up two challenges in one video: one drunk, and one high.

The Drunk vs. High Makeup challenge plays out exactly how you'd imagine it would: it's the same makeup look, done pretty much the same way, only half of the commentary is unbearable. No one wants to babysit a drunk friend, especially if they've had to do it a hundred times before. Because the Drunk Makeup challenge has been around for so many years, and done so many times, any new version of it just plays out as more of a bad reboot than an original spin. 

The Clown Contouring challenge almost made it as one of our best picks because its creator, YouTuber BellaDeLune, intended for it to be completely lighthearted. The viral concept initially started as a 15-second video that she posted to her Instagram in 2015. She explained in her YouTube video that she did this to "send a message. Even though you don't need this amount of makeup — or any makeup at all — to feel or look beautiful, let's face it, makeup is fun and it's a way of expressing yourself." She continued to say that she's been called a "clown" and been hated on for the way she uses makeup as an art form.

Clown Contouring took off, and within a few months, everyone from Bunny Meyer to Alex and Mike from Good Mythical Morning had tried their hand at painting their faces in a ridiculous pattern to contour like a pro. Even traditional media outlets like Teen Vogue started covering it. The challenge — like the look itself — became something of a caricature. It seemed as though everyone on YouTube wanted to do it, but only in a click-bait, spammy sort of way — a far cry from the original message.