Nancy Mace Looks So Different In Short-Haired Photos From The 90s

It's no secret that many female politicians aligned with Donald Trump look very different from their younger days. The rise of so-called "Mar-a-Lago face" plays a huge role in these transformations, but some female Trumpers also look different because of their age and simple changes in their style and beauty routine. South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace is one MAGA lady whose hair and makeup played a role in her drastic transformation between her college days and her time in Congress.

30 years ago today The Citadel began allowing women to enroll as cadets.

Thank you to The Citadel for being the iron that sharpened me. pic.twitter.com/aRjDc2xR3d

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) June 28, 2025

In June 2025, Mace shared a photo of her younger self at The Citadel Military College of South Carolina on X and wrote, "30 years ago today The Citadel began allowing women to enroll as cadets. Thank you to The Citadel for being the iron that sharpened me." Her brown hair was lighter in her 20s than it is in her middle-aged years, and it was so much shorter that it curled right underneath her ear. Mace didn't use much makeup in college either, but she wore simple stud earrings for a feminine touch.

As a politician, Nancy Mace's life and looks are super different from her short-haired military college days, but her battle with self-acceptance at The Citadel occasionally lingered into her later years. While she's clearly happy about being a trailblazer for women at The Citadel Military College, she opened up to Politico about the struggles she faced as the one of the few women at school and the daughter of a commandant.

Being one of four women made Mace feel lonely and a target for bullying by alumni and women who didn't attend her school. As a commandant at the Citadel, Mace's father avoided showing her favoritism by ignoring her, but he finally hugged her during her graduation ceremony. "I don't take it for granted," Mace recalled, adding, "I do recognize and acknowledge that — yes, he does love me, he is proud of me, in that moment, 100 percent, yes ... but that doesn't mean that I feel value." She continued by saying that she never considered herself to be "good enough."

However, her past feeling of being insufficient didn't have a chokehold over every part of her future. Mace used her trauma from sexual misconduct as fuel to protect victims of sexual assault by introducing bills, such as the Stop Voyeurism Act and Sue Voyeurs Act. To promote her bills during a 2025 hearing for the House Oversight Committee, Mace said (via The Hill), "Freedom is not a theory. It is the right to breathe ... I speak not just as a lawmaker, but as a survivor." Unfortunately, she doesn't feel the same about the transgender community, regularly rallying against them with slurs and abuse.