Tired Girl Makeup Trend Turns Sleepless Look into Style

Gen Z’s “Tired Girl” makeup flips beauty norms, trading bright-eyed polish for smudged eyes, pale skin, and a lived-in look that’s deliberate and striking.

In a beauty industry that’s spent decades selling us “wide awake,” Gen Z has decided to market something else entirely exhaustion. The “Tired Girl” makeup trend, now lighting up TikTok’s fashion feeds, deliberately mimics the look of too many late nights and not enough concealer. Think dark under-eye smudges, pale complexions, and lips with a muted, almost bruised tint. The aesthetic is part rebellion, part performance art: a rejection of the polished, algorithm-friendly perfection that’s dominated social media for years. Where makeup once worked overtime to erase signs of fatigue, this trend magnifies them into a high-impact statement. Everything is weird and great about genz.

At the center of the movement is Jenna Ortega, who’s practically made the look a signature through her portrayal of Wednesday Addams in Tim Burton’s Netflix hit. On the show and even on the red carpet Ortega’s makeup pulls from gothic minimalism and cinematic lighting theory. Artists use soft charcoal shadows under the eyes to create a subtle drop shadow effect, blending just enough to avoid a theatrical costume vibe. Skin prep is intentionally understated, skipping luminous primers for matte-finish foundations that flatten light reflection. The lips? A diffused stain in purple-gray tones, layered with a waxy balm to keep it from looking too staged. It’s makeup engineered to look like you didn’t engineer it.

Fashion historians will note that this isn’t Gen Z’s invention it’s an evolution. The 1990s grunge scene played with similar cues, but the tech-driven precision of modern cosmetics has allowed for finer control. On TikTok, tutorials break down the balance between “authentic” and “costume,” with content creators measuring smudge opacity in percentage terms and tweaking undertones to match different skin temperatures. There’s even cross-pollination with K-beauty’s “hangover makeup” trend, but here, the vibe leans more indie film heroine than Seoul street style. In a way, “Tired Girl” is as much about cultural mood as makeup it’s a physical rendering of burnout culture, aestheticized for a generation that’s learned to turn even exhaustion into a curated identity. Smart move!