70s Disco, 90s Grunge, and Y2K Makeup: How to Get Each Decade Right

The defining move is a warm, high-shine copper or terracotta eye with the shimmer concentrated on the lid — not scattered across the whole face — paired with a glossy, monochromatic warm lip so the whole look reads as one deliberate warm-toned family rather than several unrelated bright colors. Gilded Bronze Glam in the library builds this exact structure: a matte terracotta crease for depth, a metallic copper lid for shine, and a glossy terracotta lip to keep the mouth in the same warm family as the eye.

Where this goes wrong is treating "70s" as an excuse to add shimmer to every feature at once — cheeks, lids, and lips all competing for shine reads as disco-costume rather than disco-glam. Keeping the blush satin rather than glittery, and letting the eye carry most of the metallic weight, is what separates the two.

90s grunge is built on desaturation, not darkness — a matte olive or khaki eyeshadow blended past the crease, smudged along the lower lash line rather than precisely lined, paired with an overlined brown-lip-liner-and-matte-lipstick combination that was the era's signature. 90s Olive Grunge in the library follows this structure closely: matte olive on the lid, kohl tightlined and smudged into the lash roots for that unfinished edge, and a cool-toned brown lip liner slightly overlined before filling with a matte beige-brown.

The "grunge" part of grunge makeup is specifically the smudged, not-quite-precise edges — a perfectly clean olive smokey eye with a crisp lip line reads as a normal smokey eye, not a 90s reference. Under-blending on purpose, within reason, is part of the technique here, not a mistake to fix.

Y2K makeup runs cool and high-shine in the opposite direction from both 70s and 90s — icy blue or silver on the lid, a duochrome or iridescent highlighter swept heavily across the cheekbones and brow bone, and a glossy, barely-there lip so the eye and cheek stay the focus. Y2K Frosty Icy Glam in the library leads with a metallic icy-blue lid, holographic glitter placed in a floating arc along the crease, and a heavy cool-toned duochrome highlighter — with the lip kept to a neutral glossy finish rather than competing for attention.

Warmth is the enemy of a convincing Y2K look — a warm gold highlighter or a warm-toned lip color pulls the whole face toward 70s territory instead. Staying deliberately cool-toned across every product, not just the eyeshadow, is what keeps it reading as Y2K specifically.

Decade-inspired makeup tends to be bolder than most people's daily routine, which makes it one of the categories most worth previewing before actually applying product. Pick Gilded Bronze Glam, 90s Olive Grunge, or Y2K Frosty Icy Glam from the library, or upload a screenshot of a specific decade look you found on Pinterest or TikTok, and see it rendered on your own photo first.

Every result comes with a step-by-step tutorial and the product categories and shades used. First three tries are free, no signup required.