9 Fun Songs About Beauty That Are Still On Our Playlists Today

According to a 2021 study of Billboard journal rankings by the Open University of Catalonia, a whopping 75% of the most important hit songs between 1946 and 2016 had been about romantic love. The similar research additionally discovered that 14 out of 15 of the preferred songs are about how love can flip into heartache. Although love and romantic despair could also be the most typical themes in music, there are actually different matters that songwriters have coated, together with magnificence.

While writing a complete track about lipstick or a manicure could not have you ever sobbing on the ground like a love ballad, these themes could be empowering — particularly should you’re preparing for an evening out. “The best part of going out is getting ready,” superstar make-up artist Lisa Eldridge instructed Byrdie in February 2025. “There’s something primal about it — painting our faces for protection is primeval — you can trace it back for thousands of years. It’s a ritual to psychologically prepare ourselves… I’ll let the mood lead my music selections, influencing my beauty choices. How the look ultimately ends up is all part of the unpredictable and creative fun.”

It goes with out saying that music can have a serious affect on us. From child names impressed by iconic track titles to lyrics that get us fired up in regards to the excellent colour lipstick, music’s energy has no bounds. Because of this, listed below are enjoyable songs about magnificence which are nonetheless on our playlists right this moment.

In 2000, No Doubt launched their fourth studio album, “Return to Saturn,” and one of many tracks was “Magic’s in the Makeup.” In the track, Gwen Stefani sings in regards to the distinction between the particular person she is in make-up and questions who she is with out it: “Magic’s in the makeup/But I wanna be the real thing/Mmm, mmm/My makeup’s all off/Who am I?” During the early 2000s, Stefani wore way more make-up than she does right this moment, and the best way she mixed-and-matched assertion seems to be — just like the always-a-good-idea pink lipstick with equally as distinguished facial bedazzling — may very well be excessive.

When Willow Smith’s “Whip My Hair” debuted in 2010, Smith was just some days shy of turning 10. In the track, Smith sings about shaking off haters by whipping her hair: “Hop up out the bed, turn my swag on/Pay no attention to them haters because we whip ’em off/And we ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong, so don’t tell me nothin’/I’m just trying to have fun, so keep the party jumpin’.” Willow Smith has had a surprising type transformation, and although she briefly regretted the track that made her so well-known, she finally got here again round to loving it and the message it despatched.

Not solely is 2007’s “Lip Gloss” by Lil Mama an ode to rocking a popping lip gloss, nevertheless it was additionally Lil Mama’s debut single, placing the younger hip-hop artist on the map. Lil Mama was simply 18 when she sang the track about how her lip gloss was driving the highschool boys wild: “They say my lip gloss is cool, my lip gloss be poppin’/I’m standin’ at my locker, and all the boys keep stoppin’.” And when you discover ways to make your lip gloss last more, there’s nothing to cease you from attaining invincible standing.

While ladies are likely to nook the market with songs about magnificence merchandise, Prince, who by no means shied away from a daring eye and lip gloss, had his personal beauty-related track too. Aptly known as “Make-Up,” the track initially appeared on the one album by the band Vanity 6, which was launched in 1982. In 2019, Prince’s posthumous “Originals” album got here out with him singing the track that he’d initially written: “Blush, eyeliner… Make-up/Make-up/Pink, blue/Purple, I wanna make it good for you.” Leave it to Prince to say purple make-up, one of many boldest colours of the second.

Just three brief years after Lady Gaga’s trend icon second together with her meat costume, she launched her third studio album, “Artpop.” Although the 2013 album did not fairly have the gross sales that her two earlier albums did, the report did embrace a track known as “Manicure” in regards to the upside of getting a manicure and, after all, being man-cured: “I’m gon’ be manicured, you wanna be man cured/Ma-ma-ma-manicure, she wanna be man cured/Salon’s enough for her not to feel so insecure/Ma-ma-ma-manicure, she wanna be take care’n of.” Gaga could also be on to one thing right here — based on a 2023 study revealed in Frontiers in Psychology, manicures actually are nice on your psychological well being.

Dolly Parton has all the time been candid concerning what about her is pretend and what is not. Because of this, it comes as no shock that Dolly Parton, whose songs have impressed child names, would write lyrics about pretend eyelashes: “A pair of false eyelashes and a tube of cheap lipstick/A pair of worn out high heel shoes and a dress that doesn’t fit/These are all of my possessions, all I have to my name/And a record played in my hometown is my only claim to fame.” Off 1968’s “Just Because I’m a Woman,” the track is in regards to the complexities of early fame.

If you want inspiration for the ’80’s make-up traits which are making a comeback, you actually needn’t look a lot additional than Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Not solely was Sioux recognized to rock main cutting-edge make-up on the time, however she additionally wrote the 1978 track, “Make Up to Break Up”: “Now to paint by number/Over the cavernous pit/Lots of glossy red/To hide my pale cracked lips/Hide my pale cracked lips/Make up to break up.” After all, you need to look your finest whenever you’re saying adieu to a associate.

Before diving into singing in regards to the optimistic results of getting a manicure, Lady Gaga coated one other necessary beauty-related matter: hair. From “Born This Way,” her second studio album, “Hair” is about combating your mother and father to retain your private type and identification: “I just wanna be myself, and I want you to love me for who I am/I just wanna be myself, and I want you to know/I am my hair.” Just like make-up, how we select to put on our hair is an act of self-expression and says a lot about who we’re at any given second.

In 1994, REM launched their album “Monster.” Not solely was it a moodier tackle the alt-rock band’s regular sound, counting on distorted noises and darker lyrics, nevertheless it additionally launched the world to the track “Crush with Eyeliner,” about having a crush on somebody who’s a “sad tomato,” however by no means goes anyplace with out her eyeliner: “I am smitten/I’m the real thing (I’m the real thing)/Have you seen her come around?/My crush with eyeliner.” In 2004’s “Reveal: The Story of REM,” lead singer Michael Stipe mentioned the track was impressed by The New York Dolls, who all the time carried out in full make-up.