The Beauty ‘Rules’ Holding You Back Aren’t Real, According to ‘She’s So Lucky’

If you’ve ever talked yourself out of a beauty trend in under three seconds, congratulations, you’ve been accidentally obeying rules no one remembers agreeing to. So many of us grew up hearing that certain looks were basically off-limits. Now it’s 2025 and those rules are still living rent-free while we wear the same neutral palette like it’s part of our personality.

On She’s So Lucky, host Les Alfred sits with creator Darcei Giles to unpack why those rules stick and how trying things outside your lane can actually unlock your signature look. Whether you’re bored with your routine or low-key craving a full vibe shift, this convo is your permission to go for it.

The Beauty ‘Rules’ Holding You Back Aren’t Real

The ‘rules’ are made up

“I feel like a lot of Black women have that experience of growing up where they think that certain colors aren’t for them,” Giles says. “Like, ‘Oh, this red lipstick’s not for you. This pink blush is not for you or this eyeshadow is going to be too ashy,’ or something like that. And then that kind of creates this environment where you don’t even try.”

Most of us hear some version of that before we even know what concealer is. One offhand comment becomes a rule. A rule becomes a whole identity. And suddenly you’re dodging pinks, reds, shimmers, anything “risky,” because someone once told you it wasn’t meant for you. After a while it stops feeling like a rule and starts feeling like reality.

That’s exactly why Giles launched Black Girl Tries. She noticed people recreating makeup looks from creators who looked just like them, so she flipped the trend. “What would happen if I tried the makeup tutorial of someone who didn’t look anything like me?” she recalls thinking. “I thought it would be a funny video if I tried following a Korean makeup tutorial.”

It was funny, but something else happened, too. “At the end, every time I did it, I discovered that I’m like, ‘Oh, I kind of like this eyeshadow.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, this lipstick actually kind of worked on me.'” The rules she’d internalized? Made up. And the only way she found out was by breaking them.

The worst that can happen is you wash it off

There’s real intimidation around trying something new with your look. What if it’s wrong? What if people judge you? And what if you look ridiculous? The mental barrier can feel massive, but the real-world stakes are genuinely low.

“I think the great thing about beauty is it can be really playful and experimental,” Alfred points out. “But sometimes there is that intimidation factor when it comes to trying something new or maybe going against some sort of beauty rule or guideline that we’ve heard when really at the end of the day the worst thing that can happen is you don’t like it and you wash it off.”

That’s it. Soap, water, done.

“Sometimes we need permission to even try that,” Alfred adds. And she’s right. Most of the time, the trend isn’t the scary part. The narrative in your head is. We convince ourselves we’re “not the type of person” who can wear a dark lip or graphic liner or anything with a little attitude.  

Giles pushes herself to experiment constantly. One of her favorite moments from the series was trying goth makeup—the complete opposite of her “pink princess” aesthetic. “Typically you don’t see a lot of Black women that are goths,” she explains, “but I actually did have a friend who was, and so I used her as inspiration in the video.”

The result surprised her. “That one was the most fun for me…and I looked really good at the end,” Giles says. “It’s like I became a different person.” 

When you experiment, you discover

The Black Girl Tries series didn’t just shift Giles’s relationship with beauty, it sparked something bigger. “It became a series that people loved because not only was it trying something different, but at the end, you also would discover something,” she says. “And I started to get messages from other Black girls saying like, ‘Oh, I was too afraid to try this makeup style until I saw you trying it.’ I couldn’t believe I had created this community of other Black women who were interested in the same things as I was.”

That’s the ripple effect. One person breaks a rule, suddenly everyone else realizes the rule wasn’t real to begin with. For Giles, the biggest surprise was uncovering her signature look…by doing the exact opposite of what she thought she was “supposed” to do. “I’m a pink princess, but I was not always like that,” she explains. “So through the Black Girl Tries series, I actually discovered how much I love pink and I wear pink lipstick and I wear pink eyeshadow. I like pink everything and I feel like I wouldn’t even have touched those colors before.”

She found her thing by trying the “wrong” things—and that’s the whole point. Beauty is supposed to feel like exploration. It’s supposed to feel like play. The only way to figure out what you genuinely love, not what you were coached into loving, is to experiment. So try the trend. Swatch the color. Follow the tutorial that looks nothing like your face. Worst case, you wash it off. Best case, you find the version of you that’s been waiting to show up.

For more insights, tune into She’s So Lucky wherever you get your podcasts.

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