If your For You page has turned into a moodboard of blue-black smoky eyes, matte black lips and gloriously backcombed hair this week, you're not imagining it 🦇 Trad goth, the proper, 90s-rooted, Siouxsie-and-the-Banshees kind of goth, is having a full-blown resurgence across TikTok and Instagram right now, and even the red carpets have caught the bug (goth glam took over the Grammys earlier this year). Unlike some of goth's softer, glossier cousins we've covered lately, trad goth is unapologetically dramatic: pale skin, sculpted blue-black eyes and a lip so dark it borders on black magic. Here's how to get the look, vegan and cruelty-free from base to lip.
Step 1: Prep the canvas
Trad goth lives or dies on a flawless, pale-but-never-flat base. Start with a thin layer of our Vitamin Rich Miracle Moisturiser & Primer to smooth and hydrate skin. You want it dewy underneath, matte on top. Colour-correct and even things out with our Second Skin Concealer (24 shades, so there's a match whatever your undertone), building coverage only where you need it. The goal is porcelain, not powdery.
Step 2: Build the smoky eye
This is where the drama happens. Sweep our Heavy Metal Liquid Eyeshadow in Black Rain (created with The Osbournes, with love, in honour of the man who basically wrote goth's soundtrack 🎤) across the lid, then use our Ethereal PRO Brush Set to blend it up and out into a smudged, blue-black halo. Don't be neat about it. Trad goth eyes are meant to look a little dangerous.
Step 3: Line and smudge
Reach for the Smoulder Eyeliner Pencil in Black to smudge a soft, smoky underline, then switch to the ultra-fine Infinity Eyeliner Pen to sharpen a precise wing on top. The contrast between smudged-below and sharp-above is exactly what makes trad goth eyes read as “undone but intentional.”
Step 4: Add the bruise
A flush of our Second Skin Powder Blush in Dusty Rose, swept high on the cheekbone, gives that just-stepped-out-of-a-moody-Victorian-photograph glow, without tipping into anything too sweet.
Step 5: The lip (the whole point)
Line lips generously (very slightly overdrawn is on theme) with our Eternal Lip Liner in Noir, then fill in completely with our Air Matte Liquid Lipstick in Demise, our pitch-black liquid lipstick. Blot and reapply for full, unapologetic opacity. This is the step trad goth lives and dies by, so don't rush it.
Wear it well
Whether you're wearing this to a gig, a Whitby weekend away, or just your Tuesday commute, remember: every single product in this look, like everything at Jolie Beauty, is 100% vegan and cruelty-free 🖤 Tag us in your trad goth transformation, we absolutely live for it.
