“Glam Mermaid”

Do Romantic Ethereal Gamines (REGs) reveal a hidden makeup epidemic?

Yes!

Many REGs look like mermaids—sultry, mystical, and playful:

So REGs are awesome in makeup that’s simultaneously soft (Ethereal), bold (Gamine), and glam (Romantic).

The epidemic? Modern “bold and glam” eye makeup relies heavily on Dramatic—and doesn’t flatter REG at all:

When celebrities do bold glamour, it’s often like what we see here—some combo of long thick liner, heavy lashes, and intense eyeshadow.

But this is far from REG Kristen Stewart’s best look. The eye makeup feels flat and Dramatic compared to her soft and high-energy beauty.

The Makeup Gap?

It’s easy to use minimal makeup to create a lightweight eye look, and it’s easy to dunk your eyes in product to create an intense eye look. But how do you marry the two?

How do you create a look that emphasizes the eyes primarily in a soft, dreamy, glam, Ethereal Romantic way—while still adding some bold Gamine?

Like this:

The line between amazing and not-amazing makeup for REG is ultra-thin:

As seen here, deep smoky shadow is generally awesome for REG. But if it covered the entire lid, it could easily feel too flat and stark. Adding delicate, luminous shimmer on the inner corners and lid’s center is crucial for Ethereal
Dark tightlining and a purple-orange eyeshadow combo flatters Gamine, with deep Romantic hues—but if the colors felt too loud or obvious, they could overwhelm the sophisticated Romantic Ethereal vibe
And emphasizing the lashline with full lashes and blended liner is great—but if you’d done so with long, straight, thick winged liner, you’d add Dramatic

As seen above, it is possible to create simultaneously bold, soft, and fully REG makeup—it just requires a careful balance.

Wearable REG Makeup?

Dilemma: REG makeup can feel intense for everyday.

Solution: choose subtler colors and textures:

More wearable REG eyes.

I don’t think this makeup style is revolutionary. But I do think our modern conception of “eye emphasis” typically focuses more on graphic elements than soft ones.

REG Celebrity Makeup Inspo

When searching for celebrity REGs in harmonious makeup, I confronted the “makeup gap”:

It’s pretty easy to find REGs in subtle, delicate eye looks
It’s also pretty easy to find REGs in bold, graphic looks
It’s not as easy to find REGs in in-between looks: makeup that definitely isn’t minimal but also isn’t primarily harsh and graphic
- These “in-between” styles include glam, dreamy eye makeup comprised mostly of soft textures

Still, you can definitely find REG celebs in REG makeup—you may just have to hunt a little!

If you’re highly Romantic and Ethereal, you can lean toward the “soft” side of REG:

Kristen Stewart in subtly smoky and shimmery eyes

REGs with high amounts of Gamine can go heavier, but this feels pretty harmonious on Kristen (especially compared to the winged liner she sported above).

REG Yael Shelbia in glowy lids and sculpted creases

If you have a ton of Gamine, you can lean more toward the “graphic” side of REG:

Not exactly an easy-to-pull-off look, but REG Rihanna does it effortlessly.

Short chunky wings, all-around thick liner, and a daring lip color embody her very Gamine beauty.

If you have prominent Romantic, Ethereal, and Gamine, you can take soft-meets-bold inspo from Aishwarya Rai:

This has it all—shimmery lids, darker crease shadow, chunky Gamine all-around liner, ultra-long yet not blocky lashes.

The downside: this doesn’t scream wearable for everyday. But by choosing gentler colors and/or subtracting some of the eyeliner and mascara, you may be able to make it work.

The Makeup Epidemic?

So maybe it’s a tad dramatic to call all this an epidemic.

But I do think that REG and related blends can really struggle to find their best makeup, for the reasons discussed above and summarized here:

It can be tricky to combine soft and bold elements into a single eye look in a way that doesn’t feel overly soft or overly bold
REGs can handle bold makeup, but modern definitions of bold makeup typically incorporate graphic elements beyond Romantic and Ethereal—often severe Dramatic ones
- In contrast, it seems much rarer to see bold and glam eye looks composed entirely of soft textures (glow, shine, shimmer, smokiness, etc.)

And in a way, that makes perfect sense—graphic eye emphasis is, well, more empathic. So it shows up more easily on camera.

The camera could almost be dubbed the governor of modern beauty standards.

On the Red Carpet, celebrities’ faces have to compete with hundreds of flashbulbs. So there’s clear logic to choosing thick Dramatic liner over delicate Ethereal shimmer—the Dramatic style is a better competitor against the camera’s harsh flash.

But in real life, most of us don’t have to contemplate whether the tabloids will accurately capture our makeup. Instead, we can think about what truly flatters our beauty.

For REGs, that means textures that feel soft, sultry, smoky, shimmery, colorful, punchy, and emphatic, without adding Dramatic severity.

This may not be the most popular modern makeup style, but it’s the one that honors REGs’ hypnotic eyes.

See Pinterest for more Romantic Ethereal Gamine makeup inspiration.

Romantic Ethereal Gamine Fashion (and More Makeup!)

It wasn’t too hard to find photos of REG celebs in REG fashion.

But it also wasn’t too easy to find photos where the outfit, hair, and makeup were all onboard with the REG program:

Curvy strapless neckline with metallics and sheer overlay—gorgeous for Anne Hathaway’s Romantic and Ethereal.
Anne also sports tightlining and fairly linear-feeling eyeliner, flattering her Gamine. But overall, the makeup seems slightly flat compared to her dreamy beauty. This illustrates what we explored above: her eyes are outlined with graphic-feeling emphasis, but they lack Ethereal gentleness.

The hair also feels pretty severe and Dramatic. Anne Hathaway is already gorgeous here, but the styling would feel even more authentic if she brought the dreaminess from the dress into her eye look (or, to be fair, maybe up close it is there, but we can’t tell because of the photo/camera!)

Another REG celeb under the influence of Dramatic:

There’s a lot about this that works for REG Carly Chaikin—specifically, the dress appears nearly perfect for her style type, with a lot of sensual Romantic, sheer and flowing Ethereal, and playful Gamine polka dot and stripe detail (though there is a deep geometric neckline—it’s hard to avoid the pull of Dramatic!).

The hair and makeup also feel more severe than her overall soft beauty, though the graphic liner connects to her Gamine.

With Carly Chaikin’s chiseled bone structure, she can almost camouflage as a Dramatic.

But she looks more like herself in REG makeup, plus a very mermaid-inspired gown:

Sequins are iconically Ethereal Gamine, and the diffuse abstract print created here, plus extra-long “mermaid tail,” also embody Ethereal.
The makeup pairs Gamine bold short wings with Ethereal shimmer—see here for a closer look.

The sleek hair, while best for Dramatic, makes sense for the high neckline dress. And up close, Carly’s face is framed by Romantic Ethereal long diamond earrings. So while overall this still feels a tad severe for Carly’s beauty, she makes it work!

If you want to be mermaid in a wearable way, consider styles like Gamine crop tops and Ethereal maxi mermaid skirts. If these pieces are extremely fitted or have very curvy shapes, they can become Romantic Ethereal Gamine:

This is like a (much) more wearable version of Carly Chaikin’s halter mermaid gown.

If you’re an REG with more Romantic and Ethereal than Gamine, you’ll be breathtaking in goddess-inspired or Grecian-inspired fashion, like midi or maxi dresses with sexy necklines and narrow, flowy skirts.

And if you have a lot of Romantic and Gamine and a smaller amount of Ethereal, you can even dress like a Romantic Gamine Bratz Doll and add Ethereal in details.

Romantic Ethereal Gamine Celebrities

Celebrities I’ve typed via virtual draping as Romantic Ethereal Gamine are on Pinterest here and listed below:

Aishwarya Rai
Alexa Demie
Alexandra Daddario
Allison Harvard
Ana Beatriz Barros
Angela Sarafyan
Anne Hathaway
Carly Chaikin
Deepika Padukone
Diana Silvers
Ella Purnell
Emily Browning
Fiona Apple
Kat Dennings
Kristen Stewart
Lauren Miller
Lucille Ball
Lucy Hale
Michelle Trachtenberg
Mischa Barton
Mila Kunis
Penelope Cruz
Phoebe Tonkin
Rachel Weisz
Rihanna
Rila Fukushima
Sabah Koj
Tiffani Thiessen
Vanessa Williams
Victoria Beckham
Yael Shelbia

Romantic Ethereal Gamine Faces

Can Romantic Ethereal Gamines be recognized by their extra-large eyes?

Sometimes—but not always!

Style analysis would be much easier if we could declare things like, “Romantic Ethereal Gamines always have eyes that look like X and noses that look like Y and lips that look like Z.”

Unfortunately, those statements are far from the truth.

The reality is that people with the same style type can have very different-looking features in a literal sense. You could have sharp, small eyes and a tiny pointy nose and thin lips and end up having the same exact style type as a person with much larger or rounder versions of all those features.

With that giant disclaimer aside, many REG celebrities do seem to have especially large, expressive, alluring, and/or dreamy eyes.

REG Penelope Cruz (in graphic-feeling makeup—hard to get away from the Makeup Gap!—but with her notable Gamine, she pulls it off)

So having extra-large eyes can be a clue that you’re REG.

But of course, not all Romantic Ethereal Gamines possess this feature.

Regardless of eye size, REGs have standout faces: mesmerizing, mermaid-like, goddess-like.

But, despite all their distinctiveness:

Romantic Ethereal Gamines are Easily Mistyped!

Before analyzing REG Kristen Stewart, I strongly guessed she’d have Dramatic. Her bone structure easily passes for having literal and figurative Dramatic edge:

But through virtual draping and studying her in different photos, I realized that no matter how “edgy” or stereotypically Dramatic Kristen’s bone structure can appear, her best makeup really tends to be quite soft, blended, alluring, and dreamy, with some playful Gamine like a pop of color lip.

Kristen might often be styled in an edgy Dramatic way, but that doesn’t reflect her face’s vibe.

Confused for Dramatic

So Romantic Ethereal Gamine faces can figuratively and literally mimic Dramatic edginess.

And intriguingly, this seems true of REG fashion, too:

Kristen’s styling feels high-fashion and rather avant-grade here, which tends to be associated with Dramatic—but the outfit and makeup appear dreamy, alluring, and playful, perfectly fitting her essence blend.

Romantic Ethereal Gamine Subtypes

Romantic Ethereal Gamines can be divided into at least two subtypes.

The Dramatic-mimicking subtype. These Romantic Ethereal Gamines often have oval and sometimes long face shapes. This type would include REGs like Carly Chaikin, as we saw above, and also Kat Dennings and Lauren Miller.
The Ingenue-mimicking subtype. A second Romantic Ethereal Gamine subtype tends to have overall shorter or rounder faces—like Aishwarya Rai, Emily Browning, and Phoebe Tonkin:

With their short, curvy faces, this subtype is highly likely to be typed as Ingenue.

Either subtype of REG might be assumed to have Natural, too—sometimes yin essences plus Gamine can take on a blunt-edged, pseudo-Natural quality.

Are you a Romantic Ethereal Gamine?

Determining your essences can be difficult because there aren’t any definite facial features that characterize the blended types. Romantic Ethereal Gamines do commonly have large eyes, but other essence blends can also have very large eyes, and not all REGs have this feature.

So, how do you know if you’re an REG? The best method is virtual draping—actually testing which styles of fashion most flatter your face.

Similar to how it’s nearly impossible to tell a person’s color season until you see how their skin tone interacts with different colors, it’s extremely hard to tell what style essences a person has until you see how their facial features interact with different fashion.

Glam Mermaid

Romantic Ethereal Gamines are a fascinating type. They easily resemble other blends but can simultaneously have a very characteristic look—the surreal, breathtaking beauty of glamour meets dreaminess meets playfulness.

Romantic Ethereal Gamine