Mikayla Nogueira Is Here For TikTok’s Viral Beauty Trends Of 2022. Mostly.

Trends emerge, fade, and return with a vengeance faster than most people can keep track of. But when they do, one thing's for sure: Everyone's got an opinion. In Elite Daily's Style series IMHO, we'll serve you the details, along with some not-so-humble opinions, on the viral style trends lighting up the internet. Below, TikTok star and beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira shares her hot takes on the biggest beauty trends of 2022.

Mikayla Nogueira’s got major glow. Even over Zoom on a rainy afternoon, the way she can light up a room — or a laptop screen — is the first thing you notice. The second thing you notice is how much beauty knowledge Nogueira has swirling around in her head. At just 23 years old, she has an unparalleled trove of beauty trends, makeup techniques, and skin care tips filed alphabetically in her brain. Not only does she literally know it all, but she’s willing to share. It’s this warm, welcoming vibe that keeps Nogueira’s followers growing at an outstanding rate — she’s got 14 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, and that number gets higher every day after skyrocketing from zero to 2.8 million in just eight months.

Over the course of our Zoom chat, she speaks at length about how to achieve the latest viral beauty trend on TikTok, twists her laptop to show off her drawer full of rhinestones, and laughs about her love of the 2016 ultra-structured brow. She’s not only one of the biggest beauty influencers on the internet right now, she’s also the most thoughtful, open, and, IMHO, *authentic* personality in the makeup game right now.

Ahead, Nogueira gets candid about TikTok’s biggest beauty trends of 2022, from the ones she loves to the ones she won’t be recreating any time soon.

Fluffy Brows

While Nogueira can create a fluffy brow, she’d prefer not to wear one herself. “I've done a lot of tutorials on how to do a fluffy brow, and every single time I do one in a video, the comments section will be all about brows,” she says. “But I personally do not like the fluffy brows on myself. I'm still stuck in the 2016 brow trend,” which in Nogueira’s case means “really, really pigmented.”

Rhinestone-Studded Looks

Nogueira is fully on board with rhinestones. “I get them from Amazon. I just type in gems or rhinestones, and I'm able to essentially buy everything imaginable,” she says. As for the source of the trend, Nogueira and the rest of the world are in agreement: “Gems and rhinestones have always been a thing in makeup, but I think Euphoria really just punched a hole in the wall.”

In terms of how to wear them, Nogueira likes leading with creativity. “You can do so many different things with gems, whether it be the color of gem you use, the type of gem, the shape, the size,” she says. “It's just really fun and creative, and I love to see people getting out of the box.” The MUA’s favorite adhesive: DUO Striplash glue ($4, Amazon).

All-Over Eyeshadow

All-over eyeshadow is a lot of look; one that pushes Nogueira a bit out of her comfort zone. “I would totally do it, but it's a lot more challenging than one might think because anyone can sloppily place eyeshadow all over the place,” she says. The magic, according to Nogueira, is “the way that people are able to lay it down, diffuse it out, blend it, and buff it so that it smoothly diffuses throughout the eyes and onto the forehead or under-eyes or whatever.”

The sky is truly the limit with this trend, which does extend all over the face from the eyes to the nose to the forehead. It’s not a look you can throw together in 10 minutes while you wait for your Uber to whisk you off to a dinner with friends. “I think it's edgy. I think it's very editorial, but it actually takes quite a bit of time to learn how to do,” says Nogueira.

Bright Blush

When it comes to blush, Nogueira has zero doubts. “I'm a big blush person. I have a whole drawer right next to me that's all blush,” she admits. “What I will say is 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, I'd say, were the years of no blush, right? Blush was canceled.” Thankfully, blush is back in a major way, thanks to — at least in part — social media.

“I do credit TikTok to blush blowing up, like in cream blush, liquid, powder, stick blush, everything you can imagine is blowing up on TikTok,” she says. The trend that particularly played a role in the rise of blush? That bright, blushy under-eye look you’ve been seeing everywhere. “It started when people didn’t have pink color corrector, so they were like, let me just put a pink liquid blush under my eyes,” she says. “And then it turned into this whole thing where people are putting whatever they have that's pink underneath their eyes and I think it's really interesting.”

Floating Graphic Eyeliner

“I love it,” Nogueira says of floating graphic eyeliner. “My favorite to do is to do a wing [on the lid crease] and then do a regular wing. I think that looks really nice.” That said, the TikTok star is open to experimentation. “I'm all for it. Every shape,” she adds.

Lip Gloss

As for glossy lips, Nogueira is an unapologetic fan. “I have more lip gloss than any other form of lip product,” she says. When asked for the ballpark figure of how many lip glosses she owns, Nogueira doesn’t skip a beat. “I'm looking at my lip gloss drawer. I'd say around 300.”

Dewy Skin

“I love that the term matte is becoming less important and you can have the dewy skin and wear the glossy products,” says Nogueira, who’s especially fond of dewy skin as a centerpiece of a summer beauty look. “In summer, I can really just do so much more of the light, glowy, natural makeup looks like the tinted moisturizer, the light hydrating concealer. That's my favorite. I love that about summer, so I'm most looking forward to seeing a lot more of that.”

Rainbow Eyeshadow

Rainbow eyeshadow is not for the faint of heart. According to Nogueira, you need to set aside quite a bit of time. “In my opinion, rainbow eyeshadow is the most difficult type of eyeshadow to do, because it is so difficult to blend smoothly with no muddiness or patchiness,” she says. “If you see someone do a rainbow eyeshadow look that comes out really good, they are truly talented.”

How To Avoid Muddiness 101, courtesy of the MUA: “Go section by section really slowly,” she says. “Take a packing brush, put the color on, and place it on the eye. Then take a much smaller blending brush and very slowly blend the edges of the color you place down. Go color by color. Then, at the end, take a clean brush, nothing on it, and smooth out the outer edge. It'll take like half an hour to do it, but it's worth it in the end.”

Glitter Lips

You’ve probably seen a glitter lip look on your FYP and Nogueira likes them for certain times and places. “I think if I were to go to like the club or maybe even Coachella, or like a concert or something, I would totally do a glitter lip. I think that's really fun for a night out kind of thing,” she says, though, she points out that it’s not all fun and games. “If you want to do it every day, go ahead. It's a lot of work to take it off,” Nogueira cautions. “I did it once. It was incredible.”

Glitter Eyeshadow & Glitter Cut Creases

Glitter eyeshadow and glitter cut creases both get the seal of approval from Nogueira, who says, “Anything with glitter is my favorite, in general.” But it’s the latter of the two that is her personal fave. “Doing a cut crease and then adding glitter along the line? Oh my God. That's the best,” she beams.

The internet seemingly agrees. #glittercutcrease currently has 6.9 million views on TikTok. “I love doing that,” Nogueira says. “Any color. You can do every color. I did rainbow one time, super fun.”

Neon Makeup

Neon is The Moment™. “Neon makeup is so fun. My favorite neon pigments are from Makeup A Murder,” she says, before dropping a pro tip. “If you're going to do neon makeup, you need an eye base because [the pigment] gets everywhere. You can put it on a brush and just apply it straight to the eye as a loose powder, or you can add an activating liquid and turn it into a liquid eyeliner or liquid shadow, whatever you want to use.”

The makeup goddess spills the tea on her favorite eyeshadow base, too, saying, “For neons, specifically neon pigments or like the neon press shadow, you'd want to use a thinner primer like the Urban Decay Primer Potion ($25, Sephora), or the Milk Hydro Grip Eye Primer ($24, Sephora).”

Foil & Duochrome Eyeshadow

“With so much eyeshadow out there, brands have to think of something different,” says Nogueira of 2022’s new take on the metallic makeup trend. “Duochrome, that's what's different right now. A lot of brands are coming out with metallics, foils, specifically duochrome. And I think it's really cool.”

The light-shifting, two-tone metallic finish known as duochrome is blowing up as both shadow and liner right now, so there are tons of ways to play with it. “I have an entire drawer for all just foil eyeshadows,” Nogueira shares. “It’s very fun and very trendy right now.”

Pastel Makeup

Pastels for spring? Groundbreaking — but actually. “I love pastels,” says Nogueira. “I think pastels are very in during the spring, which in Massachusetts, it's spring right now. So you're going to be seeing on my page, at least, a lot of pastels coming up.”

Y2K Beauty

Nogueira missed Y2K beauty the first time it came around in the 2000s, but that hasn’t stopped fans from asking her to try her hands at it. “I don't think I was old enough for that time to at least be wearing makeup, but a lot of people have asked me to do a video creating Y2K makeup,” she says. “I had to do a ton of research to even figure out what it was. I personally wouldn't wear my makeup like that.”

With two hot collabs under her belt — one with Glow Recipe; another with e.l.f. Cosmetics and Dunkin’, her hometown's favorite coffee joint — 2022 is off to a fantastic start for the beauty industry’s friendliest and fiercest face, and there’s still so much more in store. She teases, “I'm really proud of what is to come and I can't wait for people to see.” As a fan, I can’t wait either.