Doja Cat has never been afraid to have fun with beauty. It comes as no surprise from an artist who made their debut while dressed as a cow, but it’s still a refreshing break from the natural make-up styles that many celebrities stick to. A beauty chameleon, the singer has done it all – bombshell glam, crying girl make-up, a bleached buzzcut. She’s dressed 23 of her backing dancers up as hair monsters, attended fashion week with white swirls painted across her face and turned up at the Met Ball in cat prosthetics. Then there was the time she covered her entire body in 30,000 red Swarovski crystals.
In 2022, Doja shaved her head and eyebrows, turning her face into a blank canvas on which she was able to experiment with increasingly expressive and artistic make-up looks. There were pencil-thin drawn-on eyebrows with small flowers, smiley faces, apples and even sperm adorning them, while eye looks included a space-themed liner with intergalactic shapes in blues, pinks and yellows. The same year, make-up artist Laurel Charleston created a Teletubby-esque look for Doja when she attended the Marni show.
The decision to shave her head led many online commentators to speculate that she was mentally unwell. “They’re like, ‘Oh, this can’t possibly be her simply having fun,” she told Dazed in her 2022 cover shoot interview. “She has to be out of her mind. She has to be cuckoo.’” In response, Doja spent a lot of time reiterating that the sole purpose of make-up, and women, isn’t to look “fuckable”. “I wasn’t trying to look sexy or attractive. All of my make-up has a story and there are absolutely 0 rules,” she tweeted in response to one critic.
While she has since told Dazed that she wouldn’t shave her head again, Doja has continued to serve up playful beauty looks that tell a story more interesting and creative than just looking “fuckable”. While touring this year, her make-up artist Ivan Núñez has created a series of high-glam, high-colour looks which blend everything from New Romantics-style eyeliner to 1920s pencil brows and 80s blush. “We have been in a flow state that we’ve all never seen before, and when it comes to doing tour runs, this is the strongest we’ve ever done,” she said. Check out the gallery above for some of Doja’s best looks through the years.