When Stephanie Louise, make-up artist and “cosmetic injector” at Houston’s It’s A Secret Med Spa, landed the assignment of styling Republican royalty Lara Trump in July last year, it was arguably a career pinnacle for both women. The future US president’s daughter-in-law was stepping onto the American stage as co-chair of the Republican National Convention, and Louise, 33, was prepping her. She knew exactly what the moment called for.
“I did not mess around with the contour, y’all,” Louise drawled later on an Instagram tutorial. Instead, Louise, a self-proclaimed aficionado of “Texas pink” lips, packed on products. She used a mix of Mac Cosmetics and Nars foundations, Tower 28 Beauty and Make Up For Ever concealers, bronzer from One/Size blended with Dior Beauty bronzer and highlighter. On Trump’s eyes, she mixed tan, chocolate and pink eyeshadows by Makeup by Mario and YSL Beauty before winging out eyeliner by Make Up For Ever and adding Ardell lashes. “We are not doing a sexy club eye, we are doing a respectful eye,” said Louise.
The results got attention: Trump went on to secure her own primetime show on Fox News. A fan’s comment hinted at further developments: “@laraleatrump is A savage and gorgeous! Future white house occupancy with Eric”.
Not everyone feels that way. Partly in protest at the president’s initiatives since taking office, Suzanne Lambert, 33, an Arlington, Virginia-based consultant and self-styled “Regina George liberal”, decided to live by her own tagline: don’t get mad, get mean. Last November she created a parody TikTok tutorial titled: “Doing My Makeup Like the Gorg Maga Girlies in My Comments”. “Matte and flat. That is the name of the game,” she cheerfully deadpans as she smears on foundation with her fingers to the tune of country star Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman.” After adding heavy, whitish concealer, cakey mascara and thick black eyeliner, she says: “I really wanted to give it that ‘Is she awake?’ effect.”
Lambert’s video has had more than 6.2m views. She has also kick-started a trend for Maga-themed beauty tutorials: “Republican Makeup” and “Conservative Makeup Challenge” have emerged as key TikTok search terms, with posts garnering millions of views. Both sides are weighing in: on this particular TikTok battlefield, red lipstick equals red state.
With President Trump in office, buoyed in part by winning 53 per cent of the vote from white women nationally, no longer are grey hairs and wrinkly brows necessary in order for the American electorate to take their officials seriously. Hyper-feminine hallmarks, often including preternaturally young faces, bronzed cleavage, plumped lips, carefully tousled blowouts and long manicured nails are de rigueur for the Trump 2.0 era. This is a president, after all, who boasted in a recording of a phone call obtained by CNN: “We made the presidency hot.”
By Maga standards, there is no distinction between operating a flamethrower with locks flowing halfway down to one’s waist, as the secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem did in response to Elon Musk’s chainsaw antics, and taking the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference looking like a pink-lipped, leopard-print-clad extra from Legally Blonde, as did Trump’s 27-year-old press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Nor should there be, say supporters. A glossy publication trumpeting Trump, The Conservateur, has, among other outlets, hailed this med spa moment as a sort of new feminism: Trump WAGs and cabinet picks can do everything he can do, but backwards and in heels. (Trump’s men don’t escape much easier – last summer, there was a flurry of online speculation that vice president JD Vance wears eyeliner to enhance his blue eyes. “They are all natural,” said his wife, Usha Vance, at the time.)
The Mar-a-Lago aesthetic extends to hopeful fans. Dr Norman Rowe, a New York-based plastic surgeon who opened a Palm Beach clinic in October 2023, has seen a noticeable uptick in surgical interventions. One patient in her early 40s spent about $60,000 in one visit on a combination of procedures including a “thread lift”, laser treatments, Botox and various fillers to prepare for a trip to Mar-a-Lago.
“They want everything high and tight,” says Dr Rowe, who says his office was “packed” before the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve party and then again before the presidential inauguration, with patients particularly requesting eye lifts, or blepharoplasties. (Overall, the most requested surgery in Rowe’s Palm Beach office is a facelift, followed by a brow lift; in New York, patients most often come into his office for rhinoplasties and breast implants.) “It used to be the Kardashians – every time one of them went out, we would get calls the next day. Now it’s ‘I want what she has’,” he says, referring to Melania Trump.
Also in Palm Beach, Donald Trump Jr’s girlfriend, Bettina Anderson, got ready for the inauguration with an Oxylight facial, a $475, two-hour combination of microdermabrasion, lymphatic drainage and oxygen at Pure Skin Palm Beach. Anderson stays local for highlights and hairstyling, which she gets at salon The Bohèm, and her go-to make-up artist is Artistboxxx brand founder Gina Simone.
Raquel Debono, 28, a Manhattan-based conservative activist who organises singles events called “Make America Hot Again”, argues that younger conservatives are moving away from archetypes including the “tradwife” aesthetic and the “Fox News bottle blonde”. Instead she identifies as something she calls “city conservative”, with brunette hair, light Botox and the more subtle “lip flip” over trout-pout filler.
First Daughter Ivanka Trump is inarguably this younger generation’s role model, for her poise as much as for her style. Her relatively restrained inauguration look was a case in point: she eschewed hot pink and bare legs for forest-green Dior couture and black tights, kept her blonde locks swept up under a pillbox hat and opted for winged black eyeliner. Ivanka’s longtime make-up artist and hair stylist, Alexa Rodulfo, who counts Aerin Lauder and Wendi Murdoch as clients and once worked with former Democratic party leader Nancy Pelosi, has said she is aiming for a demure Old Hollywood look.
Still, old habits die hard, as Debono admits. On the topic of bronzer: “I always like to look a little bit orange, you know. It makes me feel better.”
