Ariana Grande Totally Changed Her Makeup Routine After Wicked - Here's Why

After her spellbinding stint as Glinda in "Wicked," Ariana Grande said "thank u, next" to her old makeup routine. Grande's beauty evolution has been a sight to behold; in the past, her signature look typically revolved around super-bronzed skin, bold glam, and gravity-defying winged eyeliner. Now, though, she's welcomed a softer, more ethereal style that feels fresh out of Oz. In a video shared to Instagram, the former Nickelodeon star took fans somewhere over the rainbow as she revealed the magical makeup process behind her "Wicked" transformation, and how it came to inform her own day-to-day beauty routine. 

"Glinda's makeup kinda made me transform my entire look and my entire relationship to makeup," Grande explained in the clip as a makeup artist blended a pale, luminous base, for her, giving the "positions" hitmaker a lightly filtered effect, while she added her own contour to sculpt out cheekbones reminiscent of a perfectly illustrated storybook princess. The Grammy-winning artist also dove into the details of her newfound eye makeup inspiration, a look that stands in stark contrast to the heavier styles that defined the late 2010s — which Grande herself naturally embraced at the time as her cutesier look evolved. 

Of her "Wicked" aesthetic, she confirmed, "It's just, like, really warm and open and pretty" with no heavy eyeliner or creasing. The actor also noted that her lashes were styled in a subtle cat-eye shape, delivering the lifted effect she loves with a gentler touch. The result is a more expressive, refreshed eye shape, that complements Glinda's exaggerated mannerisms, thereby creating "a more honest representation of what you look like."

When Ariana Grande launched her own makeup brand, r.e.m. beauty (stylized in lowercase, just like her song titles), in 2021, she shared her vision for the look with British Vogue: "I wanted to make sure everything looked like a prop from either 'Star Trek' or 'Black Mirror.'" Grande elaborated, "I'm a huge fan of sci-fi, vintage space stuff, so this was about creating our own world with this packaging." Think lipstick encased in a spacesuit, blush housed in a sleek, silver capsule with a domed cap, and product names like "hypernova satin matte bronzer." But when "Wicked" came along, r.e.m. beauty took a detour from its space-age vibe to launch a line leaning into the fairytale theme of Oz.

True to its namesake, the "Wicked" collection captured the movie's magical palette of greens and pinks, featuring Elphaba and Glinda-inspired kits, "ozdust" eyeshadow palettes, and "galinda glow drops." Grande honored the whimsical theme thoughtfully: "with the wave of a wand," she promised in the description for a pH-adapting lip oil, and "freshly picked color from munchkindland" in another for tulip field lip stain. The "34+35" hitmaker was delighted to share news of the collaboration with her millions of Instagram fans, admitting that she was finding it hard to put into words just how special it was, and thanking the team for doing such a wonderful job. Of course, it was a huge hit.