Charli XCX Comes Clean On the Red Carpet's Dirty Little Secret

VIPs have always championed beauty hacks—some extensions here, a little over-lined lip there—on the red carpet. Some just might be better at hiding it than others. Or, unwilling to admit they actually employ these tricks. Well, on Monday, Charli XCX was certainly neither of those as she exposed the red carpet’s dirty little secret at the Fashion Awards.

The singer turned up to the London event in what appeared to be one of her usual vintage looks—a draped, yellow and red Jean Paul Gaultier couture dress from the brand’s spring/summer 2004 runway. At the corner of Charli’s winged out eyeliner, though, were two pieces of coordinating tape. While they certainly served an aesthetic purpose, and perfectly matched her couture look, the tape has been a go-to move on the red carpet for decades.

Face tapes are usually applied to the perimeter of the face near the temples. Celebrities use these to achieve that snatched look due to strings that are connected to the tape which give the skin a lifted appearance. Since the tape is typically clear, makeup artists are able to blend the tapes into the skin to make it seem that the face naturally looks like that. And of course, the strings stay hidden behind layers of hair.

Charli seems to have found a balance with her neon tapes. There’s nothing wrong with using face tapes. And there’s nothing wrong with letting the world know you use face tapes. While the 31-year-old might be one of the first to expose her hack directly on the red carpet (at least on purpose), others have opened up about the secret in the past.

In a 2022 interview with Vogue, Bella Hadid responded to accusations that she’s “Fully fucked with [her] face” by saying, “Whoever thinks I’ve gotten my eyes lifted or whatever it’s called—it’s face tape! The oldest trick in the book.”

Almost a decade prior, Lady Gaga detailed her very serious approach to face tapping, admitting she utilizes the beauty hack on the daily. “When I have my wig cap on and I'm taping my face, it's a sort of meditation for me,” she told The Mirror. “Every day, it starts the same way. It's like a mantra. I wash my face, I pin my hair back and put on a wig cap and I ask, 'How am I going to form my eyes today with this tape? How will I pull back my neck with tape?’”