Naturally occurring in 1.5 billion people globally and once seen as unsightly blemishes that could be banished using freckle cream, by the late 1900s, freckles had become a thing of envy. However, for many years, the freckle-free among us had to settle for using henna dye, eyeliner, or brow pencils to create faux freckles, as it wasn’t until 1995 that the first freckle makeup went on sale in the form of Chanel’s Le Crayon Rousseur (The Freckle Pen).
Having drifted in and out of popularity over the subsequent decades, faux freckles experienced a mainstream resurgence in the early 2020s, before arguably reaching peak popularity in 2024 as a result of TikTok’s ‘broccoli freckles’ trend, which saw people use broccoli florets to apply various types of makeup in order to create natural-looking clusters of faux freckles. Paving the way for a whole new breed of faux freckle makeup application options, there’s now everything ranging from permanent in-salon tattoo-based freckle application to specially formulated off-the-shelf freckle makeup products, including freckle pens, freckle tints, palettes, and stamps that you see listed here.
What exactly is freckle makeup?
Providing a cleanse-away alternative to both henna dye and permanent tattoo-based freckle application, off the shelf freckle makeup is designed to be applied to the cheeks, nose, and forehead, and is formulated to help you effortlessly create the appearance of natural looking freckles, or to reshape, resize, and better define naturally occurring freckles. Available in various shades of tan, brown, black, and red, it also comes in formats including pens, tints, stamps, and palettes. Meanwhile, it can be applied directly onto makeup-free skin, before or after foundation, or a mixture of the latter two options in order to create freckles with varying levels of colour saturation for a more natural appearance.
What are the different types of freckle makeup?
Freckle Pens – Freckle pens, just like Chanel’s Le Crayon Rousseur which was the first commercially available freckle makeup, have the physical appearance of regular pens, felt-tip pens, or permanent markers. Formulated as liquids and housed within plastic tubes, they feature built-in soft, flexible tips which makes application quick, easy, and precise.
Freckle Tints – Essentially just a regular skin tint housed within a small vial, tube or bottle and marketed as a freckle makeup, freckle tints are liquid-based and typically have a fine brush or silicone applicator built into the lid which makes application just as quick, easy, and precise as regular freckle pens whilst the end result is also pretty much the same.
Freckle stamps – Generally sold as a powder housed within a screw top container and with an accompanying stamp that is designed to imprint a whole cluster of freckles with a single dip and print application, freckle stamps provide the quickest and easiest way to create faux freckle. However, the cluster is pre-determined by the stamp and they therefore don’t offer the same control and flexibility of pens, tints, and palettes.
Freckle Palettes – Giving you various different shades of freckle makeup to play with (usually tan, brown, black, and red), and applied using a fine makeup brush, freckle palettes can be used to create clusters of freckles in various different colours, sizes, and saturations, thus giving you the most flexibility out of all the freckle makeup formats.
