How ‘Tell Me Lies’ Makeup Designer Jenny Lin Created a Y2K Beauty Time Capsule

After three seasons, February 17 marks the official end of Hulu drama Tell Me Lies. And the bombshell series finale isn’t just tying up loose plot points: It’s sealing off a Y2K collegiate time capsule that’s felt so accurate, it’s easy to forget the show premiered in 2022.

Based on Carola Lovering’s 2018 novel, Tell Me Lies follows a group of college friends centering on the toxic on-and-off relationship between sophomore Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) and senior Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White). The story unfolds in two separate timelines with two distinct, memorable aesthetics: One set between 2007 and 2008 at Baird College, a fictional campus in upstate New York, and one set in 2015, when the group reunites as adults for a wedding.

Since its premiere, Tell Me Lies has helped contribute to the recent resurgence of Y2K beauty trends, inspiring fans online to dig up their smudgy eyeliner pencils and frosted lipglosses. But lead makeup designer Jenny Lin didn’t want to simply recreate an iconic beauty era—she also used it as a storytelling tool. “Overall, the season’s beauty language is about makeup as emotional armor, identity, and the visual tension between control and emotional spiraling,” Lin tells Glamour. “I’m really proud of what we’ve done.”

“The show is so incredible from a makeup perspective, and the period is so nostalgic to me,” Lin continues, noting that she collaborated closely with creator and show runner Megan Oppenheimer to incorporate products they both used “down to the nub” during their own early aughts college years. “It’s part of the storytelling element, and the world-building. I’m so glad that people are noticing the subtleties that we’ve all incorporated in the hair, makeup, costumes and props laying around.”

As its title suggests, Tell Me Lies is not a wholesome story. As Lucy, Stephen, and their friends become intertwined in each others’ lives, the show explores themes of narcissism, emotional abuse and blackmail, and toxic codependency. Friendships and couples form only to implode, and eight years worth of secrets, lies, and betrayals come to a head in its series finale.

While (thankfully) not every viewer can relate to the specific trauma that the Tell Me Lies alumni carry out college, the show bottles up a type of bittersweet nostalgia that’s hard to replicate. Specifically? How small and consequential the world can feel at 19, when you’re doing your makeup for a frat party and vexing over the rumors ripping through your campus like wildfire.