Name any beauty brand out there, and the chances are that they’ve spent the past twelve months trying to make unicorn makeup happen.

And if they weren’t obsessed with covering your life in a sprinkling of pastel, sparkly, lilac-sugarhorny horses, then it was probablymermaid makeup instead. Cool.

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Fast forward to 2018 and every single part of your makeup bag has now been given the mermicorn treatment whether you like it or not, and what started out as a cute and quirky trend has officially taken over.

Palettes are mermaid scales. Highlighter is unicorn tears. Primer is unicorn water (errr…is that just code for wee?) and glitter isn’t just glitter, you know - it’s UNICORN POOP. SPARKLY DAMN RAINBOW POOP.

Someone needs to say it out loud. So once and for all:dear beauty brands, please put an end to this madness and just stahhpp with the unicorn/mermaid products.

Here’s all the proof you need that it’s time to leave this trend alone. No offence.

1. It’s killed our childhood faves.

My Little Pony? Burn them all in a fire. The Little Mermaid? We never wanna hear ‘Part Of Your World’ ever again. What started out as harmless fun has turned into a conveyor beltthat's killed all of our childhood dreams about befriending mythical creatures and made everyone truly sick of them.

Anyone would think the entire planet had actually been submerged under water by brutal global warming and we reallywere all turning part fish through unnatural, mutant breeding. Which, if you think about it, is not a summer vibe that you wanna go for.

2. It's obsessed with pooing, snotting and crying.

On a real, the eyeshadows are often pretty cute. The lipsticks look super cool. Even the lattes and the toast... well they didn't exactly seem delicious, but we could get on board with the colours and the sprinkles for an Instagram or two.

But WHY is everything themed around unicorn poo and mermaid tears now? Fashionable faeces and bottled emotional breakdowns are a weird aesthetic. Unicorn SNOT? Mystical beings or not, bogies in your beauty products are never a good thing.

3. It's not exactly day-to-day wearable.

The whole point of makeup and beauty is that the possibilities are endless and you can transform into anything your imagination is capable of. But really, how often are we gonna be reaching for the holographic purple lipstick and the pearlescent turquoise highlighter? Litereally like once a year.

Rocking up to work with pastel blue glitter eyebrows and full-on rainbows striped across your cheekbones probably isn't going to go down too well.So as fun as these products are and as colourful as they look in your collection, their cost per use is SO VERY EXPENSIVE. Bah, humbug.

4. The colours are bloody hard to use.

You can ignore this one if you happen to be extra skilled with a blending brush or two, but present your average guy or gal with a palette that requires magenta on your lid, blue in your crease, gold in your inner corner witha purple liner, and they're gonna end up looking like they were punched in the face by Neil from Art Attack.

Forever watching beauty gurus create amazing looks, attempting to copy them and swiftly reaching for the makeup wipes to go straight back to the usual warm toned brown with black eyeliner. Sigh.

5. We go to like, one festival a year.

All things glitter, holographic and rainbow-coloured are always pitched as festival makeup, but errr... that means that we'll be using these mermaid bits and bobs for literally one day a year and then shoving it to the back of a drawer.

And even that's unlikely. Forget a unicorn smokey eye and glitter parting, you're more likely to spend a festival rocking a look that involves warm blackcurrant cider on your chops, a layer of mud in your eyebrows and a smattering of that beer cup full of someone's wee sprinkled in your hair. UNICORN VIBES.

6. Unicorns are basically rhinoceros.

The day a beauty brand unveils their Au Naturale, Wearable Rhinoceros Poop palette is the day that we surrender to this tyranny.

Ironically a khaki and brown palette would also be weay easier to use IRL.

7. And back in the day, mermaids were often justmanatees.

Exhausted sailors with bad eyesight used to mistake 'em for sirens of the sea all the time. So if you'd like to revolve your eyeshadow look aroundenormous, sloppy, wet marine mammals then go ahead.

It's the only spirit animal any of us really need.

8. Isn't everyone over unicorns now anyway?

It was actually 2016 when Too Faced kicked all of this offwith their Unicorn Tears lipstick - and we loved it. A few months later and you couldn't scroll without seeing golden horn makeup brushes, rainbowhighlighters, unicorn makeup tutorials, mermaid hair inspo and Lord knows what else.

We have reached peak corn and maid. It's done, it's over, so bring on the next weird obsession instead - we're rooting for dragons to have their moment. Justice for dragons.

9. Please focus on making actual, useful stuff that we're all desperate for instead.

a) A foundation that stays glowy while not oily, doesn't disappear through the day, is the perfect coverage, still shows freckles, doesn't go orange over time and also doesn't cost a million pounds to buy.

b) A mascara that makes our lashes look like fluttering falsies yet natural, while also not smudging down to your chin by the end of the day.

c) A completely non-stickylipgloss that stays put while eating four slices of pizza.

Now please excuse us while we wear all black, stick to neutal matte tones and wait for this whole thing to blow over.

'- Words by Lucy Wood'