I Got “The J.D. Vance” Eye-Makeup Look, and Learned a Few Other Things About His Face (2024)

It pains me to say so because I hate the things that come out of his mouth, but J.D. Vance has nice eyes. It’s not just that they’re a piercing blue; what makes them really pop, in beauty parlance, is how his dark eyelashes seem to frame them just so. His eyes stand out to the point that more than once I’ve wondered if it’s possible that he’s wearing eye makeup.

I’m not the only person asking this. Chatting with Kimberly Carney, the CEO of a beauty app called GlossWire, she told me that she too she had noticed Vance’s dramatic eye look. “It’s almost like he’s mastered the art of that subtle, smoky eye,” she said. Search “J.D. Vance” and “eyeliner” on Twitter and you’ll find dozens of posts raising the question of whether the senator and Republican vice presidential candidate has been dabbling in cosmetics. Some have gone so far as to proffer an answer: A few days ago, Dana Omari-Harrell of @igfamousbydana, a popular Instagram account that often speculates about what kind of beauty procedures famous people have undergone, posted in regard to Vance, “I can’t believe it’s up for debate YES HE WEARS EYELINER.”

To be clear, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a man penciling on some liner. But I suspect people keep pointing it out as a way to needle Vance, who, it’s true, looks every inch the kind of guy who would become apoplectic with contempt if you said “It looks like you’re wearing makeup” to his face. But contrary to certain self-appointed Instagram experts’ claims, I think that the chances that he’s actually wearing eye makeup are probably pretty low. The Occam’s razor explanation is that he’s just hashtag-blessed with the kind of lustrous lashes that many people spend a lot of money (and rack up a lot of Sephora Beauty Insider points) trying to get. I found a few pictures online of a younger Vance that—unless he’s been applying makeup each morning for decades—would seem to support this line of reasoning.

Carney shared my gut feeling that Vance probably isn’t wearing makeup. “It’s kind of a beauty trick straight from nature’s playbook,” she said, noting that his lashes are thick and that the bottom ones especially are “super dark.” Looking at Vance, I’m also reminded of lash icons Elizabeth Taylor and actor Néstor Carbonell, both of whom are said to have had an extra row of eyelashes at birth. It’s actually a condition, known as Distichiasis, that affects approximately 1 in 10,000 people. Though Vance has never indicated that he has it, it’s a good reminder of the first half of the Maybelline slogan: Some people are just born with it, as unfortunate as it is to imagine that J.D. Vance might be one of them.

Carney also introduced another factor to consider: “I think it’s due to the natural set of shadows in the contours created by his hooded eyelids,” she explained. Hooded eyelids are a common eye shape; having them just means that one has more skin under the eyebrow area such that the eye crease and eyelids are less visible. For the record, I did reach out to the Trump-Vance campaign to ask if Vance is wearing makeup, has Distichiasis, or there’s something else going on with his eyes, but as of press time they have not responded to my request for comment.

Isn’t that always the way, that J.D. Vance has the lashes millions of women would kill for and probably doesn’t even appreciate them? Personally, I almost never leave the house without mascara. I don’t feel pretty or even presentable without it. And meanwhile J.D. Vance is over here with giant eyelashes, all “I woke up like this”? It’s unfair. He doesn’t, beautiful eyes aside, really seem like someone who looks in the mirror, literally or metaphorically. Why couldn’t someone who would actually be grateful for such flawlessly lush lashes and eyes have been given them instead? Someone like, I don’t know, me.

At a moment when so many people are seeking to understand our new vice presidential candidate by rereading his book and analyzing his Venmo charges and Spotify playlists—when they’re finding old sound bites of him saying “I’m a never Trump guy” and remixing them into music they can bop along to on TikTok—it occurred to me that trying to re-create his supposedly eyelined look would be a unique way of trying to get at what is going on with this person. And, if I’m being honest, I also thought it would be pretty funny. This is how I wound up sitting in a makeup chair at my local Sephora one day last week, silently rehearsing how I was going to explain to a makeup artist that I wanted “the J.D. Vance.”

Beforehand, I’d signed up for a free trial of Canva so I could make a collage of close-up photos of his eyes. “So there’s this politician,” I began, producing the printout. My makeup artist kindly listened and nodded along. “We definitely can mimic something like that,” she said, without missing a beat—without batting an eyelash. Did I also want to fill out my eyebrows a little more, to make them bushier like his? She clearly understood the assignment. I don’t know if all Sephora employees are trained to respond to off-the-wall requests like they’re the most normal thing in the world or if I happened to get a particularly sweet one, but either way, I was thankful she didn’t question why I had chosen the widely reviled Republican vice presidential nominee as my beauty inspo.

While getting started, she confirmed with me that I didn’t want any eye shadow, correctly reading that if the idea was to look like Vance, then just concealer on my lids was the way to go. She used a lot of concealer on my under-eyes, it felt like. Though I maintain that it’s unlikely Vance wears eyeliner and mascara, I think it’s less likely he’s been naturally granted bright skin sans bags or dark circles under his eyes. And it would be a little more acceptable for a male politician to use a bit of coverup on his face—his running mate certainly appears to indulge. In other words, I don’t know why I am comforting myself with the thought that maybe J.D. Vance also needs a lot of concealer, but here we are.

My makeup artist and I spent a few minutes discussing whether I should try to get the look using just mascara or if I should go for false lashes. She thought we could probably accomplish it with mascara, but looking at the pictures of Vance I’d brought with me, I doubted whether my modest lashes were up to the task. I chose a set of false lashes the artist described as lightweight and made to move like one’s natural lashes. Applying them is certainly not something I could do well myself, nor is all the detailed work the makeup artist did to line my upper and lower lash lines, really getting in there but still making it look subtle—with every moment, I recognized and resented all this work it was taking just to ape something Vance wakes up with every day. Maybe he’s born with it.

When I peeked at myself midway through the appointment, I was horrified at how big my eyebrows looked. But once I had the lashes on, they actually looked right. It gave me a new appreciation for yet another gift the universe had inexplicably bestowed on an undeserving Vance: I hadn’t realized how much work his brows did to naturally balance his lashes.

When she was done, my makeup artist pronounced, “I love it!” praising the definition and the attention all the liner and lash work drew to my eyes. Though it was a lot—a lot—more eye makeup than I usually wore, it was a nice look. I could definitely imagine asking for it again if I were going to a wedding or something. Once I was back at my desk, I confess that I tried to stage a few selfies where it looked like I might be giving a speech, looking off into the distance and gesticulating forcefully with my hands, so I would more closely resemble Vance in the hi-res photos I’d downloaded. For a wedding or if I’m ever booked to speak at a major political convention, for sure.

So what’s it like, experiencing the world through Vance’s eyes? Everywhere I went, I could see my false lashes in the corners of my line of vision, slightly obstructing my normal panoramic of the world. I can conceive of this getting annoying day in and day out, always having to deal with your lashes being in the way—could such a thing metastasize into a general world-weariness that I would eventually channel into, say, hating childless women and ridiculing them as cat ladies? I mean, I don’t think so, but there is something ironic about this particular pretty privilege falling on this particular wannabe macho man. Maybe it burdens him more than we know. A more sensitive man might see a lesson about autonomy in this: Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to make his own choice about when to rock a dramatic statement eye and when to look a little more normal and chill? Yes, he was (probably) born with bizarrely gorgeous eyes, but I now see that I have one powerful tool at my disposal Vance never will: makeup remover.