Taylor Swift, Before and After

Here’s our first glimpse of the future pop sensation, who made her red carpet debut at just 16 years old. Looking at her roots, it seems like she may have been lightening her dark blonde hair already. But this was its naturally curly texture, before she started taming it into submission. And this was obviously her natural nose.

Then, Taylor got really into these spiral curls for a while. Except for the bangs. The bangs always had to be straighter. (Inexplicably, this was an actual trend back then in this age group. Ashley Tisdale and Bella Thorne did versions of it, too!) The other things to notice are her prominent brow ridge and heavy-lidded eyes.

Even as a teenager, Taylor always had gorgeous skin. Here, you can appreciate it even more with her curls pulled up off her face, and their colour deepened to her natural dark blonde. We also get another look at her nose, brows and eyelids, all of which I suspect she later altered.

Next came the ringlets era. She wore them in updos like this one, as well as long and loose, with false lashes and pink lip gloss. (This was before her love affair with cat eyes and red lipstick.) Once again, you can observe how much wider her nose was back then, and how she didn’t have much lid space for eye makeup.

As her star power grew—she was 20 years old by this time—Taylor surely began relying on the services of a professional styling team. So instead of the “prom night” hairstyles and pretty but safe makeup, we got slightly edgier looks like this one, with straightened hair and dramatic eyeliner. 

Then came my favourite hairstyle—these long, lash-grazing bangs. This is also when she first got into red lips and black liner, which remains her go-to makeup look to this day. But the one thing that really jumps out in this photo is her nose. As you can see, this version was much wider through the bridge.

The red lipstick was a fixture throughout 2012, and was probably part of the branding for her Red album, which was released that same year. But I’m not complaining—I feel like Taylor finally found her signature look at this point. With the bangs and long waves, it’s girly and a little bit glam. 

But the next year marked a big change in her style, coinciding with her transition from country to pop. Gone were the long waves and classic makeup that she was known for as “America’s sweetheart”—replaced by shaggy layers and smudgy liner with a rock ‘n’ roll vibe. Interestingly, it was at this time that speculation first arose over a possible plastic surgery, although not on her face. (“You can see the implants,” said Dr. Michael Fiorillo.^[2]) 

In 2014, Taylor took her hair shorter, and continued to wear it straight—but apparently not by choice. “From birth, I had the curliest hair and now it is STRAIGHT,” she later explained. “It’s the straight hair I wished for every day in junior high. But just as I was coming to terms with loving my curls, they’ve left me.”^[3] She also experimented with her boldest eye makeup yet... could it be to disguise a possible procedure (or two) in that area?!

By age 25, after releasing her multi-million-selling 1989 album, her global domination was complete. Now, she looks every inch the pop star in graphic liner and perfectly smooth, shiny hair. But if you look closely at her eyes, you’ll notice that they’re much more wide-open compared to, say, 2007. If you ask me, that heavy eyeliner is no coincidence!

As time went on, Taylor gradually eased up on the dramatic eye makeup, returning to (what else!?) her favourite cat eyes with red lipstick. And so, whatever she tweaks she may have made to her eye area went completely unnoticed. Instead, we were all talking about her new, chin-length bob with bangs.

Who could forget her ill-advised foray into bleached-blonde hair? It looks so fried and clashes so much with her skin tone that it’s hard to believe this was done on purpose for a Vogue cover. “If you don’t look back at pictures of some of your old looks and cringe, you’re doing it wrong,” she later reminisced. “See: Bleachella.”^[3]

Although the platinum hair didn’t last long—she was captured by paparazzi in the summer of 2016 with her natural colour—Taylor then disappeared from the public eye for all of 2017. This is what she looked like upon her return. Notice anything different? It’s not her eye area that I want to draw your attention to, but her nose. Suddenly, it seems a lot more petite.

This shot was taken the day before her 30th birthday, and if you ask me, she’s prettier than ever. After experimenting with so many different styles throughout her 20s, the bangs, red lips and liner combo is clearly the formula that works best. But we’re not just looking at superficial changes here. Her nose has a visibly narrower look, and her eye area appears very much lifted.

With red carpets on hiatus in 2020, Taylor treated us to a rare close-up on Instagram in which she is virtually bare-faced. So if you couldn’t tell before that something changed about her eye area, surely you can see it now. She no longer has those heavy-lidded eyes, and her brows are much higher up on her forehead.

And that brings us to her latest red carpet appearance—for which she ditched her recent “cottagecore” vibes and stepped out in full-fledged glam. Of course, the bangs and red lipstick are ever-present, but she added crystal-studded cat eyes to match her glitzy, nearly-naked dress. If you look closely, her brows seem to be back to their previous, lower position, so maybe the lifted look was only temporary? 

Isn’t it interesting how certain celebrities can remain in the public eye for years, and nobody notices their changing features?

Thirtysomething Taylor looks very different than she did as a teenager, and the tweaking happened right in front of us—despite her stratospheric level of fame.

“Taylor Swift’s nose looks much thinner and more refined than it did when she was younger,” says Dr. Anthony Youn. “It looks like she had rhinoplasty, which is the plastic surgery that celebrities have had the most. I suspect that a plastic surgeon did a very subtle nose job, making it look as good as it does.”^[4]

But Dr. Charles S. Lee believes the changes were much more extensive. “She looks like she’s had a brow lift, upper eyelid surgery, a rhinoplasty and lip fillers. She’s also had a procedure to make the lower lid transition better with her cheeks, so that could either be lower eyelid surgery with filler or with fat grafting.”^[5]

Personally, I don’t think her lips were altered, nor her brows (based on her most recent photo). But everything else? I believe it!