1 Makeup Artist Just Took the Mermaid Trend a Little Too Far — but It's Pretty Impressive

Just as unicorns have become a staple in the food world, mermaids have full-on infiltrated the beauty sphere, inspiring gorgeous makeup looks, products, and even brushes. Many makeup artists mimic the tail-flipping mythical creature using glitter galore and pretty blue hues, but one talented artist just showed another — darker — side of mermaids, and the internet is freaking out over it.

Channing Carlisle took a slightly shocking route with her hyperrealistic mermaid-inspired look: she transformed her leg to make it look ripped open to reveal scales underneath. I'm not gonna lie; at first glance, I thought it was pretty darn gruesome and took the mermaid trend a bit too far. But once I saw that it was all done with special effects makeup (and no skin was actually harmed in the making of it), I realized it's extremely impressive. I can barely even apply my eyeliner properly, but Channing somehow managed to make her leg look like a prop from the set of a mermaid murder-mystery film. This girl's got crazy talent, and that's something to be celebrated just as much as a MUA nailing the perfect cat eye.

It seems like the internet had somewhat similar reactions. When Channing shared the double-take-worthy image on Twitter, it garnered more than 50,000 retweets and nearly 200,000 "likes," not to mention that tons of fans and followers responded to her tweet sharing their praise for her mind-blowing makeup skills.

@ChanningCJudith @stratfordneymar me looking at this for 5 minutes trying to understand how you even did all of that and pulled it off so flawlessly pic.twitter.com/qVP0WXvdyJ

— 🌻💛✨ (@fuckedfenty) May 18, 2017

@ChanningCJudith This is literally so inspiring I'm obsessed

— aliyah cantu (@_aliyah_Cantu_) May 20, 2017