Elizabeth Holmes' Makeup Evolution Reads Like a Persona Script

Elizabeth Holmes entered prison in 2022 convicted on three counts of fraud, and her makeup disappeared almost a year-by-year countdown before she walked in. Comedian Nathan Fielder's new documentary, "You Can See Everything," which follows his move into Holmes' home just days before she began her 11-year sentence, has turned her beauty choices into a cultural debate — and a Halloween costume.

Videos of women — and the occasional man — in black turtlenecks, tangled blond wigs, charcoal eyes and matte lips interrupted the usual stream of devils, witches, Priscilla Presleys and Dolly Partons online this season. Many filmed their impersonations set to viral sound bites from Fielder's film or scenes from "The Dropout," the Hulu drama starring Amanda Seyfried. Others shared tutorials on recreating Holmes' makeup from her heyday.

What did the Holmes look actually consist of?

Before her conviction, Holmes wore her frayed blond ends down or in a low-effort bun, with short, straightened layers slipping out. She was famously devoted to a deep side part, sweeping half her hair across her head to expose dark roots — a part so pronounced it looked ready for a scalp check.

Her signature face, documented across press interviews, covers and red carpets from 2013 to 2015, included:

• overdrawn red lipstick
• smoky shadow
• a touch of glitter under her brows
• thick mascara
• buffed-out black eyeliner with a C-curve wing tip that was almost impossible to miss

The source compares the aesthetic to that of Susan Dell — wife of Michael S. Dell, chief executive officer of Dell Technologies — who recently went viral for her "frozen face" inside the Oval Office. It was the kind of aesthetic you can only assume Holmes drew herself.

What changed after the conviction?

With Holmes behind bars, the charcoal eyes and blood red lips are gone. She had already begun shedding these makeup habits in the years and months leading to her incarceration. Photos of her entering and exiting the courthouse for her sentencing three years ago show her with a naked face. In Fielder's film, she appears with only mascara on her lashes — a detail that felt almost like a ploy to humanize her, especially since the makeup almost always appeared dry and clumpy, like she'd slept in it for days. The question the source poses: was this intentional?

Master manipulator or manipulated?

One of the central questions of Fielder's film is whether Holmes is a master manipulator, playing a character, or a mark of male manipulation. The question grows more complicated because of Holmes' insistence that she never described her public persona as a character of her own creation.

Both readings can hold. Holmes may have pared down her makeup to play the sympathy card in the film — or she may have been nudged by fiancé Billy Evans, as some viewers have speculated online. The image she cultivated during Theranos' rise may have been shaped, in part, by Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, her partner at the time — or it could have been a choice made singularly by Holmes in the era of full-beat makeup.

The motivation behind her beauty remains unknown. The audience is left to decide what to believe — and with a documentary renewing scrutiny, each layer of eyeliner and its absence will keep being read as evidence either way.