Glamour Launches Real-Time Beauty Trend Charting

It's a big day in beauty news over here, because there's a new trend charter in town that might just provide your Friday workday distraction. Glamour launched the Lipstick Index, a feature that charts beauty trends in real time. The index tracks conversations across social media to give viewers an updated look at what's hot in beauty.

I can already see this beauty index being a huge time suck for me. Not only does it update every hour with whatever is trending, but it also gives you the ability to filter based on the topics you want to look at. If you love nail art but couldn't care less about celebrity beauty, you can easily skip to that section and check out what's trending.

Glamour's "Girls in the Beauty Department" wrote that it's easy to get sucked into the Lipstick Index for hours, and I was a little skeptical. But as I clicked around on the site, it was so easy to jump down the rabbit hole and lose track of time. The site launched today, and it has already tracked more than 300,000 Instagram posts, Tweets, Facebook posts and conversations all about the world of beauty.

Some of the stats from the Lipstick Index actually weren't what I expected. Here are five of the most surprising things I learned about beauty trends today.

1. Most Posts Are Happening On Instagram

Actually, this one isn't too surprising. Given the visual nature of Instagram, it makes sense that most posts are coming from Instagram. But the actual statistics are pretty surprising. One hundred percent of the posts about false eyelashes were coming from Instagram, while 85 percent about bangs were coming from the platform. The remaining 15 percent was from Twitter.

2. Kate Middleton Is Still Popular On Twitter

I have a soft spot for the British royal, with her perfectly coiffed hair and signature makeup look. She's all about consistency, which I appreciate. It turns out, the Duchess of Cambridge is one of few celebrities who's more popular on Twitter than Instagram. While 33 percent of her traffic comes from Instagram, the remaining 67 percent is Twitter.

3. Strobing Is In, Contouring Is Out

Contouring was the buzzword of the beauty industry for a few months, but strobing is the most popular beauty trend on the internet right now. Obviously strobing is different from contouring, and the gist of the story is that contouring uses light and dark shading to shape the face, and strobing only uses light shades. It's clearly on its way to being the most-used beauty technique around.

4. Purple Hair Isn't Going Anywhere

Even though it turns out Kacey Musgraves' purple hair wasn't real, she would have been ahead of the trend if she actually dyed her hair. Purple hair is the third-most popular trend on the Lipstick Index. Colorful hair is a major trend this year, but it looks like purple is going to be the hottest shade of the fall.

5. Sorry Kim, The Most Popular Kardashian is Kendall

OK yes, Kendall Jenner isn't technically a Kardashian, but she still counts. Kendall was No. 11 on the celebrity section of the Lipstick Index when I last checked, and Kim didn't even crack the top 25. Everyone's favorite sister, Khloe, trailed Kendall at the No. 18 spot.