Fall is finally here, and we love seeing new trends to “spice” things up for the cozy season. But what we don’t like seeing is a look taken from classic looks worn by women of color and then treated as a newly discovered trend. Right now, Hailey Bieber is in hot water for this reason.
On August 22, Hailey posted a video on TikTok creating “the lip combo vibe I’m feeling for fall…” In the video she’s using a brown colored lip liner to line her lips and then proceeds to gloss them. Calling them “brownie glazed lips”, the girlies on TikTok were not having it.
Many took to TikTok to show their disapproval and call Hailey out for marketing a lip look that was worn by many women, especially women of color, during the 90s and the early 2000s. Lots of girls posted videos mocking the American model and showing photos of women in their family, like their mothers and aunts, wearing the iconic brown lip liner and gloss combo. The problem is, the TikTok that was posted on Hailey Bieber’s account seemed to be an ad for a lip gloss from her skincare line “rhodes skin.” This added fuel to the fire since she was basically taking a lip combo that isn’t new at all and profiting off of it.
It’s not the first time something like this has happened. Another trendy look that we’re seeing a lot of right now is the “clean girl” look. Slicked back buns and hoop earrings are the trend nowadays, but minority women were rocking this since day one! Also, in attempts to have voluminous hair to get that bombshell blowout look, hair oiling became trendy. Hair oiling was a very common thing to do for South Asian and Middle Eastern girls. Lots of girls of these ethnicities, as well as other women of color who grew up practicing hair oiling, were made fun of and told that they smelled bad because of the oil in their hair. Now all the girls are putting oil in their hair, but there are girls out there who were bullied because they were doing the same thing!
Access to social media allows us to connect and learn about different beauty techniques and looks. But we have to be more careful about what we post and what we’re, in this case, recreating. A look that’s trendy now was probably not seen as such when other girls were doing it, and we need to make sure that we’re not labeling or marketing something as “fave lip combo for fall” that could potentially be something that hits home for women of color.