The ‘clean girl aesthetic’ has been one of the more recent trends to take over TikTok. The aesthetic is defined by minimal makeup, glossy lips, gold hoops and slicked-back hair. With some videos reaching up to one million likes, #cleangirlmakeup quickly gained popularity among the TikTok beauty community.
The popularity has not come without criticism, though. Women of color have called-out white creators who have participated in the trend for its harmful implications of beauty and perpetuating racism.
The name of the trend itself implies the existence of ‘clean girls’ and ‘dirty girls.’ If the women who popularized and participated in the trend — usually white, thin and blonde — are ‘clean girls’, those who are considered ‘dirty‘ are not hard to imagine. Since the biggest age group of TikTok users are between 10 and 19 years old, the trend’s potential harms could be worse than you may think.
Taylor Cassidy — a Black TikTok creator with 2.2 million followers — discussed this issue in one of her latest YouTube videos.
“In history there have been countless, countless, countless times of white people stealing from other cultures and calling it something different, making it an aesthetic,” Cassidy said.
In the video, Cassidy refers to examples like head wraps and broderick braids as ways white people have appropriated other cultures in recent years. Furthermore, she showed how Googling ‘clean girl’ and ‘ghetto girl’ bring up the same minimal make-up, glossy lips, gold hoops and slick-back hair look, but on different skin colors.
“Before I unlearned all of my own self-hate, I always avoided looking like this because it was seen as ghetto,” Cassidy said. This stark contrast to seeing the style celebrated on white women as innovation was the main reason for the backlash.
The Tiktok community has a history of appropriation of people of color. Often, this takes the form of white creators taking trends and claiming originality disregarding the Black creator who started it. Charli D’Amelio, the most followed creator on the app, is the strongest example. Her rapid growth in popularity started with the use of the Renegade dance created by Jalaiah Harmon, a Black girl, with no accreditation. D’Amelio now has a net worth of $20 million. This, among many other instances, has created an environment where appropriation was rewarded.
‘Hot Cheeto girl‘ is another semi-recent TikTok trend that became popular for its relatability with creators and commentators profiling people they know as ‘hot cheeto girls’. This is just another racist trend to stereotype Latinas and Black women. It is akin to caricatures such as ‘sassy black woman‘ or ‘spicy Latina‘.
Similarly to Cassidy’s point, Googling “hot cheeto girl” brings up the same characteristics — the lip gloss, the gold hoops and the slick-back hair — the main difference being the strong make-up. Regardless, countless trends celebrate big make-up on white women like glitter, double-winged liner and overlined lips, so the only varying factor is skin color.
When pointing out these issues, POC are often met with justifications of humor or defensive comments like “y’all don’t own that shit,” Tiktok user sevqai said in a ‘clean girl’ video defending the white creator.
“With this clean girl aesthetic — hoop earrings, a couple braids in your hair, lip gloss — if you like that look, go ahead and wear it,” Cassidy said, “just don’t rebrand it as something that a white woman created, that’s what we are saying.”
