The ‘clean girl’ aesthetic has taken TikTok and the beauty industry by a storm. Watching other trends hardly make a dent in society, the clean girl aesthetic has ploughed through and maintained its position in the popularity ranking; and almost a year on, continues to dominate the beauty and fashion industry. The aesthetic focuses on producing a look that creates the impression of effortless beauty with a minimalistic effort.
Wearing blush to give you that ‘natural’ rosy glow, using concealer to hide your dark spots and blemishes, mascara to make your eyes pop and fake freckles to create the perception that you are still embracing your features. The signature hairstyle of this trend appears to be having your hair in a slicked back middle parting, whether this be in a bun, braid or clipped back.
Although emerging as a new trend in the recent months, this aesthetic is not a new concept for Black, Brown and Latin women. Since the 90’s Black and Latin women have championed the slicked back hair look, with gold hoop earrings and lip gloss; often being labelled as ‘ghetto’, while their white counterparts found solace in other aesthetics.
Jade Thomas, BAME officer at the University of Leicester recalls being at school in the noughties, “You know, going to school, I knew white girls who would rather have been caught dead than with their hair slicked back. It was all about the body, the volume, the length.”
This simple, yet staple look has been repackaged and regurgitated by white women as the clean girl aesthetic, when in actuality it’s not new to anyone but them. Often seen as more palatable when dished out by white women - as seen by the ‘boxer braid’ trend that surfaced as a result of Kim Kardashian - minority women are routinely left out of conversations regarding trends that they themselves have started.
Jade followed up by saying “I remember seeing a tutorial on my FYP on TikTok by an influencer called Jordan on how to slick your hair back, and I was just thinking wow, she’s using ecostyler, a product marketed to black women, and she’s using this to achieve a look that originated from the Black and Asian communities. It felt a bit like satire. It’s now being presented to us by white people as something that’s new and fresh, but are things that are actually already ingrained in our culture.”
Alongside the glaringly obvious rebrand from minority women, the clean girl aesthetic has been edited in a way that caters specifically to slim women that have straight hair and clear skin. Unlike other trends, which usually require a change of wardrobe or makeup look in order to fit the criteria, this one is wholly embraced as it glorifies women for features they naturally possess. It actively promotes the notion that if you do not conform to this aesthetic, or fit in its bracket then you’re inherently dirty. The emphasis on a ‘clean and flawless’ minimalistic look ostracises those that have blemishes like acne, or plus-sized women and more importantly, women who have hair that can’t be slicked back in its natural form and have to go through multiple stages of manipulation that - more often than not - endures damage to achieve. Black women have fought in all aspects of society for their hair to be accepted in its natural form, without being regarded as unkempt or messy; yet here comes another trend that amplifies the Eurocentric beauty standard.
Thomas followed up by questioning, “Would I say it's anti-black? I don’t know if I’d say it was anti-black, but it’s not necessarily pro-black in that it kind of glorifies having straight hair or changing your image to look a certain way to fit a standard that isn’t necessarily representative of black people.”
Today’s unhealthy obsession with presenting the idea of an effortless beauty consequently ostracises the poor, the plus-sized and the rest that don’t fit in the small mould that is the clean girl aesthetic. It reverses years of social activism done to bridge the gap in the beauty and fashion industry that only praises one kind of women, and in fact creates a bigger one, proving that there remains a hierarchy, one where the Barbie doll replica continues to stay on top.
“In a way it feels anti-black but only because we’re being made to conform to more Eurocentric beauty standards.”