When scrolling through the never-ending abyss of BeautyTok, I can’t help but use a cautionary finger when sifting through the undeniably aesthetic content. Frankly, this is partly because my bank account can’t handle another impulse beauty buy, but mostly because I never know how the online beauty community may offend me next.
Take the 2022 backlash of Hailey Bieber’s Brownie Glazed Lips, for example. Late last year, the model received significant backlash- and equal amounts of praise- for “inventing” the next big beauty thing: lining the pout with brown lip liner and topping it off with gloss. Revolutionary, or has it already been done?
Read ‘Hailey Bieber And The Beauty Industry’s Sweet Tooth For The Black Girl Aesthetic’
Today we have a different beauty bone to pick. In a now-deleted TikTok from last year, a white creator announced that she’s “obsessed” with her latest hairstyle- two front pieces of hair gelled down to create an all-too-familiar swirl effect. She decides that she’ll make it a “trend.”
“I’m gonna call it ‘sticky bangs,’” she says, telling her followers to let them know if they want a tutorial on this never-before-seen hairdo. Well, as you can imagine, Black beauty creators were up in arms, creating a plethora of response videos to the bizarre video and racking up over 30 million views under #stickybangs.
This tone-deaf rebranding of a style that Black and Brown women have worn for decades is hard to ignore. “Laid edges are achieved when the shorter hairs around your head- colloquially referred to as baby hairs- are laid down to either softly blend in with the rest of your hair or [rest on the upper forehead in a] swoop,” says Monae Everett, celebrity hair stylist, diversity advocate, and founder of Texture Style Awards. “When you’re really into it, it becomes edge art- a form of expression where [the baby hairs feature] a bunch of swoops…
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