ABC’s “Good Morning America” and a TIME Magazine article have accused Hailey Bieber of cultural appropriation after a recent TikTok video showed the model sporting a makeup technique popularized by Black and Latina women in the 1990s.
In a Monday TIME piece titled “Hailey Bieber’s ‘brownie glazed lips’ look is yet another example of cultural appropriation in beauty,” author Cady Lang highlighted how Bieber’s video, which has since gained over 3 million views, led to a number of White TikTok users recreating the look and crediting Bieber as the inspiration. Lang wrote that critics took issue with the idea that a White woman was getting credit for “starting” a beauty technique long used by women of color.
In the video, Bieber wears a clear lip gloss and brown lip liner from her beauty brand Rhode, and never claims to have started the look. The piece highlighted how Bieber trended on Twitter and was ridiculed for using the term “brownie glazed lips,” which other content creators argued was “problematic” and intended to help her sell her product.
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“The ‘brownie glazed lips’ controversy shows how easily appropriation can happen and how, whether intentional or not, it comes at the expense of women of color,” Lang wrote.
The Times piece also took issue with the larger implications of cultural appropriation and claimed that famous White women, such as the Kardashians, have hijacked trends made popular by Black and Brown women and rebranded them as “model off-duty” looks.
“The implications extend far beyond TikTok. Though beauty standards are constantly shifting, the idealization of whiteness in beauty remains. Aesthetic trends practiced by women of color, like wearing braids, wigs, and elaborate acrylic nail art, have consistently been stigmatized until White women have tried them, suddenly making them cool or edgy,” Lang added.
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The TIME writer also shot down the idea that the model’s mother, Kennya Baldwin, who is Brazilian, may have served as the source of her inspiration. Lang said the look has historically been associated with first- and second-generation Mexican Americans, as well as Black and Brown women, but not Brazilian women.
Tuesday’s “Good Morning America” dedicated an entire segment to the controversy surrounding Bieber, and said that she was facing “backlash” over a lip routine some had described as “cultural appropriation.”
The segment highlighted numerous social media users who slammed Bieber for utilizing the beauty technique.
“A white woman does it—it’s going to become a trend. It’s going to be praised,” Latina TikTok creator @benulus said in a Friday video. “I’m so flattered that Hailey Bieber always gets inspired by my community, a POC community. But because she does it now, all the people that told me that these lips are ugly are exactly the ones that are going to fall behind that trend.”
“i’m crying because she took a lip combo that black and latina women have been wearing since the 90s and named it “brownie glazed lips” to make it sound cute lol like if you gonna try to make something trend then least you could do is give credit from where you got the inspo,” Twitter user @KINDAFENTY wrote.
