Strawberry Makeup and the Gen Z Identity Crisis

Beauty TikTok hit me hard. I’ve been a dedicated scroller and avid watcher of the tiktok beauty world ever since the app came out (how else am I supposed to know my colour season?). But ever since Hailey Beiber’s famous ‘strawberry girl’ makeup selfie lit the beauty world on fire, my for your page has been abuzz with different beauty aesthetics. Do I fit the clean girl aesthetic or the vanilla girl aesthetic? and what’s the difference? I ask my friends trying not to sound too old, who casually look up from their phones, shrug and say ‘neither’. An interaction I’m slightly ashamed to say had me questioning my identity also got me thinking, where have these aesthetics come from, and why are we so invested in them?

Gone are the days of clean girl aesthetic, 2024 is the year of micro trends. Blueberry nails, vanilla girl makeup, mob wife aesthetic, the options are endless, and you are left to choose like you’re Cady Heron picking a table for lunch. Choose one, and you fear you won’t be welcome in the other, choose the wrong one, and you’ve spent hundreds of pounds on the Pilates princess starter pack. Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with a trend, putting a bow in your hair can put a spring in your step, and wearing a milkmaid dress to a picnic is a great way to dress it up, regardless of the coquette or cottage core aesthetics; sometimes an accessory is just that.   But now more than ever there seems to be an outpouring of trends, with mob wife aesthetic gaining 2.2 billion views on tiktok, slightly overshadowed by latte girl makeup at 210 million views. Where 2016 brings us a strange sense of nostalgia with its heavier makeup topped with the kylie lip kits and the not so far gone past of 2020 was the era of glossier and slick back buns, what, if any trends will be strong enough to define 2024?

And more importantly in a world where we can identify with an aesthetic based on the colour of our blush, is there even a need for self-reflection? Where previous trends seemed to add onto our lives and be used as a way to express our personalities, the aesthetics of today have expanded to be lifestyles in their own right. Consider the Pilates princess aesthetic which along with its pink lululemon outfits encourages Pilates on a regular basis; instead of simply an accessory, the Pilates princess aesthetic advocates for a certain lifestyle. The trad wife aesthetic which has recently gained momentum (and controversy) on tiktok is specifically aimed towards women and advocates for traditional gender roles and marriages, again, instead of an aesthetic adding to our lives, these aesthetics begin to bend our lives around them in order to create a lifestyle.

These aesthetics begin to sway the ways we dress, the things we do and value; but can anyone afford that? The simple coquette aesthetic can be topped with just a bow, but more modern aesthetics require an arsenal of outfits, equipment and accessories to be able to live that aspirational lifestyle. The Pilates princess has its Lululemon, the old money aesthetic has it’s Loro Piano and Ralph Lauren, even the coastal granddaughter aesthetic has a whole wardrobe reminiscent of Brandy Melville. More than that, the time required to adhere to these aesthetics is  privilege in itself; Nara Smith famously makes food from scratch on tiktok, a labour that’s romanticised to some because she has the time to do so.

More worryingly still is what happens when you adhere to an aesthetic without realising its implications, as tiktok pointed out, mob wife makeup was designed to be so heavily applied to hide the violence those women may have faced. The office siren aesthetic faces a similar vein of controversy, as people argue that while the aesthetic – with its short skirts and messily tied up hair is fun – it’s not actually appropriate for the workplace.

And while It’s important to recognize that nobody is enforcing these aesthetics on you, when the media we consume bombards you with different aesthetics, is it any wonder we try to fit ourselves into a box? The sudden rise of popularity amongst these different trends also suggests a lack of stable identity within ourselves, if we can be so easily swayed from aesthetic to another. Another explanation for the rise of these aesthetics is the aspirational lifestyle we associate with them; we want to be like Hailey Bieber so we buy the products for a strawberry makeup routine, we want to exercise regularly so we buy outfits from lululemon.

And while our priorities and personalities shift and evolve its important that your aesthetic aligns with who you actually are as a person and add to your personality; instead of letting these aesthetics blend into your identity, its important to adopt the qualities we identity with already and aspire to in the future. So whether it’s a swash of bright pink on your cheeks, or a lululemon wardrobe that you gravitate towards, let yourself playfully slip into these new trends to figure out what suits you best.