Clean girl is untainted, clean girl is fresh, clean girl is natural, clean girl is deeply racist and classist.
Who is A Clean Girl?
Growing up, I was always ashamed of my mother’s weekly hair oiling sessions: hair drenched in ‘smelly’ coconut oil, divided and laid out into neat braids, face shining. The same slicked back glossy hair that I see my feed online being bombarded by now. The only difference? This time none of the girls looked like me or my family.
The clean girl aesthetic is hard to ignore. Your social media must be dominated by this girl, she’s effortlessly gorgeous with her ‘model off-duty look: gold hoops, rosy glowing skin, slicked-back bun – all while looking like she spent no time getting there.
This trend has surged on Tiktok this year, with the tag, going viral, having amassed 1.3B views since then. This aesthetic is loved by all – makeup tutorials going viral, inspired styling videos, and even celebrities putting their own spin on it.
However, despite this trend being loved by many, the face of this trend that the algorithm promotes consistently has the same similarities. Being “clean” according to Tiktok implies being white, skinny, able-bodied, having unblemished skin and straight hair. Opposing these Eurocentric ideals of beauty means being “dirty” or “trashy”. This aesthetic excludes any person of racialised descent, thus exacerbating the class divide within our society.
How is it Problematic?
The clean girl look has been a part of the heritage of black and brown women and therein begins the cascade of problems with this aesthetic. It serves as another culture stylised and reduced to a mere trend being appropriated by white women. Propagating notions that things are only deemed as classy and beautiful once they are associated with the Western lens. This relates strongly to Vatnam Sirdee’s ideas on the importance of racism to the making of modernity, as racism has been fundamental to the production and articulation of a concept such as the ‘clean girl’.
Clean puts an emphasis on “white femininity”. A call-back to the unsullied, untainted, rosy-faced beauties of the Victorian era that has been historically seen as the epitome of a pure woman. In stark contrast to other women of colour and femmes. There is no space for hyper-pigmentation, acne, unruly hair, larger bodies or any other cultural signifiers.
But people of colour isn’t the only one being harmed by this trend, to be a ‘clean girl’ also means fitting into a certain lifestyle and to do that, you need to belong to a certain social strata. ‘Clean girl’ requires you to be at your best, it’s far from effortless.
Future of Beauty
The trend of appropriation is an ongoing practice, picking and choosing elements of ethnic cultures that can be repackaged for consumption by the Western world while the original creators are put down. To combat this narrative, many creators of colour online have been trying to dominate the algorithm with their own take on the ‘clean girl’.
When it comes to the clean girl trend, the emphasis here should be on a redirection to crediting original creators, acknowledging cultural heritages and supporting platforms that want to educate others on issues affecting racialised minorities. The effects of this aesthetic rather than being narrow, can be impactful and consequential.
Being natural, as this aesthetic describes, should be seen as being comfortable and celebrating our own bodies. This can make all the change needed in how this trend is perceived.