The Flavors of Makeup: How We’re All Being Influenced Once Again

Graphics by Anika Dua

If you’re active at all on TikTok, we’re sure you’re no stranger to the complete oversaturation of beauty influencers. There’s a wide range from everyone’s favorite, Alix Earle, to everyone’s not-so-favorite, Hailey Bieber. But if we’re being real… this influencer craze is sort of getting out of hand. 

It's quite jarring to be casually scrolling through the for you page and come across a bunch of middle school girls doing a full face of  “strawberry makeup.” Now, don’t get us wrong, their abilities to afford Rare Beauty blush and to be able to pull off these looks is admirable; however, we’re sure everyone can admit it’s shocking that this new generation isn’t spending time playing with an older sibling’s battered Nintendo DS but rather filming GRWM TikToks with a full face of A-list celebrity makeup. But that’s the thing. Society is making it too easy for us to want to consume and invest in these products. The tweens of today are literally being spoon fed these videos of their favorite gurus using specific brands for the aesthetics.

Instead of Christmas lists being full of pink clip-in hair extensions from Justice or the newest Just Dance CD, they’ll be filled with Hailey’s new Rhode skincare line or Alix’s favorite luxury moisturizer. But this is a no-brainer because the only way to achieve Mrs. Bieber’s strawberry makeup is to have her new cream blush, right? Wrong. Putting on pink blush and brown eyeliner has been a “thing” forever. But who wouldn’t want to buy Hailey’s new line to achieve her fruit flavored skin? Or Kylie’s lip kit to achieve the perfect espresso lip to go with a mocha eye?

Anyways, you get the point. While the 13 year olds of today are being persuaded to look like their favorite influencers, we were being raised by Kesha who for sure did not care what palette she used for her eyes (as long as it was sparkly). But for now these trends will be all the hype… well, just until the next flavor drops.