Hailey Bieber Faces Accusations of ‘Cultural Appropriation’ for ‘Brownie Glazed Lips’ Look

Hailey Bieber’s viral TikTok post about her recent lip routine is facing some backlash and accusations of “cultural appropriation” among social media users.

“Ready for all the fall things including brownie glazed lips,” Bieber wrote in a caption to a video of her modeling makeup that included dark lip liner and clear lip gloss.

Some TikTok users have accused the model and wife of singer Justin Bieber of appropriating the makeup routine, which is thought to be a popular style from the late ’80s and ’90s originating among women of color — particularly Black and Latina women.

Jillian Hernandez, a professor at University of Florida’s Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research, told “Good Morning America” that her research has focused on the hyper-sexualization of working-class Black and Latina girls’ aesthetics.

“African American and Latina women get denigrated for the ways that they present their body, the way they wear their hair,” Hernandez said. “People use words like ghetto or ratchet.”

Sandra E. Garcia, a New York Times style reporter, said Bieber’s TikTok post is an example of a familiar double standard.

“[Black women and Latinas] are being looked at as lesser than any other woman just because of the way they decide to do their own makeup,” Garcia told “Good Morning America.” “But then another woman, a white woman, does the same thing, and her lip gloss is sold out and she’s now the face of the trend.”

Hernandez described the co-opting of trends as an act of “stylistic or aesthetic gentrification,” which she said can be traced as far as the 19th century when Cubist artist Pablo Picasso, who is Spanish, took inspiration from traditional African art.

“The reason he innovated modern art was because he was looking at African masks,” Hernandez said. “So much Western innovation stems from colonialism. And that’s where we get this kind of cultural appropriation.”

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