Another day, another TikTok trend. This time, #BeautyTok has made “Latina makeup” go viral with women sharing their versions of a generic Latina-inspired look with heavy lashes, sharply arched brows and abundantly lined lips.
The trend was particularly popular among South Asian creators (my South Asian American editor actually brought this to my attention) who flip their hair in reels to reveal an immaculately contoured cheek and smoldering eye. It makes sense. Many South Asian and Latina women do have in common certain features that lend themselves to an ombre lip. But one missing element makes the trend feel less like cultural appreciation and more like appropriation.
By generalizing this beauty look as “Latina makeup,” it confines all Latinas to a specific defining look. And that’s not possible for such a broad demographic of people. If we’re going to give credit where credit is due for a beauty trend, it feels more respectful to be as accurate as possible.
As TikTok star Monica Ravichandran explains, calling this look “Latina makeup” is similar to generalizing a specific Korean makeup look as “Asian makeup,” even though women from different parts of the continent have very different beauty styles. And so, attributing a specific style to Latinas — a people who hail from across 33 different countries and have various racial and Indigenous ancestries — is reductive. We are not a monolith, physically or socially.
While Latinidad is a cultural umbrella term meant to unite, generalizing this beauty trend robs a sub-sect of people of credit for what is essentially an age-old artform. Just as you’d want to differentiate Harijuku style from Douyin makeup for the sake of cultural accuracy, we want to be specific here, too. The look that’s gone viral was popularized by Chicanas, which is an ethnic identifier for Mexican Americans.
As a Chicana myself, our makeup is most notably defined in pop culture by its dark, arched eyebrows, exaggerated (and extremely sharp) winged liner, thick and dramatic lashes, and lips lined with dark brown liner and a nude lipstick or lip gloss on top. It’s important to note that this look, which is often associated with Chola makeup, is slightly different.
Chola beauty staples tend to be more dramatic with even bolder colors, thinner brows and sharper angles. Cholas, who have origins in Southern California and are defined by a specific aesthetic, are a subculture of Chicanas, so it’s easy to see how the two are influenced by each other.
The Chicana makeup style has been evolving since the 1940s as Mexican Americans learned to define themselves as “ni de aqui, ni de allá” (meaning, neither from here nor from there). Therein lays a well-known struggle of not being American enough or Mexican enough. Creating their own blended identity with style markers allowed them to thrive in their self-made blended identity. Our ancestors fought for this identity during the Civil Rights Movement, and it is foundational to our understanding of ourselves and our roots. And so, on social media, we need to celebrate that rather than subconsciously erase it.
Some creators, like Ravichandran, stand out by taking an effort to share the history behind the makeup, which feels important because of how women of color are categorized and perceived in the U.S. While we might be a “Latina baddie” on TikTok, our sharp liner and ’90s inspired brown lippie can reinforce negative stereotypes that continue to hypersexualize and demean us. So if we’re going to adopt these looks, it’s important to know the weight they carry.
The line between cultural appropriation and appreciation is thin, so making a concerted effort to understand and name a cultural trend rather than generalize allows the world to better understand the important distinctions between various ethnic groups. So if you want to appreciate Chicana beauty, be accurate. Give Chicanas their flowers and help avoid circulating age-old stereotypes.