With all the beauty guru drama rocking YouTube and the constant barrage of sponsored posts on Instagram, the fatigue of a bloated homogenous beauty sphere has set in. But then, right on cue, in comes TikTok to shake things up (and mostly confuse us).
For those at the *ahem* far end of the millennial spectrum, TikTok, a microcosm as weird as it is addictive, is an app where people share short videos of themselves lip-syncing, dancing, and creating skits and other content we’re not too sure how to explain – most confusing of which are all the weird beauty trends.
They’re different from what’s on Instagram or YouTube, because they’re not necessarily things many people should be replicating. While every video’s objective may be to “improve” one’s appearance, the means to achieve it seem at best, questionable and at worst, seriously bad for you. Obviously,that means we end up binge-watching them for far too long. Here are some of our favourites.
Filing your teeth… with a nail file
Rings truly like nails on chalkboard, doesn’t it? Using a nail file, you can shave and smooth ridges on your teeth to give them a more even appearance. The results, while impressive, come at a price; namely deteriorated enamel and tooth sensitivity for life. Hurrah.
Literally ripping your muscle to get dimples
If you thought the internet’s love of freckles had reached ridiculous heights, you should see its love of dimples. The dimple trend began with the ‘dimple challenge’, i.e. people showing off their dimples, which led to people drawing fake ones on… which then snowballed into people literally damaging their faces to get actual dimples. Apparently, if you rub the end of a pen on your cheek vigorously enough, it will cause breakage within the muscle to leave a small ridge. We’ll pass on testing this one out.
Using nail glue to glue gems to your teeth
We may be seeing a (disturbing) trend here; using nail paraphernalia on your teeth. Apply a dab of nail glue to your canine, pop a little gem on there, and you’re good to go… straight to the dentist for that tooth rot you’re about to experience.
The fox eye look
This trend combines all the glory of trying to look like Kendall Jenner and also like you’ve had a facelift, but without you actually having to under the knife. Shave off the ends of your brows to the arch i.e. about a third of your brow. You should now have straight lines for eyebrows. Use a product of your choice to draw in the ends of your eyebrows to straight points. Et voilà.
The nose job, but not really
To mimic all the posts where people show off their nose jobs (yes, that’s a thing on TikTok – it’s titled “hey yo, nose job check”) but without actually getting a nose job, people have taken to using clamps to compress their noses for 30 minutes at a time. We’re not too sure about the results though.
Homemade lip plumper
This one was actually suggested by a doctor, so it’s probably safe to try at home (though we don’t recommend it). Probably. Dr Tony Youn recommends adding a couple drops of food-grade peppermint oil to lip gloss to help plump lips. Pro tip: if it stings, you’ve used too much.
Photos: TikTok and Jason Lloyd-Evans
