“You are not ugly; you are simply not doing all your make-up in keeping with your facial distinction,” begins one of many over 52,000 movies of ladies utilizing the “What’s your distinction” filter on TikTok.
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The most recent development in magnificence filters performs on girls’s insecurities to promote merchandise, encouraging customers to categorise their faces primarily based on the distinction between their options. The filter turns your face black and white, offering a mannequin that categorizes faces into excessive, medium, and low distinction varieties. Nevertheless, the usual for comparability is rooted in Eurocentric magnificence beliefs, providing solely three pores and skin tone choices: mild, medium, and darkish. It means that the darker your options seem in opposition to your pores and skin, the upper distinction it’s best to assign to your self. Every distinction degree is linked to a advisable make-up fashion — low distinction requires subtler appears, whereas excessive distinction leans in the direction of bolder, extra hanging make-up.
In a video that is been considered over 5 million occasions, the creator of the filter, @alieenor, a French make-up artist, says, “As somebody who had very low self-confidence, that is one among my missions on earth to assist girls be assured in themselves. Assist them use make-up to their benefit and never work in opposition to them.” She pitches distinction idea as a instrument to liberate your self from insecurity and lastly really feel stunning.
Her logic, as with every TikTok magnificence development, harmfully conflates self-worth with look — and prizes White European magnificence above all else.
She argues, “It is an vital issue to learn about your self.” And explains, “If you happen to’re excessive distinction…as a way to have a balanced face, it’s best to add some sort of depth. If you happen to do not, it is okay. You perceive why you look washed out.” She talks about how discovering distinction idea helped her understand, “This make-up shouldn’t be for me, it isn’t as a result of I am not stunning.”
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Whereas @alieenor might need created the filter in good religion to assist girls really feel assured, it engages in a harmful ideology that empowers “feeling stunning” at no matter price. Lately, the wonder trade cleverly rebranded magnificence as a type of self care, giving us all of the excuse of “it makes me really feel good!”
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Positioning distinction idea as a fast repair for low self-confidence sends a very dangerous message to teenage ladies—particularly in an atmosphere the place algorithms are identified to take advantage of their insecurities. A 2021 CDC report discovered that one in 5 teen ladies felt persistently unhappy and hopeless, a 21 % enhance since 2011.
Creator @alieenor’s explanations of medium, low, and excessive distinction have garnered 11.7 million, 1.7 million, and seven.2 million views, respectively. Regardless of distinction idea’s recognition on the platform, it faces vital criticism.
“That is one other bogus development that solely works for truthful pores and skin and I’ll show it to you guys by doing excessive distinction versus medium distinction make-up on brown pores and skin,” mentioned Monika Ravinchandran, a magnificence creator, in a video. She goes on to argue that sorting folks with actually darkish pores and skin as low distinction, invalidates “full glam Black woman make-up.”
“There is a cause Desi bridal make-up and the UK Black ladies all eat up full glam,” continued Ravinchandran. “Brown pores and skin slays in excessive distinction make-up. Darker pores and skin absorbs extra mild, so we really need extra dimension and we will take extra colour.” By dictating what sort of make-up fits totally different pores and skin tones, critics argue that the speculation additionally implicitly dictates what would not go well with sure pores and skin tones — primarily labeling these selections as unattractive or undesirable.
Within the lengthy historical past of TikTok magnificence developments, distinction idea is nothing new. It follows within the footsteps of colour evaluation, the eyebrow filter, and the good face ratio filter. It is excessive time physique neutrality will get its viral filter second. However a filter like that might wrestle to interrupt into TikTok’s algorithm — particularly because it would not drive product gross sales or permit creators to earn commissions from selling magnificence merchandise.
