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."

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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. "There's this way in which so much Western innovation stems from colonialism. And that's where we get this kind of cultural appropriation."

As a result, she said Black and Latina women are also less able to profit from their own intellectual property.

"The problem is around the politics of value -- on whose body is that aesthetic valued, who's able to get value materially in terms of money, in terms of cultural capital?" Hernandez said. "We're in a society that unevenly attributes value to these body aesthetics depending on the identities of the people."

Hailey Bieber has not responded to ABC News' request for comment.

Bieber's post is not the first to generate accusations of cultural appropriation on TikTok.

For example, the TikTok "clean girl aesthetic" -- a common style among Black and Latina girls characterized by gold hoop earrings, a low, slicked back bun, and outerwear -- has attracted criticism for centering thin white women as both the image and inventors of the look.

Accusations of cultural appropriation have also touched other aspects of culture. Some online have criticized re-labeling "agua fresca" -- a drink of Mexican origin made with puréed fruit, water, and sugar — as spa water, or ceviche – a South American seafood dish typically made with raw fish -- as "cowboy caviar" on TikTok.

"I know it may seem as trivial as a lip gloss and a lip line, but this is a systemic issue," New York Times style reporter Sandra E. Garcia told "Good Morning America." "In the end, it is still the Black and Latino women that are losing. They lose parts of their identity. They lose their self-worth."

However, Hernandez said the issue ultimately doesn't lie with Bieber using the lip look.

"It's totally fine for people to play around with body aesthetics and things that inspire them that they see in other cultures," she said. "For me, it's more about just giving that due credit."

"The ways that young people especially are using outlets like TikTok, for example, to share their stories to share histories," she added. "I really hope that these issues become platforms that then can highlight Black and Latinx beauty creators, beauty influencers."

Hailey Bieber faces accusations of 'cultural appropriation' for 'brownie glazed lips' look originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com