For once, the term of the week on Beauty TikTok isn’t the name of an algorithmically promoted physical insecurity. Instead, it’s a rare trend that celebrates the imperfections of an unmodified lip: It’s a Beetlejuice lip.
But what, exactly, is a Beetlejuice lip? In a video that’s garnered over 41 million views and 4 million likes, beauty creator Adrianna Kalisz introduces the two-toned lipstick look. As “Say My Name” from Beetlejuice The Musical plays in the background, Kalisz applies chartreuse green eye paint to her lips. Then she scrunches up her mouth and carefully dusts black eyeshadow powder into the creases. She quirks up her lips in a smile, revealing a black-on-green zebra pattern — an application method previously posted and coined “zebra lips” by Portuguese beauty creator Luara Reisinger — and celebrates the success of the look, crediting Reisinger in her caption.
TikTok is criticizing young girls who shop at Sephora. They’re missing the point.
The bold look caught on. A flurry of other beauty creators replicated Kalisz’s video, but something quickly became clear: If a creator has lip filler, the technique either turns out sloppy or doesn’t work at all. The creator needs deep, natural lip creases for the eye shadow to settle around and create defined contrast. Lip filler smooths out those necessary creases.
The most popular example of Beetlejuice lips gone wrong is makeup influencer Jeffree Star’s attempt, which received over 25 million views and nearly 2 million likes. Rather than creating dramatic stripes, his lips remained a powdery black. After the method didn’t work for him, Star said, “Um, have we been duped? What the fuck.” The top comment on his post reads, “I think it’s cuz you have lip filler so your lip creases aren’t as deep and obvious!” Star replied, “Hahaha facts.”
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Viewers used to seeing creators normalize fillers and injectables — and promote an unattainable beauty standard — relished this turning of the tables. A London-based makeup artist posted a video stating, “My new guilty pleasure is watching beauty influencers with too much lip filler try Beetlejuice lips.” It racked up nearly 9 million views and over 1 million likes, suggesting a dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Robbie Roe, a 28-year-old graphic designer and touring musician, decided to post a similar video after seeing Star’s video. “Over the last year especially, I’ve been noticing a lot more beauty influencers getting a lot of work done, and creating this unattainable look, and then using it to sell products to people,” Roe told Mashable.
In the video they say, “There’s something kind of beautiful about there being a beauty trend that’s only for people who don’t have fillers … Maybe this lays the groundwork for more beauty trends that utilize the totally natural creases and lines of our faces.” It received nearly 4 million views and over 430,000 likes.
Roe is right. Minimally invasive procedures, including Botox and filler, are on the rise. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, minimally invasive procedures grew by 7 percent in 2023, with over 25 million procedures performed. Dermal fillers grew by 4 percent, to 3.2 million. The report notes that Botox is so normalized in American culture that “patients mention it as casually as running an errand to the store or post office.”
It’s the “weird” beauty trends embracing the natural folds and contours of the face that push back against the suffocating norms.
The normalization of these procedures is due in part to influencers documenting their surgical journeys on platforms like TikTok. In 2022, NBC News uncovered that influencers, including those on TikTok, are offered cheap cosmetic procedures in exchange for promotion, creating a dangerous plastic surgery feedback loop. Business of Fashion recently cautioned against the “casualizing” of injectables that happens on the platform, citing the dangers of unlicensed practitioners, counterfeit Botox, and botched procedures.
The surge in injectables and fillers isn’t just risky from a medical perspective, it’s also creating an unrealistic standard of “natural beauty,” where the bulk of public-facing figure’s beauty maintenance happens under the needle or knife rather than with the products they hawk on TikTok.
But in this moment, the “weird” beauty trends embracing the natural folds and contours of the face push back against the suffocating norms. Beetlejuice lips treat makeup as an art form rather than an obligation.
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Last year, makeup artist Netta Szekely dusted gold eyeshadow over the wrinkles surrounding a model’s eyes to the tune of 7.8 million views. Similarly, viral makeup creator Mei Pang experimented with layering color over the crinkles on her nose, earning nearly 16 million views and 2 million likes. Kalisz reposted her own version of the “Botox-repellent” eye makeup. Just last week, TikTok creator Buket Berçe Kobal pushed Beetlejuice lips even further, adding their own nose scrunch component.
“[The ubiquity of plastic surgery on TikTok] upsets me, because people have such unique features,” said Roe. But Kalisz’s corner of TikTok gives them hope. “There’s another subset of makeup TikTok that’s specific to those unique features, whether that is creases, acne, or hooded eyes. There’s a lot of creators who do things you can aspire to because they look like you.”
