Beauty's Fascination with Hailey Bieber
When Hailey Bieber (then Baldwin) started modeling in 2014, the fashion world became obsessed. She started off small, doing pretty benign jobs and projects, but shot up to fame in 2015 with notable magazine spreads, walking in shows with designer names people knew, and making some friends with big stars. Of course, her relationship with Justin Bieber and then her marriage to him also did her name some favors. She is the perfect example of “no press is bad press”; no matter how bad the comments and feuding with Selena Gomez fans has gotten, it really did do her wonders in getting her name out there. But how did she go from a fashion darling and a household gossip name to one of beauty’s most talked about?
Hailey Bieber was a fashion icon first and foremost. She started off modeling and her street style and fashion runway photos took over every girl’s Pinterest boards for anyone who was looking for something a little different, but not too crazy. Her look was attainable and seemed to be just different enough that so many of us wanted to copy her style instead of someone else, like Kendal Jenner, who at the time had a very predictable style. Hailey was different enough that we could all get behind her. But now, in 2023, she is getting famous for having beauty standards and beauty trends that are nothing to be excited over.
Let’s start with the glazed donut nails. Full disclosure; I do like this manicure and I do think it is very pretty. However, I do not think it needed to somehow become a viral trend that had everyone everywhere asking their nail stylist to give them Hailey Bieber's nails. It’s pretty, but it’s not pretty enough that she should have been asked in so many interviews what the exact combo was. They are cute and subtle, but not so groundbreaking that these iridescent nails needed to be named after her. Or needed so many pieces written about them. For a solid week in 2022, I couldn’t go on Instagram without seeing these nails and seeing someone talk about them. And then on Halloween in 2022, she changed her now iconic nail color to black and had the beauty world shaking in their eyelash extensions. The only piece I saw voice their opinion on this was in Nylon where they also asked the question: why should we care? She and everyone else had black nails for Halloween.
Everyone was and still is so obsessed that she has been able to launch her skincare brand Rhode, which has done really well despite the controversy around the “brownie glazed lip” she debuted on her TikTok. This faced much-deserved backlash as Latinx people consistently called her out for a trend they came up with and perfected in the 90s and still own and rock to this day. She has still yet to comment on this but has quit using the phrase and talking about it, which isn’t the apology that is deserved but it’s better than ignoring everything (kind of). So even after this, after being relatively boring when it comes to actual makeup, why do we as a society, as a beauty community, keep flocking after her?
She is the ultimate, attainable, girl next door.
While I was looking through her Instagram and Tik Tok writing this, I noticed one main point: she uses regular products and looks like a regular person. Her lips aren’t full of filler, and her face still looks like hers so if she has gotten work done, it doesn’t look obvious. She isn’t in glam 24-7, and often just lets her hair do its thing. Or she waves it with a flat iron like the rest of us. She isn’t really a trendsetter, but she is just playing into the trends like, you guessed it, the rest of us and making them her own. She seems very normal and down to earth in every video she makes showing skincare or makeup and watching her do her own makeup gives the rest of us hope that if we get the very normal and not luxury-priced products, we can recreate her look. A quick Google turned up this Who What Wear article where the writer voiced the same thing: she is attainable. Or at least as attainable as any celebrity can really be.
She makes videos with her friends on YouTube, she does makeup like everyone else and her skincare like everyone else, and for those of us who are just regular people, it is comforting to see someone of her caliber and star power do her makeup and skincare the same we all do. Of course, she is not like us, she has access to things that most of us don’t even know exist, and she has her problematic moments for sure, but she seems to be very normal despite it all. And we all just want to look at the stars and think “They are just like us aren’t they?”.
I would also like to remind us all that if a black woman were doing the same things she wouldn’t have the same power that Mrs. Bieber does. This society values whiteness above all else and a black woman living her life this casually as a star wouldn’t be seen the same way.
She shows her skin texture online. She wears jeans, sneakers, and hoodies often. She loves a natural look. And we all look at her and think we can be her.
Madey
All photos found on Pinterest unless otherwise tagged