The Problem With Glowing Up

Art by Aminah Shahbaz

If you’re on TikTok, chances are you’ve seen at least one video on your feed of a gorgeous stranger lip-syncing to a sexy R&B song. Or if you’re chronically online like me, you probably see dozens of these a day just by scrolling your for you page. Every single one of these videos features a person who is so incredibly attractive that they look AI-generated, and a look into these trending TikTok audios reveals that there are thousands of people matching these impossible beauty standards.

So…when did everybody get so hot?

Actually, before that, how did everybody get so hot?Because while it’s completely normal for people to get more attractive over the years as they find their signature styles or grow out of their awkward phase, many of these changes are so dramatic that they seem implausible. Some creators admit that they use filters and lighting to achieve their looks, but most of them follow up with a beauty tutorial. Their promise is that any audience member can reach this level of attractiveness if they just do certain things to glow up. But is that really true?

What is a glow up?

A glow-up is a social media term “used to describe a significant transformation, typically in physical appearance, that is perceived as an improvement.” But this isn’t a new concept. The makeover is a trope that’s been used in coming-of-age movies for decades, but TikTok takes this concept to an extreme. When audience retention comes down to a matter of seconds, being stunning maintains viewer engagement. TikTok’s short-form content model is the perfect platform for the beauty industry to exploit.

What makes a glow up different from other kinds of transformations is its claim of accessibility. It’s no secret that celebrities spend fortunes on beauty treatments like rhinoplasties and Ozempic to boost their appearances, but glow up trends focus more on a DIY approach. Suddenly, it’s possible to look like a celebrity from the comfort of your own home if you just follow these easy steps. Add this to your skincare routine! Do this small step while glamming up for a party! Put this product in your cart and see results in two weeks!

An example of this is the morning shed routine that was popularized in 2024. A quick search on TikTok reveals a sea of videos of women going to bed with multiple beauty tools to save time on getting ready the next morning. These tools include overnight lip treatments, heatless hair curlers, chin straps, LED masks, lip stains, collagen eye masks and more. When they wake up, they go through the painstaking process of taking off every treatment to show audiences that it’s possible to roll out of bed looking “effortlessly” beautiful. These videos are usually accompanied by soothing background music and product placement, without any mention of how they slept the night before or any other downsides of the treatment.

TikTok glow up culture

The morning shed trend is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to TikTok beauty trends. Every month, there’s a trend showing a new “solution” to insecurities that didn’t exist until influencers began popularizing them. They tell you that you should be trying to achieve Korean glass skin, and not two weeks later, they’ll switch it up and add gua sha to their morning routine. They claim that a select few hair oiling products will promote maximum follicle growth, then proceed to sponsor hair vitamins instead. A new product trends every month from influencer PR unboxings, which are purposely packaged differently for content creators in comparison to the average consumer.

While inventing insecurities to sell out cosmetic merchandise isn’t a new tactic, it’s never been as widespread as it is now. It’s been refined, recycled, and regurgitated through every possible body part from your philtrum to your armpits to your knees. It’s no longer enough to have knees that work. You have to have knees that are aesthetically pleasing and proportioned perfectly to the rest of your body. The quest to become more beautiful never ends because there are always more beauty products to sell, more brands to collaborate with, and more money to earn.

Several influencers have spoken up about this. Paloma Sanchez, a beauty influencer with 1.1 million followers on TikTok, has called out other influencers’ inauthenticity through the use of digital effects: “The blue-eyed filter changes your face. The beauty filter changes your face. How are you supposed to be trusting people when they’re literally lying to you?”

What this means for younger audiences

These trends are especially dangerous for tweens and younger children who are receiving their first phones and just getting on the internet. In recent years, statistics have shown that “baby and child skincare is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2025-2029) of 5.74%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$605.55m by 2029.” TikTok users have coined these skincare obsessed ten-year-old “sephora kids” and often complain about the rush of them in beauty spaces. TikTok user @giannamjoyce made a get ready with me video with 3.3 million likes where she expresses that she thought audiences were “exaggerating when telling your stories about the little girls at Sephora. They are actually insane.”

But the real question we should be asking ourselves is: why are we blaming children for something that we actively contribute to? The reason these trends have an audience in the first place is because we engage with them through likes, reposts, and comments. Are we really condemning a child for exercising their right to be curious and following in the footsteps of women they look up to?

Many TikTok users like to focus more on how these kids are “ruining the space” instead of the impact this phenomenon will have on children. Children will be increasingly obsessed with glowing up as the years go by and undergo unnecessary treatments to reach a standard that is impossible to achieve, all while older generations laugh at them instead of trying to help.

While glowing up isn’t a concept that’s going away anytime soon, it’s important to remember that being physically attractive is only a small part of who you are. People aren’t meant to stay beautiful forever, and it’s natural to age and change the way you look as time passes. If you’re ever feeling down and have the urge to glow up, just remember to ask yourself who’s really benefiting from it: you, or the influencer receiving sponsorships behind the camera?