The Full Lip Frenzy

In all the centuries of beauty, us women have seen and done some ridiculous things in order to be physically attractive to the opposite sex, or to just make ourselves feel great about what we see in the mirror, but never in my life have I come across a “trend” that is so offensive and just down right cheeky.

Full lips has become a massive “thing” to have now and has been dubbed a “trend” by many magazines and social profiles. We even have YouTubers now, who have jumped on the bandwagon and made having full, thick or big lips cool, in and different/edgy.

This all started when Kylie Jenner started drawing on her lips with pencil. Using the overdrawn lip trick (which is super ancient), to give the illusion that her lips are fuller than usual.

Now there is a new craze which has taken over social platforms and in some cases people’s lips by storm,

The Kylie Jenner Challenge.

This is a challenge where by one simply sticks they mouth into a bottle, a jar or something with some sort of way to lock or suction your lip in. One then leaves the lips to simmer in this puckered position and then removes the utensil, to find that their lips are now fuller than before. Sounds really simple, the only problem is this looks ridiculous and it is rather dangerous, considering some people have cut their mouths doing this.

Another issue with this challenge, is that its incredibly offensive to the ethnicity where the fuller lip is originally from, black Woman. Black women have had and are still going through a constant battle with society and what they deem as beautiful, WHEN they deem it as beautiful and WHO they deem it as beautiful on.

For Black women, full lips are not a trend, we cannot simply wait for our lips to go down overnight or wipe them off – they are us. There are many black women who have been picked on and bullied for having said features and I feel that this “full lip frenzy” is making a mockery of what we were born with. This craze for wanting full lips and it being now desirable is also another example of appropriation, and again reiterating the fact that society feels our features are not beautiful on our faces, but are on other ethnicities. It sounds so foolish when it is said like that (but it is the truth), as anything that is deemed beautiful by societies standards, should be beautiful on any woman, no matter her skin tone. But sadly that’s just not how it works.

So what are your thoughts on the Kylie Jenner Challenge? Any points missed out or any disagreements? Tweet us @SimplyOloni.