Scroll through TikTok for five minutes, and you will probably come across a new beauty trend. Maybe it’s a skincare technique promising smoother skin, a makeup style inspired by another country, or a hair accessory that suddenly seems to be everywhere. The internet has made beauty more global than ever, allowing people to discover techniques, exchange ideas, and experiment with styles beyond their own communities.
But there is a question worth asking whenever something goes viral: What happens when a cultural practice becomes an aesthetic and its origins become an afterthought?
In the age of Pinterest mood boards, TikTok tutorials, and Instagram beauty routines, cultural practices can quickly be repackaged as lifestyle trends. Sometimes, this exchange is a positive form of cultural appreciation. Other times, it raises concerns about appropriation, historical erasure, and the unequal recognition given to the people who originated or popularized these practices.
The distinction is not always straightforward. Looking at three examples — satin bonnets, Douyin makeup, and dupatta — reveals how differently beauty and fashion trends spread across the internet.
The satin bonnet: a hair-care essential becomes an aesthetic
Satin bonnets have become increasingly visible in online beauty culture, appearing in nighttime routines, hair-care videos, and product recommendations. To many viewers, they may look like just another accessory in the ever-growing world of self-care.
However, for many Black women, bonnets are much more than a trendy addition to a nighttime routine. They serve a practical purpose: protecting textured hair, preserving hairstyles, and helping reduce friction, frizz, and moisture loss while sleeping.
As Teen Vogue explored in its 2023 article about Jack Harlow wearing a bonnet in public, the accessory carries cultural significance beyond its practical function. The discussion also highlights a double standard: Black women can be criticized for wearing bonnets outside the home, while non-Black celebrities may wear them without facing the same judgment.
Similarly, Allure, in a 2021 article on Black women’s freedom to wear bonnets in public, examined how their appearances are often scrutinized through expectations of respectability and conventional beauty.
This is where the conversation becomes more complicated than simply deciding who can wear a particular accessory.
There is nothing inherently wrong with someone discovering bonnets through social media and incorporating one into their hair-care routine. In fact, increased visibility can make useful hair-care practices more accessible. The problem emerges when a practice associated with Black hair care is presented as a groundbreaking discovery, while the people who have relied on it for generations continue to face stigma because of how they wear or maintain their hair.
The question, then, is not whether bonnets should be exclusive to one group. It is why the same accessory can be perceived as a practical part of self-care on one person and socially unacceptable on another. When a trend becomes popular, are we celebrating the practice itself while overlooking the people who have historically been judged for it?
Douyin makeup: when cultural exchange goes global
Unlike the satin bonnet, Douyin makeup illustrates how a beauty aesthetic can travel across cultural and digital boundaries.
Named after Douyin, the Chinese short-video platform, the makeup style became widely visible to international audiences through TikTok. It is often characterized by shimmering eyeshadow, delicate eyeliner, flushed cheeks, glossy lips, and a soft, doll-like finish.
In “How Douyin Makeup Took Over TikTok”, published by Allure in 2023, beauty writer Gabi Thorne explores the style’s growing popularity and the techniques that distinguish it from other makeup trends. Meanwhile, RADII‘s reporting on Douyin makeup as a Chinese cultural export examines how the aesthetic spread from Chinese social media to global beauty culture.
This is an important example because it demonstrates that cultural influence does not automatically equal cultural appropriation. Social media can introduce audiences to beauty traditions, creative techniques, and artistic references they might never have encountered otherwise. People can learn from creators across the world, adapt techniques to their own features, and develop new interpretations of existing styles.
However, context can get lost along the way. A makeup style may be widely recreated through tutorials without viewers understanding where its name comes from, which creators helped popularize it, or how it relates to the broader Chinese beauty culture.
The issue is not that someone outside China wears Douyin-inspired makeup. Rather, it is whether the trend is properly attributed and whether its cultural origins are acknowledged instead of being reduced to a vaguely defined internet aesthetic.
Cultural exchange becomes more meaningful when curiosity goes beyond appearance. Instead of asking only how to recreate a look, we can also ask who created it, where it originated, and which voices are shaping its popularity.
The Dupatta: When a Traditional Garment Becomes a “Scandinavian Scarf”
Cultural appropriation in the beauty industry is only part of the conversation. Fashion has its own version of this phenomenon, and the controversy surrounding the dupatta offers a particularly revealing example.
A dupatta is a long scarf or shawl traditionally worn across South Asia, including India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. It is often paired with garments such as salwar kameez and lehengas, and its styling can carry cultural, regional, personal, and sometimes religious significance.
In May 2024, a TikTok video posted by an employee of Bipty, a fashion rental community, sparked a debate about cultural appropriation. The video featured images of women wearing flowing dresses and sheer scarves draped across their bodies. The employee described the look as “very European” and “very classy.”
South Asian users quickly pointed out that the styling looked familiar: it resembled the way a dupatta has been worn for generations.
As The Juggernaut reported in “When Did the Dupatta Become ‘European’?”, the video prompted a wave of reactions from South Asian social media users, many of whom questioned why a familiar part of their cultural wardrobe was being presented as a new European aesthetic.
The controversy resurfaced in 2025 with the popularity of the term “Scandinavian scarf.” The Indian Express examined how the trend repackaged a style associated with the South Asian dupatta as a Western fashion concept.
The problem is not that someone wears a scarf with a contemporary outfit. Nor does it mean that every garment with a similar silhouette must have the same cultural origin. The controversy concerns the combination of a recognizable traditional garment, a new label suggesting a different cultural origin, and the absence of acknowledgment of the communities that have worn it for generations.
The garment did not suddenly become fashionable when it received a new name. Its visibility changed — and so did the story being told about it.
This is where fashion trends reveal another dimension of cultural appropriation. Renaming a garment can do more than make it sound fresh or appealing to a new audience. It can also detach the item from its cultural context, making it harder for consumers to recognize its origins.
The issue becomes even more significant when commercial interests enter the picture. A traditional garment can be repackaged as a marketable aesthetic, sold by Western brands, and promoted by influencers who may not acknowledge the communities associated with it. Meanwhile, South Asian designers and consumers may find themselves watching a familiar part of their wardrobe become desirable only after being reframed for a Western audience.
The dupatta controversy also raises questions about who gets to define what is fashionable. A garment associated with one culture can be dismissed as old-fashioned, overly traditional, or unfamiliar in one context, then praised as sophisticated and effortlessly chic in another.
Appreciation, appropriation, and the power of context
So, how do we distinguish cultural appreciation from appropriation?
There is no single checklist that applies to every situation. Cultural practices have different histories, and the meaning of adopting an element from another culture depends on factors such as its significance, the circumstances in which it is used, and the power dynamics surrounding its popularity.
Still, a few questions can help us approach trends more thoughtfully:
First, do we know where the trend comes from? Learning about its origins is a simple way to recognize that a beauty practice did not necessarily begin when it appeared on our For You Page.
Second, are the original communities receiving recognition? Giving credit to creators, sharing their work, and supporting businesses within the communities associated with a practice can help prevent cultural contributions from becoming invisible.
Third, are we overlooking a double standard? The bonnet debate shows why this question matters. If a practice is mocked or stigmatized when used by one community but celebrated when adopted by another, its popularity cannot be understood separately from the social attitudes surrounding it.
Finally, are we treating a culture as something to understand or merely as an aesthetic to consume? Appreciation requires more than reproducing an appearance. It involves recognizing that the people, histories, and experiences behind cultural practices are not interchangeable accessories.
None of this means that people should stop experimenting with beauty or learning from cultures other than their own. Cultural exchange has always influenced fashion, makeup, art, and personal expression. Social media has simply accelerated that process, making trends travel farther and faster than ever. The challenge is to make that exchange more thoughtful.
Beyond the trend cycle
The internet encourages us to move quickly. A technique goes viral, products sell out, tutorials multiply, and soon another aesthetic takes its place. In this cycle, context can seem less important than a catchy name, a before-and-after video, or an instantly recognizable look.
But beauty practices are not created in a vacuum. They are shaped by communities, histories, personal experiences, and social expectations. When they become trends, those stories deserve to travel with them.
The satin bonnet, Douyin makeup, and dupatta each reveal a different side of online beauty and fashion culture. One highlights the unequal treatment of Black women’s hair-care practices, another demonstrates the possibilities and limitations of global cultural exchange, and the third shows how a traditional garment can gain popularity while its origins are overlooked. .
All of them remind us that not every trend is appropriation — but every trend is worth looking at a little more closely. The next time a beauty hack or aesthetic takes over your feed, consider looking beyond the tutorial. Find the creators who introduced it, learn about its history, and pay attention to the conversations surrounding it.
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The article above was edited by Julia Ide.
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