Death Of The Clean Girl

By this point, we’re all well aware of the clean girl aesthetic. It emerged in late 2021, and quickly became inescapable, stemming completely from the glamourisation of taking care of yourself. The world of the clean girl is one of skincare, workout sets, Hailey Bieber, Sofia Richie, and is essentially encapsulated completely by the illusion of having your sh*t together. It can generally be credited with promoting quite healthy habits, like exercising frequently, eating well, and staying hydrated, which is probably the reason for its popularity, as it makes sense that we idolise a lifestyle which we know is good for us. And despite the trend being quite useful in this way, like everything, it comes with its downsides, with it being an unrealistic ideal to strive towards, and it potentially engages in cultural appropriation.

In the 3-year lifespan of this trend, has it not run its course? We’re all aware of the ephemeral nature of trends, with the best of trends being lucky to last longer than 6 months. I think it’s time we prepare ourselves to kiss this trend goodbye, as there are only so much time that we can keep pretending to have it all together.

For those of us who are anti-clean-girl, the long lifespan of this trend has been exultingly annoying. But without much explanation, this trend lives on, like an illness you can’t shake. And there’s been evidence of different strands of this illness, with the aesthetic interacting with others that have been relevant at the time – things like Scandi style, and ballet core have seemed to weave themselves into the overarching clean-girl reign of terror, proving yet again that evil doesn’t die, but reinvents itself.

The grudge against the aesthetic

You might be thinking that the reason I’m holding a grudge is because a clean girl did some sort of great injustice to me and I’m seeking revenge, but you’d be wrong. I just think that for a trend that has lived this long, it’s really not all that. The ideals created by the clean girl are just unattainable. Sometimes our skin just isn’t that clear, our outfits don’t always match perfectly, and slick backs are very unforgiving for those of us with foreheads we’d rather hide. Though it’s a nice sentiment, the idea that we’re supposed to have our sh*t together all of the time is just unrealistic, at least for me. I think it’s time that we stop attempting to hold ourselves to these unrealistic ideals and come back to earth. We can’t live the perfect life that the clean girl is trying to sell us, and if it’s making us feel like we can’t do what so many on the internet have done before (and subsequently making us feel bad about ourselves), what’s the point in continuing to endorse it?

Bad ideal to strive towards

As well, the clean girl aesthetic is actually really flawed, as it draws influence from people of colour, whilst refusing to acknowledge their influence. Key features of the aesthetic have been “borrowed” from cultural practices and rebranded in a way that strips them of their background and denies credit to the cultures where credit is due. For example, hair oiling in order to achieve healthy hair, has been adopted by the aesthetic and made massively popular, all the while this practice has been a part of South Asian culture for years. The same practice that South Asian people have been mocked for in the past, has been made a viral trend, just because some influencers “discovered” it. And there is something to say about how the majority of the influencers and celebrities who were responsible in the creation and popularisation of the clean girl aesthetic are mainly white women, it goes to show that this trend is rooted in thinly veiled cultural appropriation.

Messy is better

Furthermore, the very name ‘clean girl’ has implications, as suggesting that you need to take these measures to be considered clean, is anything which deviates from this fabricated norm, “dirty”? This is clearly a very problematic way of thinking, as (for instance) the idea of clear skin being an aspect of the aesthetic, would this result in acne or texture being considered dirty or unclean? The whole trend feels very judgmental and exclusivist, which is not a mentality that we should ever allow to enter the major trend cycle, never mind for this long.

We’ve seemed to forget that messiness in life is just inevitable. Things don’t always go to plan. Sometimes you cave into the little devil on your shoulder and eat nothing of nutritional value for 2 whole days, or your hair gets messed up in the wind, or you spill coffee on your mismatched gym coord. This doesn’t make you any less of a functional person, despite what the aesthetic would suggest. And a lot of the time, it’s so much more fun to embrace the chaos and indulge in a bit of messiness. Forgetting to drink water, running late, letting important information slip from your mind, not respondin,g and texting your ex aren’t necessarily things which should be actively encouraged, but you shouldn’t have to feel like you must spend the rest of your life repenting for doing them just because people on the internet appear to have it together. It’s not fair to hold yourself to standards that don’t even exist, and to do it all because of a morally problematic trend is boring. Being messy will always be more fun anyways!