A new social media trend has sparked a bizarre beauty craze that has young women destroying their lips…
In case you’ve been living under a rock, this is Kylie Jenner.
And love it or hate it, as a member of a reality show about nothing, Jenner has serious pulling power over fashion and beauty trends.
Best known for her suspiciously plumped up lips which experts are still arguing over the origin of (really good lipliner or Restalyn?), Jenner has prompted a social media trend that’s been referred to as the #KylieJennerChallenge.
The ‘challenge’ has young women taking to pushing their lips inside shot glasses and bottles and sucking as hard as possible to produce temporarily engorged lips worthy of Jenner herself, and the results have been, well, less than impressive.
But, more concerningly, the beauty trend has resulted in many young women leaving their faces painfully bruised and swollen, resulting in lengthy recovery time and dark purple marks around the lips.
One young woman wrote on her Twitter wall, ‘#KylieJennerChallenge, DON’T DO IT. I’m still in pain after 10 hours.’
It’s not the first time in history women have deliberately harmed themselves in the name of beauty. We all know the secret of pinching our cheeks to burst tiny blood vessels and create the illusion of blush, and more often than not, we’ve ripped hair from places that cause outrageous discomfort. And don’t forget injectibles, breast implants, laser hair removal, face peels and cosmetic tattooing.
The major concern with this particular painful beauty trend however, is that it’s not performed under the supervision of a professional, and perhaps most poignantly – there’s no proof to date it’s actually successful.
Nevertheless, several influential beauty bloggers have been taking to their YouTube channels to demonstrate to young women exactly how the #KylieJennerChallenge is done, and encouraging them to give it a go, despite the discomfort and displeasing results of the bizarre bottle sucking lip inflating technique.
We can only hope this is one trend that doesn’t stick around.
Have your say: Who do you think is to blame for the #KylieJennerChallenge? Have you seen clients who’ve tried it?