The format of these videos is simple: Young women – and it is almost always young women – wake up mummified in beauty products and then peel them off, layer by layer. The more extreme creators bind their jaws with “de-puffing” chin strap masks and tape their lips shut (breathing through the mouth is very uglifying, apparently). According to Allure magazine, these videos have been watched over 96 million times. The mantra “The uglier you go to bed, the hotter you wake up” is often cited in the caption.
What people often get wrong about “lotus feet”, as it was called, is that all of the girls were forced into it. This wasn’t true in all cases. Some victims willingly did it to themselves, seeing it as a way to become more desirable – a path to marriage and a better life. Crucially, it also trapped them in work – it’s much harder to shirk your family duties making textiles or handicrafts if you can’t just get up and walk off.
Many “shedders” position their routine as a form of “me time”. Devon Kelly, one of the first influencers to popularise the morning shed, explained: “I recognise this is all a bit much, but my favourite hobby is leisurely self-care and sleeping.”
@devonkelley_#sleeproutine #mouthtape #glassskin #koreanskincare #silkbonnet #silkeyemask
♬ Carrie Bradshaw – Gal MatzaSo why do I find the 21st century take on this so disturbing? Partly it’s the age of the morning shedders involved, most of whom look like they are, at a push, in their late 20s, when your metabolism should allow you to roll out of bed half-pissed and still be able to operate heavy machinery while looking like you’re fresh off a spa day. But it’s also what it says about society’s current approach to the self, in which we invest money and time into ourselves and expect it to pay off, like our bodies are Fortune 500 companies or Wall Street stock options.
For women, self-optimisation might look like journaling, daily facial massage, drinking chia seeds in water and working on vision boards to manifest a better life. Some of this may even be beneficial in practice – chia seeds actually are good for digestion, though you could just as easily eat other, less glamorous fiber-rich foods. On social media, however, moderation gets you nowhere. What gets traction are knife-edge extremes – an elaborate 12-step nighttime skincare routine, getting up at 3am and not the more sensible 7.30am and that ends up becoming the starting point for the trend.
My great-grandmother probably didn’t think that her great-granddaughter would spend her evenings at home watching women bind their faces on TikTok, but I think she would recognise something of the unnameable impulse to do so. We tell ourselves it’s good for us – but really, we’re just trying to fit in.
Zing Tsjeng is a journalist, non-fiction author, and podcaster
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