The celebrity lookalike makeup trend is everywhere. Here's why it's a problem.

Who is your celebrity look alike? Dua Lipa? Kate Hudson? Sabrina Carpenter? Rihanna?

It's a question that most people have an answer to — I've seen enough videos of people asking strangers online about theirs to know that this seems to be a normal icebreaker. The thing is, I really, genuinely, actually don't have one.

Now, before you insist that I do but I just haven't found them yet, trust me, I've tried: I've asked friends and colleagues, and no one can even pick one option, let alone have any consensus.

AI and TikTok filters have also failed me. In the past, I always got Zayn Malik or Dev Patel. As handsome as those two are, I'm pretty sure this is not a compliment… we're just all grouped together because we are south Asian.

I've long stopped caring about my lack of a celebrity lookalike — it's not like there's really any use to having one, and a lot of celebrities kinda suck. But a recent TikTok makeup trend has resurfaced my issue with the concept.

TikTok user Mina (@minaamouse016) went viral on the app when she urged women to do their makeup like their celebrity lookalike.

@minaamouse016

I’m testing this theory out, let’s just say it works 😳 ib: @janelle zharmenova @Patrick Ta Beauty @Hourglass Cosmetics @NYX Professional Makeup @NARS Cosmetics @milkmakeup @Kosas @maccosmetics @Westman-Atelier @makeupbymario

♬ original sound - Mina

"Your makeup's not ugly, you're just not doing it like your celebrity lookalike," she said in the video that now has more than 2 million likes.

"It's basically a cheat code to looking pretty. They have the best of the best makeup artists doing their makeup, and because you guys have similar features, you should be doing your makeup the same."

The advice has since sparked a trend where women are using TikTok filters to find their celebrity lookalikes, and then emulating their makeup style to elevate their own looks. For them it's great advice, but I've found myself surprised to see that we aren't really discussing what a privileged take it is to assume everyone has a celebrity lookalike.

Image: TikTok @theraisareyes, @makeup.trash

Hollywood is hardly representative of the wider population, and we know its beauty standards are Euro-centric and extremely narrow. People like me (I'm a South Asian, brown-skinned woman who wears a hijab) are hardly ever represented in the celebrity world, and part of the reason is because we simply are too 'othered' and therefore considered not attractive to look at.

Honestly, that's fine by me — I don't really need to be represented by Hollywood — but there's a conversation to be had here about whose faces are normalised, and whose are not.

I decided to have a crack at a few celebrity look alike filters on TikTok, to see if technology had perhaps come a long way since my teen years. 

The results were interesting — I didn't actually get Dev Patel or Zayn Malik, but I did get my one token POC: Zendaya, who I look nothing like aside from vaguely sharing a skin tone. Not even a South Asian woman! Another filter just glitched out and couldn't find me a match at all.

Every other popular filter I tried, however, exclusively assigned me male celebrities — which may seem innocuous to you, but it's actually pretty loaded.

Image: supplied.

Women of colour are often considered unfeminine because of our ethnic features like thicker eyebrows, darker skin, or wider jawlines. In fact, for a long time, sex differentiation was considered a trait unique to the white race (you can read about this more in White Tears Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad, it's a great book).

As someone who has had to contend with being masculinised my whole life because I am a brown woman, I don't actually find it funny when filters mistake me for a man. 

Women like me aren't represented often, and when we are its rarely positive or flattering. Some of us are disappointed by it. Some of us rather have no representation than bad representation. All of us are aware that we are distinctly "other" — and as harmless and fun as a celebrity look alike trend is, it's just one more reminder that we are different. And that maybe we don't belong.