But the Turkish delight makeup trend is…beautiful? 

The Turkish Delight makeup trend exploded across TikTok, with beauty influencers meticulously breaking down its signature look: soft, blurred lips in berry shades, earth-toned lids, a delicate eyeliner flick, and a naturally flushed complexion. The reference was unmistakable, Türkan Şoray, Yeşilçam-era Turkish cinema, and the understated glamour of a past era. It was a romanticised homage to a beauty standard deeply embedded in Turkey’s visual culture, yet it also slipped seamlessly into the global beauty landscape. Which is why, at first, it felt exciting.

Seeing something from my culture go viral – not political, not sepia-toned to fit the Western fantasy of Turkey – felt like waking up on a Christmas morning.Which is ironic, because I’ve never had one. But I know exactly what it’s supposed to feel like: the rush, the anticipation, and the warmth. I’ve absorbed that reference through a lifetime of movies, TV shows, and casual Western cultural osmosis. And so many more.

Now, for the first time, the roles were reversed. For once, something from my culture was being discovered, admired, and emulated; not as a footnote to conflict coverage, not as a reel from someone’s “so cheap!” summer trip, but as a beauty reference worth aspiring to.

This matters because we develop our self-concept partially based on how we believe others perceive us, a concept introduced by sociologist Charles Horton Cooley in 1902 as the “looking-glass self.” The way we are seen or not seen, shapes our identity. If we feel like we’re the funny one in the friend group, that image sticks with us, and then we might even struggle to share our emotions when we’re sad. My parents always called me “their smart daughter,” so I became an overachiever. But what happens when the world doesn’t see you at all? When your existence is deemed too marginal for the global gaze to even meet you where you are?

A stark example of this came in the New York Times’ coverage of the 2022 Istanbul bombing. In reporting the attack, the NYT chose to emphasise that ‘of the tens of millions of tourists from around the world who visit Turkey each year, many spend time in the area where Sunday’s bombing took place.’ The framing subtly reinforced the idea that Turkey exists primarily as a backdrop for Western travellers that its significance, even in tragedy, is measured by its impact on outsiders rather than locals.

Given that this is the usual way Turkey and Turkish culture are represented in the West – either through politics, conflict, or an exoticised fantasy – I quickly realised that the Turkish Delight makeup trend wasn’t just another viral beauty moment for me. It felt like something more significant. My excitement wasn’t just about a makeup look; it was about finally seeing my culture and reality recognised in a way that wasn’t tied to an Orientalist fantasy. But that excitement was quickly replaced by something else, an eerie tension between feeling grateful for visibility and realising that an outside perspective was still shaping this recognition… If this was a version of representation I could actually get behind, then where did that leave me? A Turkish Delight myself, with a pixie cut?

A binary examination of this feeling – is this self-orientalisation, where marginalised cultures package themselves to fit external expectations or cultural reclamation? – would be too simplistic. Self-orientalisation happens when a culture begins to aestheticise itself in ways that align with dominant stereotypes, often unconsciously reinforcing the very gaze that once exoticised them. It’s the neon-lit “exotic” text on a traditional carpet, the exaggerated mysticism, the self-aware nod to the tropes we know outsiders expect to see.

But the looking-glass self is not singular, it’s multidimensional, just like identity building. The way we see ourselves, inspired by how we perceive others to perceive us, is a constant push and pull between internalisation and resistance. So while self-orientalisation can provide a brief hit of empowerment, it also creates an underlying tension: the need to resist the gaze, critique the narratives imposed on us, and reclaim how we are seen.

Bell Hooks called this the Oppositional Gaze. In her critique of media representation, she argued that marginalised people don’t just absorb the ways they are portrayed, they actively resist, subvert, and redefine them. Take Black audiences watching Hollywood films that historically reduced them to stereotypes: instead of passively consuming these images, many Black viewers engaged with them critically, recognising the distortions and rejecting the roles imposed on them. The natural hair movement is another example; after decades of Eurocentric beauty standards being the default, Black people reclaimed their own aesthetic, challenging the idea that “professional” or “beautiful” meant straight hair. 

So where does that leave the viral Turkish Delight makeup trend? It is both an aestheticised version of Turkish beauty for mass appeal and a form of cultural reclamation. It carries the relief of visibility and the unease of conditional recognition. Self-orientalisation and resisting the gaze don’t cancel each other out, they feed into each other. Even pushing back against a narrative requires first being acknowledged within it. 

A couple of years ago, a stranger said, “But you’re beautiful?” when I told them I was Turkish, like in his imagination there couldn’t be a beautiful Turkish person. Maybe this trend means fewer people will say things like that, because I don’t know a single ugly person from any country. 

It’s like we’re playing musical chairs with cultural identities. Some cultures have a guaranteed seat in the global imagination, they never have to move, never have to prove. The rest of us are stuck in the dance, circling, even when the music stops. But you know what? Maybe we even like dancing better than sitting.

Honestly, I’m pretty okay with how Turkey is now synonymous with hair transplants, telenovelas, and Turkish Delight makeup. They’re steps in the right direction – they help humanise us. But maybe one day, I won’t have to explain how I embody many different cultures within my Turkish identity. Maybe by then, the world’s imagination will be wide enough to reflect back at me who I am as a person – beyond the perception of my national identity. Or at least let me do my little dance in peace.