Maybe she’s born with it, maybe she just had a “shell day.”On TikTok, women are sharing what goes into their makeup routines on the days they decide to get all glammed up. (For Gen Z, makeup isn’t an everyday thing.) Interestingly, it’s happening at the same time men are calling the very act of putting on makeup catfishing. In her viral TikTok “shell day” video series ― one has a whopping 3 million views ― content creator Serena Neel walks her followers through what goes into getting her glam done at home. Most days, she’s comfortable in her skin sans makeup, hair and eyelash extensions, but when it’s “shell day,” she takes her glam to 11. “I once again feel like Mr. Krabs without his shell,” Neel says in one clip before she gets ready, referencing the stingy crustacean from “SpongeBob SquarePants.” “I don’t have my hair extensions, or my lash extensions or a tan ― I’m real,” she says, before conceding, “Actually, I’m not because I just bleached my hair and I have very dark brown hair. I’m almost real.”“We must fake,” she jokes. “I am a Pokemon and I must evolve.”Then, Neel gets down to business: While drinking the nectar of the baddie gods (Diet Coke), she applies her hair extensions (a particularly arduous process), self-tanner, brow gel, eyelash extensions and then curls her hair.“This is my shell. Happy shell day!” she says joyfully when she’s done in one clip.Neel, who lives in Las Vegas, told HuffPost she created the video series because she loves transparency in the beauty space and sharing economical beauty hacks her followers can do at home. “Clean girl makeup is really popular right now, which is using a little makeup to enhance your natural beauty, and I think my ‘shell day’ is an extension of that,” she said. “Even on the days I don’t get ready, if I have my lash extensions on and a little bit of a tan, I feel put together even though I didn’t get ready at all.”When she does zhuzh herself up, she feels like a hermit crab, upgrading her shell and transforming into something more. Others have followed suit, making their own shell day videos and showing what goes into the process of a more glamorous visage. “My ‘shell day’ is like an ‘everything shower’ day on steroids,” said Tracy, a Rhode Island woman who goes by @tracytellsit on TikTok. “It’s the reset of your image for that week: Think a full blowout, self tanner, eyelashes ― a true self care ‘me time’ day.”Tracy told HuffPost that she sets aside time to do high-maintenance things so she can be low-maintenance throughout the week. The idea is to work smarter, not harder. “I’m all about authenticity and realness on my TikTok,” she said. “I wanted to show the world that it’s OK to be exactly who you are ― shell or not.”‘Shell day’ shows how women are renegotiating their relationship with beauty standards, for better and worse.There’s something refreshing and a little exciting about “shell day” videos (and not just because Get Ready With Me videos are a fun watch to begin with): We’re seeing young women pull back the curtain on what goes into a flawless, full-beat look. At the same, they say they’re fine looking normal and going mostly makeup-free the rest of the week. According to a 2024 YouGov poll, only 6% of Gen Z wear makeup every day, the lowest among all age groups, showing a more relaxed attitude compared to millennials or Gen X.@serenanee/@tracytellsit/TikTokFor Gen Z-ers like Neel, the performance of beauty is for fun, not an all-out requirement. Life, including makeup application “is meant to be unserious and fun,” said Serena Neel, pictured to the left. On the right, @tracytellsit's "shell day" video. “One of the key things that these short-form TikTok clips enable is a greater transparency and ‘authenticity’ from the creators,” said Becki Nash, a senior teaching fellow and sociologist at the University of Southampton in the U.K. who researches beauty norms.“There’s a sense of the ‘everyday’ beauty routine that differs from filtered, edited photos or highly polished pictures we see of celebrities,” she said. “I think we have to look at playful and lighthearted content in balance with other slightly more concerning elements of the mainstream beauty landscape, for instance, the worrying resurgence of being super skinny and ‘heroin chic.’” (Or maybe we should call it “Ozempic chic.”) For Gen Z-ers like Neel, the performance of beauty is for fun, not an all-out requirement. Life, including makeup application, “is meant to be unserious and fun,” Neel said. “Most days I’m just in pajamas or comfy clothes, so it’s definitely not about looking the most ― I even went six months without getting my roots done because my time and energy was going into my craft videos,” she said. “I really think the younger generation is a lot more comfortable not going full out on makeup every day because we’re seeing more authenticity online,” she added.Maskot via Getty ImagesMarjolein de Boer, an assistant professor of health humanities at Tilburg University in the Netherlands thinks that on a surface level, Gen Z is renegotiating feminine beauty norms. Marjolein de Boer, an assistant professor of health humanities at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, thinks that, on the surface, Gen Z is renegotiating norms of feminine beauty.With “shell days,” for instance, or on days you don’t want to put on makeup, you can feel comfortable not doing that because you have provided yourself with a “baseline beauty” with extensions and tanner.“These creators implicitly frame beauty routines as a ‘choice’ and as more ‘self-directed’ and not as something that is heavily influenced and shaped by feminine beauty aesthetics,” she said.This narrative pushed by “shell day” influencers aligns with postfeminist thought, de Boer said: Femininity and feminine beauty norms have become something one can opt for rather than something that you’re disciplined to do on a daily basis.Still, she said, the trend operates within a realm of highly strict beauty norms; you feel flexibility to not do makeup every day because you did a few hours of beautifying practices on “shell day.”Counter via Getty Images "Younger generations of women are starting to think differently about beauty practices, prioritizing skincare and ’natural beauty,” said Rebekah Burroway, an associate professor of sociology at Stony Brook University in New York. On the surface, this might look like a healthier relationship with beauty practices, but Burroway think it may signals a shift in beauty norms.Rebekah Burroway, an associate professor of sociology at Stony Brook University in New York, and a freelance makeup artist, loves the self-care element of “shell day.” But she, too, wonders if young women are backing themselves into different beauty norms. “Younger generations of women are starting to think differently about beauty practices, prioritizing skin care and ’natural beauty,” she said. (Think: Clean girl beauty, no-makeup makeup, subtle, non-surgical tweakments, or the crystal clear “glass skin” trend that swaps makeup for skincare products so effective, you forgo makeup.)On the surface, this might look like a healthier relationship with beauty practices, but Burroway thinks it may signal a shift in beauty norms.“Young women are still subjected to social pressures to look a certain way,” she said. “The trend now is ‘effortless’ beauty, which actually requires a lot of effort! We can see this effort plainly in ‘shell day’ videos. The idea of effortless beauty hides the labor that goes into achieving a particular look, and I do appreciate the ‘shell day’ videos for bringing that labor to light.”This conversation is happening as men are calling out women for using makeup to ‘catfish’ them What’s interesting is that this conversation is happening at the exact same time that young men online are griping about how women are “catfishing” them by using makeup. “Alysa Liu without makeup. Makeup should be criminalized,” one guy captioned two photos of the Olympic ice skater with and without makeup. Not even Sydney Sweeney or Margot Robbie has escaped the “makeup is catfishing” accusations. Robbie has been called “mid” without makeup by men who hang out in more incel-y corners of the internet.When photos of Sweeney in a bikini and no makeup appeared online in 2024, a certain segment of men were appalled at what they saw. “All women are catfishes. The question is, to what degree,” one person one tweeted alongside the photos. Another self-proclaimed incel posted a bikini pic next to a photo of Sweeney in a red gown on the red carpet, as a sort of “gotcha” moment. “This should be illegal,” he wrote. “This is what causes misogyny.”If you asked these men about what they think of the “shell day” TikTok trend, they’d probably say the trickery involved in it should be criminalized. Variety via Getty ImagesSydney Sweeney and Margot Robbie, pictured at awards show in 2019, have both been called catfish over no-makeup candid photos of them that have appeared online.The vocal, ridiculous response to little to no makeup is part of a larger societal trend of socially policing women’s bodies, Burroway said. “It’s not actually about makeup,” he said. “It’s about conforming to narrow ideals of what is acceptable femininity. As more and more women forego makeup, there’s bound to be some pushback unless and until that blossoms into the new social norm. While that’s certainly possible, social change is really slow.”Tracy, one of the aforementioned “shell day” TikTokers, thinks it’s “absolutely wild” that men think they can dictate women’s worth based on what they look like with or without makeup. For her, makeup isn’t for making herself more appealing to men: “It’s a tool to help you feel your best,” she said. “I am thankful for the confidence to personally refuse to hide the gifts that I’ve been given in this life, she explained. “F- the men who can’t handle strong women wearing makeup or not wearing makeup.”