If you’ve been on TikTok recently, you’ve likely seen influencers and make-up artists transforming themselves into an ‘LA 10’, ‘London 10’, or ‘New York 10’ while lip-syncing to Foxy Brown’s earworm Candy. The trend was started by Lottie Starrs (@lottiestarrs), who posted a tongue-in-cheek video captioned, “When I get bored one night and decide to turn myself into a Miami 10,” back in July. As a ‘Miami 10’, Starrs wears a blonde, layered wig and thick black lashes.

But the make-up look which went truly viral was Starrs’ interpretation of an ‘LA 10’: the video, where Starrs dons a brunette wig and light blue contact lenses, has amassed over 23 million views to date. Since then, countless other creators on TikTok have shared their interpretations of what makes someone a 10 (AKA perfectly fit the beauty standard) in various places around the world. While some creators take a broad approach and emulate standards popular across whole countries, such as France or Scandinavia, others are ultra-specific: model India Rawsthorn, for example, has shared videos illustrating how the look of a Mayfair 10 differs from that of a Chelsea 10. 

When Abby Roberts saw Starrs’ LA 10 video, she knew she had to jump on the trend and put her own spin on LA 10 makeup. Then, the make-up artist – who lives in London but originally hails from Leeds – went on to share her idea of ‘UK 10’ makeup, with this video raking in over 2.7 million views. “It’s a lot of make-up,” she tells Dazed. “Us UK baddies love a full beat: fake tan, lashes, the lot!” She explains that she created the look by using a full coverage matte foundation before “bronzing to the max”, pairing a neutral eyeshadow “with the thickest lash [I could] find”, before finishing with a “classic, ultra nude concealer lip”. Roberts says she drew inspiration from British influencers and celebrities as well as ordinary people. “I think Love Island embodies the UK 10 look,” she explains.

The response to Roberts’ videos has been, as she puts it, “insane.” It has certainly sparked debate, with some viewers unconvinced that Roberts’ take on UK 10 make-up is accurate. “Not true, [a UK 10] looks like Michelle Keegan,” reads one comment. “This is NOT a UK 10,” says another. Most other creators who have joined in the trend have faced similar criticism: “This isn’t a French aesthetic at all,” says one comment under a French 10 make-up video. “Have you been to New York City?,” says another in response to a creator attempting the NYC 10 look.

The trend and the conversations it has catalysed have inadvertently highlighted just how nuanced the idea of beauty is. Ellen Atlanta, author of Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women, explains that while “youth, symmetry, and clear and even skin” are almost universally valued across the West, beauty standards are far from homogenous. “Beauty is a social language, and languages are dialectal,” she says. “What reads as ‘polished’ in Seoul – glass skin, straight brows – won’t necessarily translate in Essex – tan, sculpt and lashes – because each place encodes status and belonging differently.” To give an example, Atlanta posits that cities often reward individuals for standing out, while in smaller towns, fitting in is usually the ideal.

The trend has also highlighted just how subtle these distinctions can be: Rawsthorn’s Chelsea 10 look, for example, is more natural than glam, with her freckles visible underneath her foundation and no falsies in sight – a look which feels distinctly ‘old money’. By contrast, her Mayfair 10 look is far more self-consciously polished. “Hyperlocal codes usually crystallise where money, media and nightlife concentrate. A postcode gets an aesthetic because salons, PRs, reality TV and creators cross-pollinate there – and then TikTok turns a vibe into a template,” she says. While TV and social media have made hyperlocal beauty standards more visible, they have always existed: take Liverpudlian women drawing on thick ‘Scouse brows’ or wearing rollers in public (“beauty as both process and performance”, Atlanta says).

The trend has also revealed how a person’s opinion on what is ‘beautiful’ can reveal a lot about their social class. “We learn what’s ‘right’ from our environment, and those shared cues become passports within it,” Atlanta explains. Growing up in Leeds, Roberts asserts that her UK 10 look was very much the beauty standard. “All the girls I went to school with wanted to look like this,” she says. But it’s fair to say the intense, “full beat” look isn’t de rigeuer all across the UK (one commenter goes as far as describing Roberts’ look as “chav make-up”).

“These comments prove the point: ‘UK 10’ tries to bottle a national beauty template, and the pushback shows how quickly beauty slips into class war,” Atlanta says. “Working-class women’s self-styling is routinely shamed as excessive, even as middle-class culture mines it for trends. This is why a lip-liner-and-lash look can be ‘common’ on a council estate and ‘camp glam’ in a Mayfair hotel lobby. These hyperlocal TikTok looks are never neutral; they’re class stories told through beauty.” She adds that “it’s important to treat these ‘postcode looks’ as dialects people speak, not moral hierarchies.”

Roberts is also acutely conscious that standards can vary from place to place. “Everyone has their own views on what they find beautiful,” she says. “[My video] was based on my own experiences.” And perhaps when it comes to sussing out what we consider beautiful, our own experiences are all we have. Taste is subjective: it’s rare to find consensus on what makes an ‘LA 10’ or a ‘London 10’ or a ‘Paris 10’. Perhaps it’s unsurprising (and cheering) that there are as many different takes on what makes someone beautiful as there are people – beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all.