OpenTube

TikTok Is Losing It Over Utah Hair

Alyssa Grenfell

846,038 views

A special thanks to Ground News for sponsoring today's video. Ground News is a great way to stay informed and get outside your media bubble. New subscribers using my link get 40% off the Vantage plan! Visit https://ground.news/alyssa to get your discount.

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Utah hair is going viral on TikTok for all the wrong reasons. In this video, I break down why so many young women in Utah are pressured into the same beauty standards, and how Mormon culture shapes ideas about femininity, worth, and perfection from a very young age. The purpose of this video is to examine a system that encourages conformity, constant self-modification, and comparison. What looks like a joke online is actually a window into how religious and cultural pressure can impact self-image, especially for teenagers growing up in the age of social media.

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A few resources I mention in the video:
*My hair and makeup routine on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/my-hair...
*Example compilation #1: https://www.tiktok.com/@kyivlisaa/vid...
*Example compilation #2: https://www.tiktok.com/@webeenknownda...
*Called emo for having dark hair: https://www.tiktok.com/@caelengeneric...
*Secret Lives women without extensions: Reddit: jessi_mikayla_mayci_and_layla_without_hair
*Podcast discusses Utah hair blindness: Instagram: DR2_MS8DzVO
*Ballerina Farm gets Utah curls: Instagram: C_B359GSaNw
*How Mormon is Utah study: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15xLX...
*12 year old client will be popular video: https://www.tiktok.com/@katefisherrr/...
Demi dyes 5 year old daughter’s hair: https://www.tiktok.com/@insideedition...
*Styling a Utah hair dent: https://www.tiktok.com/@maisyndelaine...
*Racist history of the Mormon church: The Mormon Church’s Racist Past Is WAY Wor...
*My experience teaching in Utah: Teaching 9th Grade in a 93% Mormon Town
*The Scandinavian roots of Mormons in Utah: https://historytogo.utah.gov/scandina...

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Where to find me:
*Patreon (ad free & bonus content): https://patreon.com/alyssadgrenfell?u...
*Read my book, How to Leave the Mormon Church: https://amzn.to/4na4rpo
*TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alyssadgrenfe...
*Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alyssadgren...
*Email me: alyssadgrenfell@gmail.com

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Support my channel:
*Patreon (ad free & bonus content): https://patreon.com/alyssadgrenfell?u...

20 Comments

@alyssadgrenfell Creator 8 months ago Pinned

Thanks to Ground News for sponsoring today's video! If you need a better way to stay informed, subscribe and get 40% off the Vantage plan by using my link: https://ground.news/alyssa

@shawnyaalexander 8 months ago

To have an old man telling young girls how to attract a man is just disturbing as hell. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

@fizzlepop7309 5 months ago

"You looked so much happier when you were in a cult that made you pretend to be happy all the time!"

@Cedarantula 8 months ago

As an indigenous woman of Canada. It shocks me how how much religion wants to embrace a persona and not a real woman

@MsPatchesTHEcat 8 months ago

What annoys me the most is the cool toned blonde hair with the super warm orange tan. Mormons must not believe in color theory.

@Kat-V 8 months ago

"Alyssa with mormon hair extensions isn't real, she can't hurt you!"
Alyssa with mormon hair extensions:

@ffflustered9qr 8 months ago

Utah hair has some significant Venn diagram overlap with Mar-a-Lago face and the Fox News female aesthetic.

Actually, I think it’s just a very big circle.

@LeeahFish 8 months ago

Wait... THEY STRAIGHTEN THE ENDS ON PURPOSE!?!?!?! I literally thought they just didn't wrap their hair all the way around the curling iron.... Holy crap, WHY would you WANT your hair to look unfinished???

@Naeymyra 8 months ago

kinda crazy that being white is so gloryfied but than taning to the max and over, but god forbid you naturally have a darker skin colour....

@loozr164 7 months ago

As a polish person, America as a whole seems like a social experiment, but learning about Utah is like entering another dimension

@KillWelly64 8 months ago

"overdo it on the tanner" is also how they name their kids!

@rightwrightwriter 8 months ago

I’m a natural light blonde with a good amount of wave. At one point, it was down past my waist. I had a sudden financial issue and needed money quick, so I sold my hair through Craigslist to a Mormon woman for extensions.

It was such a weird encounter. She was so enamored with my hair and we were having a good time chatting at her salon. Then the cut started and around 36 inches was gone.

I was stoked with my buzz cut. But, she was suddenly so devastated.

“I can’t believe I’ve done this to you. I ruined you.”

Just sobbing. And, she was very, very concerned that my boyfriend at the time would leave me. I couldn’t get her to understand that I was totally fine, that I had been looking for an excuse to lop it off. He didn’t dictate my appearance.

I’m ex Nazarene, so I get having hangups about hair, especially because I wasn’t allowed to cut it for religious reasons growing up. But, I still don’t understand how she was so caught off guard by the reality that she was buying my hair and it would inherently change my appearance.

But, $1,000 is $1000. 😂

@mindyblack235 8 months ago

The Utah dent literally looks like my hair when I take my ponytail down.

@lindseyhudson1274 8 months ago

As a teenager my bff was mormon. She has beautifully curly (like spirally curly) hair. We decided to go get haircuts together and I got basically a trim while she cut her long hair into a boy short cut. It looked adorable and then we drove back to her house and we walked into the kitchen and she asked her mom what she thought and her mom said "well there's nothing like taking your best feature and getting rid of it" and walked off. I felt that comment as a dagger to my heart in her honor. I told my mom when I got home and we both cried. Such an awful thing to say to your only daughter who was only 16. I basically lost all respect for her mom then.

@flimsworth 8 months ago

The tanned skin is crazy especially for the belief that dark skin is close to "sin" or "evil'.

@ms_m_bookworm 8 months ago

As a young queer girl in '00's Utah, I did not conform to the standard. I loved coloring my hair, and dressing in ways that were modest, but alt. My Mother was called out by the Relief Society Prez for "allowing me" to do this. (They specifically had issue with a floor length black velvet skirt I wore.) My Mother had my back, but I was constantly peer pressured and actively pressured to conform. Everyday glad I got away from it.

@stinkysmelly937 8 months ago

People saying you look worse after leaving Mormonism is especially weird to me as an outsider. Every time I see Mormons in photos they always have an uncanny "soulless" forced smile and absent eyes lol.

@Aloiv7575 8 months ago

The idea that a religious leader is literally telling women they need to wear make up pisses me tf off. What happened to “we are beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of God”???

@Mockingbirdblow 8 months ago

As a black woman there is also’ the hair issue’. Hair is very important in our community. People do damaging hairstyles in the pursuit of beauty. Willing to damage their natural for wigs. I shaved my head for many years. When I had my head shaved black men weren’t ever interested in me. Now that I have Sisterlocs long Sisterlocs I get a lot more attention. I think I’ve had a glow up. But I no longer seek validation from men. I used to wanted to be wanted so badly. Now I’m married and I like to dress up for my husband and for the women that compliment my outfits. Long hair is honestly a nightmare sometimes. I upstanding why so many girls cut their hair. I’ve never worn extensions but I know they damage your hair

@vashtilives2469 8 months ago

One thing you didn’t explicitly say that I think is a really important element in the long blonde beach wave/Utah curl being part of the standard Mormon uniform is that this makes someone’s social class and wealth instantly identifiable with just one glance. I grew up in the Mormon corridor (Idaho) and in my experience Mormons are super obsessed with hierarchy and so a hair style that lets people immediately place someone in the social hierarchy is desirable.

Long hair is possible to maintain but only if you don’t use heat tools on it regularly. Smooth silky loose curls are a basically unnatural curl pattern so no matter what your hair texture you probably will need heat tools to achieve them. You can see then, the conflict that arises if people are expected to have super long loose curls every day. This hairstyle is basically impossible to maintain naturally for long periods of time, which in turn means that the better someone’s Utah curls look the richer they are.

Other signs of wealth can be faked; designer clothes and purses can be duped or bought second hand, a girl talented at makeup can look great wearing drug store products, but wearing long blonde Utah curls that look shiny and healthy and natural all the time? Only money can make that happen. I truly believe this is why this hairstyle has reigned supreme for younger women in the Mormon church for so long. It was the most desirable hair style when I was in my late teens/early 20s and now almost twenty years later clothing styles have changed but the hair hasn’t.