I’m going to start off with a disclaimer: this is not butter yellow slander, nor do I actually dislike the shade. It’s not personal, butter yellow. In fact, I love yellow and I’m even quite taken with the pale shade itself. But enough. I can’t take it anymore. I’m fried.

Yes, butter yellow is the colour of the season, but how many times do we need to be told we should be wearing butter yellow everything this year? I was over it last year and I genuinely can’t stand it this year.

Colours shaping our wardrobes and beauty routines is nothing new. It’s been around for as long as I can remember: dark reds for winter, bright playful colours for summer. But there’s something about butter yellow that feels different. Maybe it’s the internet. Maybe it’s social media. Maybe it’s just me.

The constant, infinite stream of content telling us this is the colour we should be wearing, the one we should be incorporating into our beauty routines; the “it” colour, the look of the summer. It might just be my feed, but looking at the nails of the women sat in front of me on the Tube suggests otherwise.

The thing is, being told butter yellow is the colour of the summer oversimplifies what it means to wear colour in summer, in all seasons, in life. It sucks the joy out of wearing colour. Ultimately it means nothing, who remembers the it colour 2006.

According to Google Trends, searches for “butter yellow” were up 73% just last week.

I know I said I’m quite fond of it, but this is what happens. I like something, then I’m overfed it until it becomes nauseating. Not because the thing itself is necessarily “bad”, but because I can’t escape it.

In an age where choice feels infinite, having the internet decide for us can feel like the easy way out. It’s less overwhelming, less taxing. And turning to others is human nature. Psychologists call it social proof: when we’re uncertain, we look to other people for cues on what is correct, desirable or worth paying attention to. The more people appear to be doing something, the more legit it seems. It saves us the effort of deciding for ourselves. But every time we outsource our sense of style, what we like, even our personality, we lose a bit of ourselves.

Maybe I just hadn’t noticed how specific things had become. The version of ourselves social media is guiding us towards now feels incredibly precise. It’s no longer just a trend or a seasonal mood. It’s the exact shade, the exact aesthetic, the exact routine, the exact way to present yourself. There isn’t much room left for thinking for ourselves. When the risk is losing ourselves or at least the freedom to exercise what we like and what we don’t like, is the ease of being told what is “in” worth it?

I’m not here to say butter yellow isn’t perfect for summer. It is cute. But is it your colour for summer?

Of course, it all comes down to clicks and money. In a world where trends and personal style are steered by capitalism, I don’t think the butter yellow content mill is stopping anytime soon. Butter yellow sells. Or at least the idea of being stylish sells. The desire to be current sells. The desire to be seen as someone who belongs sells.

Brands, magazines and creators have all jumped on the butter yellow bandwagon, and together they’re reinforcing the same message: we should all be dripping in butter yellow. A pastel-coloured propaganda campaign.

In fashion, it’s always been obvious that trends reflect the mood of the moment. But more and more, this is becoming just as obvious in beauty too. I say “becoming”, but maybe it’s me who is becoming more aware of it. It feels as though we’re being cornered into submission, nudged towards becoming softer, prettier, more polished, more pastel.

Some people will read this and think, goodness, it’s just a bit of fun. It’s not that serious. Why make something out of nothing?

And maybe it isn’t that serious.

This reminds me of something Alicia Kennedy wrote in her newsletter Desk of Alicia Kennedy. She wrote that we live in “a digital culture... that prioritises people’s feelings over thought and analysis”. Too often, reactions are mistaken for ideas. I don’t agree. I can’t relate. I have feelings about this. “These are simply reactions,” she writes, “like stubbing a toe and yelling ‘ouch’.”

And so I’m writing this.

Because this isn’t really about butter yellow. Butter yellow just happens to be today’s en vogue.

It’s a small observation about the way we’re constantly being told how we should appear in the world. The way every trend arrives not as a suggestion but as a blueprint. The way every aesthetic promises to be the best version of ourselves—if only we buy into it.

It’s happening with depressing regularity. Not just in fashion or beauty, but everywhere. There is always a new ideal, a new uniform, a new way to optimise ourselves into who we’re meant to be.

Maybe we’re just a herd of consumers selling to more consumers. Either way, I’d quite like to get off the butter yellow hamster wheel.

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