Chinese Wellness Is TikTok’s New Hot Girl Aesthetic

If you’ve spent more than five minutes online this winter, your FYP may have gently, but insistently, suggested that the reason you’re cold, bloated, breaking out, exhausted, and have lost your glow is simple. You’re not Chinese enough, apparently.

This recent trend of “Turning Chinese” is not about anyone claiming you can literally change your race. It’s tongue-in-cheek, super self-aware, but refreshing and earnest. Western women, long burned out on green juices, cold plunges, and other jarring spikes to our cortisol, are discovering Traditional Chinese Medicine–adjacent wellness tips and tricks. Chinese women (and women from many other Asian cultures) prioritize warmth, rest, nourishment, and, most importantly, long-term beauty outcomes over short-term punishment.

The science is divided, but the vibes are totally there. Many people tout these habits as daily doses of vibrance in their lives, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to test a few of them out. Here are some of the most viral Chinese wellness tips circulating the internet right now, plus how you can actually use them without turning your kitchen or bathroom into an herbal apothecary.

Drink Warm Things

The number one rule that shocks Western women is how Chinese women do not drink cold beverages, especially in winter and especially during their period. In Chinese wellness, cold constricts while warmth circulates. That not only applies to your blood flow, hormones, and digestion, but also your skin clarity. While you may love the feeling of a refreshing glass of ice water, Chinese women believe it shocks the digestive system and weakens your energy over time.

Your hot girl tip? Swap iced coffee for warm tea or hot water with ginger and lemon. Drink warm broth (bone broth is best, but let’s be real, a simple mug of standard grocery store beef or chicken broth hits hard in the winter, too) to support your body through the chilliest season.

Feeling thirsty? Room temperature water is your BFF, and once you make the swap, you’ll be surprised how quickly your body stops craving cold drinks altogether. I personally keep a glass LifeStraw pitcher of filtered water ready on my kitchen counter at all times to fill up my Stanley and stay refreshed.

Red Dates Are The Fruit For Women

Collagen this and adaptogen that, red dates (also known as jujubes) are the Chinese beauty fruit. I’ve written a tell-all about this superfood in the past, but for a brief recap, know that they’re widely praised for supporting skin elasticity, stress regulation, reproductive and hormonal health, and even sleep quality.

The most popular way Chinese women consume red dates is in hot water to make a naturally sweet tea. You’ll find that some recipes even include goji berries or slices of ginger for additional benefits like antioxidants and improved circulation. Goji berries often show up in TCM for a good reason. They’re associated with eye health, circulation, and a great glow. You can easily toss them into soups, oatmeal, or, as I’ve been explaining, tea.

Red date tea is cozy, grounding, and the best part? You can eat the softened fruit afterward, but just be mindful of the pit.

Rice Water As Skincare

Way back when beauty YouTube was picking up steam in 2009, personality and now entrepreneur Michelle Phan put out a video called “Rice Water for Healthy Skin.” The concept kind of blew my mind. It was so simple. Why hadn’t I ever thought of it?

One of the easiest and cheapest beauty tips is to save your rice water. When you’re prepping rice to cook, you’re supposed to rinse it thoroughly. Instead of tossing that liquid, save the milky goodness to be used as a gentle facial toner. Make sure you apply the toner with clean hands or a cotton pad, and use it within a few days, storing it in the fridge between uses.

This zero-waste beauty technique has been popular across many Asian cultures for generations, as it’s soothing, hydrating, and brightening. It’s minimalistic, time-honored, and sustainable.

Pause the Pilates

If Pilates is the West’s low-impact love, Baduanjin qigong is the Chinese equivalent. This ancient practice is slow and intentional to improve your flexibility, circulation, and internal balance. You don’t sweat. You don’t spike your cortisol. You just flow.

Chinese women swear it improves their posture, digestion, sleep, and, therefore, overall energy. Instead of your typical yoga flow, try out the “eight silken movements” and see how you feel. This should only take you 5 to 15 minutes, you can do it at home, and you don’t need any fancy gear.

The movements prioritize gentle spinal rotation and extension, lengthening the sides of your body, opening up your chest and shoulders, and coordinating your breathing with movement. Repeat them slowly and breathe deeply through your nose. The goal is smoothness and softness, not athletic precision.

You don’t have to replace all of your workouts with qigong, of course. While the point is to do it daily, to start, you can do a light qigong routine ahead of a walk on your rest day. There’s simply no harm, as it helps you maintain mobility and circulation during moments of rest.

Protect Your Neck, Lower Back, and Ankles From Cold

This one is huge on Chinese TikTok, yet deeply foreign to Western women. In TCM, cold is believed to enter your body through your neck, lower back, and ankles. So pop on a scarf even when it’s “not that cold outside,” wear long socks indoors, ditch the belly-exposing cropped sweaters, and don’t sit on cold surfaces if you can help it.

Western fashion tells women we should expose our bodies and that female discomfort is chic. But Chinese wellness instructs women to seal in heat. In turn, Chinese women say this habit alone helps them improve cramps, digestion, and overall energy levels.

Beyond socks and scarves, Chinese wellness TikTok is full of very specific, repeatable rules for avoiding cold exposure. Don’t sleep with air blowing directly on your body, for one. Sit on coats or scarves if your only other option is a cold surface like a bench, concrete step, or tile floor.

Additionally, warm your body before bed rather than just after waking up. Some women swear that a 10 to 15 minute foot soak in warm water before bed actually improves their sleep quality. And who could argue with a warm heating pad on their lower tummy to reduce nighttime cramps?

Don’t Wash Your Hair at Night

If there’s one “Turning Chinese” rule that might send you into a spiral, it’s this one: don’t wash your hair at night, and especially not in the winter. The reasoning, according to Chinese wellness philosophy, is simple. Wet hair keeps your scalp cold. Cold near your head can disrupt sleep, circulation, and energy. So if you go to bed with damp hair, you’re trapping in cold for hours on end.

Many women online swear that once they switched to a morning or daytime wash routine (or became militant about fully blow-drying their hair before bed), they experienced fewer headaches, better sleep, and less tension in their shoulders and neck. Is this universally supported by Western science? No, not exactly. Is it a hill that Chinese aunties will die on? Yes, absolutely.

What’s fascinating to me about this is how it reframes nighttime routines entirely. Instead of rushing through hygiene at the end of the day, Chinese wellness culture puts an emphasis on closing down your body gently. Warm it, keep it dry, and prepare it for rest. In our culture that’s obnoxiously obsessed with evening productivity and a “one last thing” mindset, this rule feels less to me about haircare and more about permission to truly relax.

Final Thoughts

TCM tends to cycle in and out of internet popularity. It’s often dismissed by skeptics as unscientific or “woo-woo,” but some of its practices really do provide relief. Women want relief from cold everything, from constant optimization, from wellness and beauty routines that punish their bodies. So “Turning Chinese” isn’t some fetishistic cosplay or dreaded “cultural appropriation.” It’s a rejection of the idea that beauty is pain, that you have to resort to extreme measures for results.

In Chinese wellness culture, women don’t ask, “What can I accomplish in 30 days of trialing a product?” They ask themselves, “What habits will I still be doing at 60 years old?” Results may seem subtle, and the routines might feel boring, but in the end, consistency matters more than quick “life hacks.” You need to think of your beauty as a long-term investment, not a project you’ll throw quick money at for a temporary fix.

If you’re ready to ditch the self-loathing for slow movement and to say bye-bye to deprivation for holistic nourishment, you might want to join the girlies online and get diagnosed as Chinese. It could very well be the hottest thing you do this winter.