Egg Cleanses Are All Over TikTok, but Where Does This Trend Come From?

Wellness trends have been ascendant worldwide for more than a decade now, and some of those trends have also encouraged one variety of cleansing or another. Typically, these cleanses involve ridding your body of some harmful toxin or chemical, and are designed as a kind of detox. Now, a new cleanse is taking over TikTok, and many are wondering how exactly it works.

Egg cleanses have been taking over TikTok, but they actually stem from a Mesoamerican tradition, and they're still somewhat popular among the Latinx community. Whereas most cleanses involve ridding your body of some toxin, an egg cleanse or limpía is designed to work spiritually. Traditionally, the practice was done by a shaman, who rolled an uncooked egg over a person's body in order to rid them of negative energy.

According to Shaheen Miro, an intuitive, writer and artist, the egg cleanse is only natural. “The egg has long been regarded as a symbol of life and growth,” Shaheen writes. “In this way, the egg is a special container that takes on life and energy, when directed specifically it acts like a vacuum absorbing whatever isn’t necessary or vital.”

TikTok users have even offered step-by-step guides on how to perform an egg cleanse yourself. The first step is to run your eggs through water and set your intentions. Then, you should burn an herb like frankincense or sage and let the egg sit in the smoke. From there, you should rub the egg on your body from your head to your feet, and then crack it into a glass of purified water.

Once you've cracked the egg, you can read your results. To do that, you have to look at the egg yolk you've just cracked open. What you may see in the yolk varies widely, but there are some common signs that mean certain things. Bubbles, for example, mean that negative energy has been absorbed, whereas cobwebs mean someone is jealous of you and spikes, threads or needles mean that energy was pulled from your aura.

Not every TikTok trend has to be done with respect, but those that participate in egg cleanses should be respectful of the culture in which they originated. This is a serious, spiritual practice, and it shouldn't be made fun of or parodied like so much else on the platform.

In general, it seems like TikTok users have been willing to engage seriously with what it means to perform an egg cleanse. If the trend becomes more popular, though, it could also become something that some users decide to make fun of. There's plenty worthy of parody on TikTok, but spiritual and cultural traditions that are not your own are not one of those things. Users who take part in egg cleanses should be respectful of the cultural heritage attached to them.