What is the 'boyfriend air' theory?

February may be associated with a time where "love is in the air" ahead of Valentine's Day, but currently everyone is talking about "boyfriend air," on TikTok.

The term originated on the platform and it is "when you're with your boyfriend accentuates flaws in your physical appearance, for example, giving you messy hair, causing your skin to break out and ruining your makeup," according to Know Your Meme.

Before the boyfriend theory became popular, a similar theory about the air in school having the same affect went viral last year by @kumahto who captioned a video: "school air rly be doing smth."

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This led to people posting videos to the difference between themselves before and afterschool.

Since then the boyfriend air phenomenon has been used by @h0neyymel who posted a video that read: "boyfriend air be messing my hair and makeup up so bad."

After this, videos have been popping up on TikTok from people who either believe in the theory themselves.

"BF air is a real thing," one person wrote in a video.

"Two seconds with my bf and suddenly I have no makeup on, my face is puffy and breaking out, I haven't showered in weeks and my hair looks like a creature has been living in it," another person said.

Someone else added: "I just learned about the boyfriend air theory and it just made me realise that I’ve stopped trying to look my best."

While others discussed the topic in the hopes to offer an explanation as to why so many people think this is a thing.

"I'm pretty sure your boyfriend just don't wash their sheet," one woman suggested. "I experienced all what you're saying back in college."

Another person said: "Boyfriend air isn’t real. It’s just you getting comfortable enough to not care as much about what he or other people think. Y’all need to chill."

"I think it’s because we’re subconsciously not trying to attract anybody else’s attention because we’re satisfied with the love we’re getting from our mans," someone else theorised.

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