Your ‘hot’ passport photo could be a problem at the airport

The passport photos are glam - some might say aspirational - and created with a multistep, multiproduct process. They also might be a cautionary tale.

“This is why you should never do hot photos for your passport,” influencer Alisha Marie warned in a viral TikTok last year, dressed in a black hoodie and baseball cap with a face free of heavy makeup. She said she almost had been stopped from boarding a flight because she didn’t look like her chic, fully made-up passport photo.

“ive never been SO HUMBLED IN MY LIFE,” she wrote.

Across social media, makeup aficionados from several countries have bemoaned the unrecognizably hot photos in their travel documents, after officials noted that they looked different in real life, facial scans failed or fake-lash fatigue set in.

“Why I regret doing passport makeup,” the caption on one video says. Another TikTok starts with a woman opining on her biggest regret: “My passport picture.”

In some cases, the photos were inspired by a makeup trend that went viral two years ago involving concealer, contouring, over-lined lips, a “fox eye” look and brows shaped with styling glue. Kim Kardashian also made headlines when she shared her done-up passport photo on Instagram 10 years ago.

Regardless of the inspiration, experts say travelers should tread lightly on the makeup front - or risk facing border issues or airport holdups.

The government’s stance on passport makeup

The use of makeup is permitted for passport photos, the State Department said in a statement to The Washington Post. “However, if you plan on wearing makeup in your passport photo, we encourage you to stick to a makeup look that is consistent with your regular makeup style.”

Passport photos must be an “accurate likeness” of the traveler, according to federal regulations and the International Civil Aviation Organization. The rules for passports, which tend to be stricter than for driver’s licenses, call for a neutral expression, a clear image, no filters, and a white or off-white background.

The State Department said it had “seen reports of travelers experiencing delays due to border patrol agents facing difficulty in confirming their identity” and encouraged people to avoid makeup styles that “significantly alter” the way their faces look. Entry to other countries may be delayed, it said, if officials were not confident that the photo depicted the traveler in front of them.

“It is important to facilitate travel and ensure security measures that border patrol agents can easily recognize you from your passport photo,” the State Department wrote. “If you typically do not wear makeup while travelling, you may want to consider not wearing makeup in your passport photo - or sticking to a very natural makeup look.”

The opposite of glam: ‘Death warmed over’

Denise Ambrusko-Maida, who owns the Travel Brilliant travel agency, reacted to the trend in her own TikTok video with a “reminder NOT to do hot girl makeup for your passport photos.”

“I purposely take my passport photo to look like a swamp rat,” she said. In an interview, Ambrusko-Maida said she was surprised that glamour-shot-type photos even get approved. Her advice is to think about what you might look like “after you’ve been on a flight for 15 hours overnight in a middle seat” and take a photo that looks like that whole situation instead.

“If you are the type of person who is going to put on full makeup for that flight, good - I love that for you. I’m not trying to tell you not to do that,” said Ambrusko-Maida, who is based in Buffalo. “Having flown around the world enough times, I know that that’s not going to be most people.”

Several people commented on her video to share their own personal passport aesthetics, including “sickly,” “like a fugitive on the run,” “death warmed over” and “truly the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

Potential for airport slowdowns

The U.K.-based online travel agency Travel Republic flagged the makeup trend earlier this month, warning that a photo “glow up” could cause hiccups at the airport.

“Most people do feel embarrassed of their ID images, however, they are a security measure to help prevent fraud, keep borders safe and ensure easy recognition of travellers identity,” Gemma Brown, the company’s head of product, said in a news release. “Therefore, if you overly-enhance your look when taking your photo, you can actually slow down the process of verification checks at the airport because you look too different in person from the photo at hand.”

Erik Learned-Miller, a professor at the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, wrote in an email to The Post that the impact of makeup in the security line depends on the type of facial recognition system in question.

But he said there are two “equally problematic” scenarios for facial recognition technology: a person who isn’t wearing makeup using a passport photo with lots of it, or someone made up at the airport with a barefaced photo.

“So, the issue is not exactly having makeup in the passport photo,” Learned-Miller wrote. “It is really having a *different appearance* in two different photos. It can go either way.”

When gloss fails

Vancouver-based interior designer and illustrator Phoebe Kut wasn’t even following a trend when she took a passport photo this summer - she was just following her regular makeup routine.

Still, she said in a video on TikTok, her photo was rejected because her lips were too glossy.

“I really liked that photo of myself,” Kut said in an interview. She had taken the photo a month in advance, she said, and wasn’t wearing makeup when she went to the passport office. She had to run around to get a new photo after the gloss-related rejection.

“I didn’t get the same photo, but it’s fine, whatever,” Kut said.

Bruce Hallstrom, owner of the international passport photo service Passport Photo Now, said makeup has been “an issue forever,” not just in the era of TikTok influencers. He will tell clients when a photo they send him is likely to be rejected for too much makeup, use of a skin-improving filter or other reasons.

“I know there’s a blemish on your face somewhere,” he said. “I know there’s wrinkles somewhere.”

His company, which checks photos for compliance with countries’ rules and prints them, lists makeup tips and cautions that “this is not the time to get creative or try that new electric green eye shadow.”

“The closer you look to your photo,” the final tip reads, “the fewer problems you will have.”