YouTube Beauty Community

The YouTube Beauty Community is a group of females of all ages, races, and skill levels who upload beauty-related videos on YouTube.com. Labeling themselves as “beauty gurus”, they give advice and tips on how to stay updated on the most current trends.

Michelle Phan, YouTube's most popular 'Beauty Guru'

History

The beauty community was relatively small back when it started in 2006. It has grown to be so popular that it earns its own category on the site under 'How to & Style.' YouTube members subscribe to their favorite gurus as a way of easily keeping up-to-date. The amount a guru uploads varies with some uploading almost daily to others posting once monthly. Level of professionalism also varies, with gurus in informal setting such as their bedroom floor to professional who hire their own film and editing crew.

The most popular gurus have been able to make a sustainable living off their YouTube channels through YouTube and company partnerships. Currently, the most subscribed beauty guru is Michelle Phan (michellephan) with over 1.6 million subscribers. From her YouTube success alone Michelle is a Lancôme representative, has done makeup during the 2010 Fashion Week and has appeared in multiple media articles, including Seventeen, Vogue, and Forbes. Other top beauty gurus include Elle and Blair Fowler (allthatglitters21 and juicystar07) who have their own cellphone accessory line through Cellaris, book deals, and online store. All of the top gurus state YouTube and the community as being the stepping-stone to launch their careers.

Topics

Topics vary across each guru, but there a few types of videos that make up almost every guru’s framework:

Haul

A haul video is a video that shows the most recent purchases at a particular store from a shopping trip. Products can range from drugstore purchases to high-end makeup to clothing to grocery store food. The vloggers will hold up his or her purchases and elaborate on the detail, description, and sometimes price of each item.

Hauls have become extremely popular, with more than 159,000 posted as of 2010. Retail companies support the influence of these videos as a way of free promotion. In one example, companies such as JCPenny and Forever 21 have hosted haul video contests, where entry videos show how they would style the company’s clothes and create fashionable ensembles. Judged by the company, other peers, or a panel of stylists, winners of these contests can win an upwards of thousands of dollars.

Product Review

A product review video is done after a guru has used the product for a period of time and describes her thoughts to her viewers. Typically, a guru will discuss her particular likes about the product, or dislikes and flaws if she sees any. At the end, she will say whether or not she recommends the product to her viewers as well as put links in the description bar for locations to purchase.

Tag

Tag videos vary across different themes, but are a set of questions that one answers in a video and then selects her friends to answer the same questions. The most popular tag in the beauty community is “What’s in my purse?” where gurus display the contents of their bags and give any tips as to what items to carry or how to organize their bag. Other tags include “monthly favorites” where gurus display their most used and preferred products of the month as well as “products I regret buying” which gurus showcase products not worth the purchase as a way of warning their subscribers.

Ethical Concerns

The lack of transparency on the relations between the gurus and the industry has caused some issues due to dishonesty. Before FTC ruling in 2010, gurus and bloggers did not have to tell their viewers they were being compensated for a review or sent free products by a company. Viewers became upset when many reviews from unknown companies would be uploaded at the same time. Overall trust in particular gurus fell dramatically, and many received backlash from their viewers. What was supposed to be a place for honest reviews from peers turned to blatant commercialism.

Today, under FTC law “bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.” If a blogger is caught not disclosing this information they will face a fine of $11,000. The new FTC rule attempted to increase the level of transparency between the vloggers and their viewers as a way to decrease deceptive and unfair practices. However, due to little enforcement, the beauty community is still very ambiguous about their product affiliations. Level of compliance can range from gurus clearly stating their ties with the company such as what they were given, and if they are being paid or may leave a simple sentence such as “I am being paid for this review. All thoughts are my own.”

Distrust between viewers and the beauty community expanded to the companies as well, especially after an incident with guru Teresa Ulrich (juicytuesday) and online retailer HotMiamiStyles.com. In April 2010, Ulrich gave a review of the clothes she was sent for free by the company. Although the company had asked her for only positive reviews, Ulrich gave an honest review stating, “my loyalty is to my subscribers… this [dress] is very awkward. It’s bad. I would wash my car with this.” Within twelve hours and 5,000 views, a HotMiamiStyles representative emailed Ulrich asking her to take her video down due to a drastic decrease in sales causing the company to have to fire two employees who “have babies to feed.” Ulrich argued that her video alone could not cause such a drastic decrease in that short amount of time. Subscribers were thankful and appreciated Ulrich’s video proclaiming their general distrust of the company due to the only raving reviews from all the other videos.