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Beauty Influencers

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With the growing use of technology, the beauty industry has constantly been evolving. The sense of facial style differs within years or decades - from thin to thick brows, rosy red cheeks to sun-kissed bronzer, and red bright lips to nude lips. [1] Beauty will always change throughout the years with different trends and unique features. In modern day, beauty has played a big role in people's lives more than before. Thanks to social media, beauty trends have inspired people to learn and be more interactive with beauty products.

With social media apps like Instagram and YouTube, it helps showcase an individual's creativity with makeup. Both social media platforms offer people from all over the world the chance to showcase makeup tutorials, review beauty products, and even add humor to it i.e) "My boyfriend does my makeup challenge". Aside from their artistic talents, influencers are also involved in business with top makeup brands. Makeup brands like MAC, Nars, and Urban Decay deliver their products to influencers for them to promote on social media. Each promotions can help influencers earn up to a grand or a million depending on their followers count. Influencers also collaborate with makeup brands to create their own unique beauty products and make money out of it. [2]

These beauty influencers however face many controversies. Some have been denounced for their actions, lies in order to make money, and their past. Most of the beauty influencers have made an apology post or video about their wrong- doings with bias viewers weighing in. As for their income, they were also looked down upon by joining in on a 'mob-like' business. Professional makeup artist Kevin James Bennett has said major makeup brands would pay up to $75,000 to beauty influencers if they gave negative reviews on competitor brands. [3] Many were upset that influencers were used as salesperson, however beauty influencers have denied Bennett's claims as they have never seen such business method.

Beauty Gurus

James Charles

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At a very young age, James Charles has accomplished a lot through his social media platforms. He quickly gained a following on his YouTube channel, where he showcased his artistic abilities. Not only did he upload videos putting makeup on himself, he also sang in his videos. James Charles broke stereotypes in 2016 when he became the first male model for the brand, Covergirl. [4] One of his most well known collaborations was with Morphe Cosmetics. He came out with an eyeshadow palette and a brush set that sold out within minutes. Furthermore, Charles went on to receiving a Streamy Award for having the best beauty related channel. He even got the opportunity to collaborate and make videos with other big beauty influencers, like Kylie Jenner. He posted a video on his channel where he did a halloween makeup look on her.

Through all of these accomplishments, James Charles has had his fair share of lows and faced setbacks. In 2017, he made a joke about the disease, Ebola and received a lot of negative comments for it. One of his more famous scandals was when another beauty influencer named, Tati Westbook created a long video exposing him. She stated many things that went against his character, like the fact that he was only in it for the money and that he enjoyed using people. This specific video caused James Charles to lose more than two million followers after its posting. Charles set the record for losing the most subscribers in one day. Days later, he countered Tati's video explaining what she stated was not justified or false. He provided receipts aka evidence in forms of text messages and videos, to argue in his favor. James was able regain some of his subscribers but not all. As November 2019, Charles has sixteen million subscribers again. [5]

Huda Kattan

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Huda Kattan is the mastermind behind the brand named, HudaBeauty. During the early stages of her career, she worked as a makeup artist for celebrities. However, she slowly gained fame when she created a page on Instagram, named HudaBeauty. On this page, she posted tutorials from others and herself, giving her followers one location to have access to all things beauty. Alongside her family members, she first released eye lashes. These lashes were used by many celebrities, causing Huda Kattan to rise in fame. Allure has called her "beauty's most influential women" [6] because of the way she interacts with her followers. Huda Kattan creates many skits that catch the attention of millions of people around the world. Kattan and her family were even given the opportunity to have their own reality tv show on Facebook Watch. With her large following on Instagram, Kattan receives many large packages from famous brands in order to review them. She also sends out many of her products before they become available to the public in order for other beauty influencers to promote them. Due to how successful the launch of her lashes were, she went on to creating a foundation, concealer, eyeshadow palettes and more.

Nikkie de Jager

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Nikkie de Jager is most well known as NikkieTutorials. She shares unique makeup tutorials on her youtube page and gained overnight fame when she uploaded her video titled "The Power of Makeup." In this video Nikkie de Jager shared a video of herself with no makeup on at all in order to show how applying makeup can transform her face. This inspired many other beauty influencers to be transparent with their followers. Her youtube channel currently has more than 12 million subscribers and is continuously growing. NikkieTutorials has collaborated with many well known brands such as, OFRA Cosmetics and TooFaced. [7] Often times, she includes links in the description of her Youtube videos to give her subscribers promo codes to certain products. Companies reach out to her due to her large following and pay in order to have their product mentioned. Other times, she includes links to products she isn't paid to promote but just because she enjoys telling her subscribers about them. NikkieTutorials makes it clear whens something is a paid promotion and when something isn't, similarly to most well known youtubers.

Jaclyn Hill

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Jaclyn Hill has millions of followers on both her youtube channel and her Instagram page. She started off her journey in the beauty industry while she worked at MAC cosmetics. Her fame gave her the opportunity to collaborate with Kim Kardashian West which is now the most watched video on her channel. Furthermore, Jaclyn Hill collaborated with big brands like Morphe Cosmetics and created multiple eyeshadow palettes. The highlighter she created with Becca Cosmetics instantly sold out and is this a beauty favorite amongst makeup artists. After having many succesful collaborations, Jaclyn Hill went on to creating her own makeup brand where she now sells various makeup products. Through her time on Youtube she faced a lot of setbacks and dealt with hate comments. When she first sent out her lipstick collection many customers complaint about the quality of them causing her to delete her social media accounts. Many youtubers took their channel to expose what her lipstick collection was actually like causing a lot of setback. [8]

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