The beauty vlogger is a not a difficult beast to spot: their eyebrows are consistently “on point” (trying to find out the meaning of this is fruitless, but apparently all eyebrows should be this way), their contour is always “on fleek” (see before), their eyeliner is perfectly winged, their foundation slathered on to conceal any indication of their humanity and their voice is injected with the same amount of sugar found in a Christmas bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. In real life they smell like the inside of a Lush shop. 

A relatively recent phenomenon, the beauty vloggers now hold more power than some members of Parliament. Their Prime Minister, 25-year-old Zoella, has been the most notable success, with books, beauty lines and endless endorsements-as well as affording her the ability to buy a mansion, no doubt with an expansive bathroom to try out the latest products from Rimmel London (AD)*. She posts cheerful bitesize videos in partnership with H&M and posts lengthy Body Shop “hauls” and teams up with other Youtubers to create fun fluffy videos to her fans’ delight.

So far, so harmless, right? But look closer and you’ll see the chips in the L’Oreal Paris nail varnish. A great deal of a Youtuber’s income is derived from sponsored content, where a company will pay a vlogger to mention their product in one of their videos. The vlogger has the choice to recommend it or not, but why wouldn’t they like a product they got for free?

The biggest issue I have is not the impartiality or product placement. Everyone has to make a living and in a shambolic economy where young people are earning mere pennies (if they manage to get a real job at all), it is commendable to be able to make your own money yourself.

The biggest problem is the message it sends. Makeup tutorials to have fun with are one thing, but when makeup tutorials are aiming to make you look like someone else, in particular celebrities who already have hundreds of makeup and hair artists and possibly plastic surgery, it starts to become toxic to young minds. Young girls are desperate for Kylie Jenner’s lips or Kim Kardashian’s cheekbones because the media tells them that these people are the pinnacles of modern beauty standards. The tutorials feed into this belief. It’s not a stretch to say that they are actively telling girls that their own features are not good enough without makeup, without reams and reams of expensive products many girls can’t afford, in order to sculpt out a new face.

When the tutorial is complete, the results are not what their audiences wanted. They wanted to look like Gigi Hadid, but they still look like themselves. Because Gigi Hadid is a famous model with a freak-of-nature body and that’s the way she was meant to be and look. But since everyone is different and nobody is the same, putting makeup on doesn’t do much to make a teenage girl look like someone completely different to them. Cue feelings of worthlessness, of insecurity because they’re not measuring up to what everyone’s telling them they should look like.

What these tutorials should be doing is helping girls use makeup how it should be used – emphasising their own unique features, experimenting with fun colours and embracing their youthful complexions. They should be teaching them to celebrate their individual beauty instead of covering it up and using ashy powders to give them “cutglass cheekbones”. They’re teenagers. Most of them don’t even have cheekbones yet.

So when you’re watching a beauty video on Youtube, pause it and look into the eyes of the vlogger. You’ll see a tiny glint of light in their eye. It’s money. Don’t buy into the hype.

-Jessica M (Editor)