The Truth About Beauty Vlogging

If you’re a makeup lover, you’ve probably been jealous of a YouTube beauty vlogger once twice. And who could blame you? They’re gorgeous, have thousands of subscribers who watch their videos, and get sent the best beauty products for free. And the cherry on top of it all? They get paid. What more could a girl ask for?

As amazing as beauty vloggers can be, there are a few points that need to be brought to light.

The majority of beauty vloggers show you how to do makeup looks on themselves. How the makeup looks on them as opposed to someone else are going to be two completely different things. Valley asked professional makeup artist Katelynn Walsh her take on the topic and this is what she had to say.

“Most vloggers have only ever done/know how to do their own makeup. Therefore, his or her ‘tutorials’ are only useful for someone who looks nearly identical to themselves.”

If you’re feeling disappointed that your eye shadow didn’t turn out exactly the same as your favorite vlogger’s, don’t be! There are so many types of eyelids, eye shapes, face shapes and lip shapes that it’d be a miracle if it looked the exact same on two different people.

Another thing to remember is that beauty vloggers are people too, and they’re trying to make an income just like anyone else. More often than not, vloggers are paid by a company to use a certain product or brand and rave about it even if it’s not that great. While this isn’t always the case, make sure you’re not being fooled and wasting your hard-earned cash on subpar products. Keep in mind that a little lighting and editing can go a long way.

Beauty vloggers and Instagrammers like to start trends that are often comical. For example, the most recent trend has been “clown contouring.” Yes, it may be fun to see how many colorful shapes you can put on your face and then be able blend them all out, but this is simply not something a professional makeup artist would ever do on a client or model for a photo-shoot. We once again asked Walsh what she had to say about this topic.

“They start nonsensical trends like clown contouring and baking a lot of times just for attention. Or they take something like contouring, which has been around since makeup existed, and make it seem like they’ve invented something new.”

There are many beauty vloggers that are incredible and respectable, but just keep in mind that the YouTube makeup world does not even come close to encasing all there is to learn about makeup. Try to expand your horizons and step out of your YouTube beauty bubble by doing some other research on makeup or even taking a class. It will only benefit you in the end!