Beauty Blogging: Yay Or Nay?
Beauty blogging is a very important part of the beauty and fashion communities these days.
There is an entire online beauty community; beauty bloggers start and establish trends, promote brands or, even, start their own (with situational success); they are the masterminds behind, and the victims of a lot of the Internet drama – that sometimes exists for additional clout, and, sometimes, really with the intention of ruining someone’s career.
So is beauty blogging a good, or a bad thing?
Yay?
Beauty blogging would not have become so popular had it not offered something at least slightly beneficial to the people that follow said bloggers. So what are the benefits of beauty blogging?
Will save you from unnecessary purchases
Truly, if there is one thing that should make it worth to follow the beauty community and its makings, it’s the fact that they review products and demonstrate how they work. And, frankly, a lot of makeup is really not cheap at all – so them telling you that something is bad quality can save a big chunk out of your wallet.
Entertainment
While this is a very superficial benefit, it’s a benefit nonetheless – the whole Internet made a point of following and discussing the James Charles vs Tati Westbrook situation only a few weeks ago. Honestly, this is easy and cheap entertainment at your fingertips; and you can get involved and discuss it, too, which is always fun. Fandoms, you know.
Or…nay?
Too much drama
Frankly, even though it is entertaining, it’s also exhausting. Some beauty bloggers – like the infamous Jeffree Star – make a point of getting into as many scandals as they can, despite claiming that they’re done being problematic.
It makes sense – it’s an easy way to get hype and to ride off of a loud event while attracting attention to yourself, but it also gets overdone quite quickly.
Have some bread, maybe then you will calm down.
Promotions and ads
This happens to a lot of online reviewers – and offline reviewers and opinions, too. What basically happens is that, quite often, influential beauty bloggers get sponsored into promoting products; while they try to be as transparent about it as they’re legally obliged to, they still, wholeheartedly, try to push the idea that they’re promoting something because they simply personally like it.
Of course, not everyone is gullible enough to follow their advice on most of these ads – but a large chunk of their audiences is comprised of young teens. Let’s not try to fool young teens into spending their parents’ money on useless stuff, shall we?
Crappy beauty brands
Somehow, a lot of these bloggers decide that they are the only ones who can save the industry, or out poor skin, and decide to branch out into making their own makeup, beauty supplements and whatever else.
Personal projects are now always bad, but… If the people behind them are 1) honest and transparent, 2) are genuinely trying to bring something new in, 3) succeed at creating their formulas.
Which, sometimes, is genuinely what happens. But sometimes – like it happened with Manny MUA’s makeup line Lunar Beauty – the product is honestly just not good enough to be clogging the market.
Where all this confidence comes from – we do not know, but alas. It’s trial and error, I guess.
Why is it so turbulent and scandalous, anyway?
The scandalousness of the beauty community is easily explained by one simple fact: all they have to talk about is makeup and skincare, which does, eventually, get quite boring.
The main difference is what ways they try to dilute the monotony of their content with. Some bloggers, like Nikkie Tutorials, try to collaborate with bigger brands and bring in cool famous people on their channels. (And it works.)
Some beauty bloggers, like Tati Westbrook, try to create drama out of nothing so that it brings attention to their newly-launched vitamins lines by throwing minors under the bus and blowing their wrongdoings out of proportion.
To each their own, I guess.
So do we need beauty blogging?
Beauty bloggers, while contributing a bit, are still, largely, unnecessary in my book. Shoppers will leave detailed reviews and recommendations; all beauty bloggers do is, essentially, put them into motion, and make money off of it.
Good for them, of course. But, as a matter of fact, they are not that beneficial within the industry, somehow falling behind regular fashion influencers.
