Influence-her: The gendered impact of beauty influencers

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I’m so excited to dedicate this post to one of my closest friends. Here are her responses to my interview questions.

How do you identify?

Female, heterosexual, and Asian.

What role does your identity play in your makeup use? Do you feel that there are stereotypes/biases associated with your identity in the beauty community/industry?

As a female, I feel that I [am] expected to look like the influencers. If I don’t have clear skin or lipstick on, I’m not that attractive.

How do you feel that your identity is represented in the beauty community/industry?

I feel that females aren’t that well-represented. We are held to a higher standard which makes it easier for beauty companies to target our “flaws” such as acne.

What changes would you like to see in the beauty community/industry?

I feel that there should be a wider representation when it comes to body shapes and sizes, skin color and skin type, and ethnicity/racial backgrounds.

What is your favorite thing about makeup?

It gives me a chance to express myself how I want to. I can be loud and make an expression or I can be calm and still look great.

What makeup skill would you like to develop or improve?

Finding my foundation shade or learning to mix shades better.

Part of my project is a Youtube channel, nextjenbeauty! Is there any specific content that you would like to see?

How to find your foundation shade, how to apply lashes, [and] quick and easy makeup looks.

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One of the points she brought up in her responses was how being a woman impacts the way she navigates the beauty world, specifically with regards to influencers. Nowadays, the beauty industry relies heavily on social media and online presence to promote content, which has the major advantage of making beauty content extremely accessible. Youtube tutorials for any look you could imagine are at the tip of our fingers. Instagram ads redirect us to a product link with just one tap. Entire apps are dedicated solely to makeup reviews and community-wide discussion.

But that incredible ease comes with a toxic downside: this content is in our faces. All. The. Time. No, Instagram, I don’t want lash extensions, stop advertising them to me… but would I look better with lash extensions? No, Snapchat, I don’t want a waist trainer, I’m 19 years old… but should I have a smaller waist? What kind of perceptions and attitudes is this constant bombardment of content instilling in consumers, particularly women and young girls?

Plus, who exactly are these beauty influencers? If this content is accessible to everyone, then do the influencers reflect the audience? Absolutely not. Like my friend mentioned, there’s tragically limited representation in the beauty industry when it comes to physical features like body shape and skin tone. Paper magazine digitally created a composite of the faces of Instagram’s top 100 influencers, and here’s what they got:

White skin, tiny nose, almond eyes, full lips. Does that reflect the faces of the beauty community? No. It reflects Western beauty standards. So, is the beauty world on social media really a place for self-expression? Or has it just become another platform for brands to sell this look that discounts the existence of hundreds of thousands of individuals in the beauty community?

Not only that, but because so much of this content is digital, it’s almost always edited and artificially enhanced. This includes videos! If you’re wondering why some beauty gurus have zero pores even in 1080p HD on Youtube, they might be using a blurring filter that automatically smooths their skin in real time. In this gif, makeup artist Wayne Goss shows us the transformative power of this filter with the help of a ring light.

For a long time, I thought that videos couldn’t be Facetuned the way pictures can, so I just figured that the products Youtubers were applying were really transforming their skin, or the hundreds of dollars they were spending on skincare were paying off big time. That was until one of the beauty gurus I was watching said in a video, “Let me zoom in to show you guys how this product sits on the skin. I’m going to turn off the filter so you can really see.” Wait, turn off the what? I didn’t even know that was possible! Suddenly my third eye was wide open - I realized the true extent to which beauty influencers mislead consumers, all by claiming that an edited look is genuinely attainable with certain products.

That’s why we never see beauty influencers with redness or acne scars or hyperpigmentation. It’s not because those things are flawed or abnormal, it’s because influencers and beauty gurus are enforcing beauty standards that aren’t even real.

Women and girls are aspiring to look like influencers that set impossible standards on multiple levels. Firstly, the demographics of popular influencers do not reflect the demographics of the beauty community. This tells women that their skin tone, body shape, and facial features are somehow flawed if they’re anything but tall, skinny, and White.

Secondly, when influencers use beauty filters like Facetune, they are creating a standard that isn’t humanly possible. Their pores don’t exist because they were edited away, not because they used Benefit Porefessional. Their waist-to-hip ratio isn’t the result of exercise and that weird diet tea they’re trying to sell you, it was edited with Photoshop. You’re not flawed because you can’t reach these standards, you’re human.

And that’s just looking at the physical standards set by influencers. What other aspects of identity are aggressively underrepresented by influencers? What are your thoughts on influencer culture? Leave your comments on this blog post or my video!