Michelle Phan is a beauty vlogger turned businesswoman after the launch of Ipsy, a subscription beauty business. Phan gained followers back in her early YouTube days by creating instructional makeup videos that would help regular people achieve the complex looks she was so skilled at. She started her channel after being rejected by Lancome for not having enough experience, luckily, she was able to learn from this failure and turn it into success, a characteristic that is common in creative people according to the Lehrer article. Through her popular YouTube Channel, Phan gained the attention of Lancome which helped launch her into the elite circles of beauty. From here she went on to create her own makeup line and then, in 2012, her most successful business, Ipsy.
Ipsy is a service that charges subscribers for a monthly "Glam Bag" that comes with 5 sample-sized, sometimes full-sized, and personalized beauty products. What makes this service so unique is that the company has done little advertising, instead using the influence of popular online beauty vloggers to discuss participating brands in a more authentic way. Brands can submit their products for consideration, but they cannot pay to have their products distributed, instead the vloggers decide whether to recommend the products or not. Brands provide inventory and in return they receive exposure. In this way Phan demonstrates that she started the business "because it was meaningful to [her] and [she] wanted to disrupt the beauty industry," she does not care about the revenue. With Ipsy, Phan aims to "democratize beauty, making it accessible and affordable for everyone."
I use to watch Michelle Phan's makeup tutorials on YouTube all the time (and sometimes still do haha), so it's cool to see her show up on the blog! I think she's a great example of how someone's passion can grow from being something that the person just experiences for themselves to a way for them to communicate with and reach out to other people. She went from a girl who simply enjoyed playing around with makeup, to an online beauty guru, to a full-fledged entrepreneur who is making makeup & beauty more accessible to as many people as she can. Her creativity allows her not only to come up with a variety of looks and ideas for people to try, but also to expand the world of beauty by inspiring interest and confidence in her audience.
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ReplyDeleteI'm personally not a huge fan the mass amount of content on YouTube and I tend to steer clear of hyper-consumeristic channels, so I don't have a ton of prior knowledge about Michelle Phan and the content she puts out. After an incredibly short Google search session, I wonder what separates Phan from other "beauty gurus" on YouTube, and what makes this Ipsy bag so creative when several other "glam bag"-type products existed before she released hers? Not to hate on your post or Michelle Phan, I just have a hard time seeing the way she applies makeup and her "glam bag" as uniquely creative.
ReplyDeleteI think the inherent democratization of content creation we get through the internet and sites like Youtube opens to door for many creatives who may not have had access to audiences before. This allows for lots of new and creative voices like Phan to experiment and share their ideas with the world. After all it is very difficult to be creative if no one knows what you are doing. It will be interesting to see what happens with this new access as the internet is still relatively new, maybe we will see a huge surge in creativity as new voices get the opportunity to be heard.
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