YouTube’s beauty scene is having a moment. The platform was the centre of the online beauty community in the 2010s, but it lost its stronghold as vloggers started to focus on making short-form video content and stopped regularly uploading due to controversies or poor engagement. Now, the beauty community is undergoing an interesting shift that brands and consumers should be aware of, with former beauty gurus such as Tanya Burr and Sam Chapman returning to the platform to prioritise long-form videos.
With both new and OG creators now focusing on YouTube, CORQ spoke to three vloggers – beauty journalist Nadine Baggott, fashion and beauty creator Gary Thompson and lifestyle creator Daisy Louisa Herriott – about the current beauty landscape on YouTube, the opportunities and pitfalls of the platform, brand partnership dilemmas and the future of long-form content.
Baggott started creating YouTube content in 2014 and has more than 167,000 subscribers. She told CORQ that the platform was considered “passé” five years ago. However, that has already changed. Baggott explained: “If you have any sense or purpose of what you’re trying to do, and you’re trying to show your personality or share a message, you eventually need [to make] long-form videos. So now you have a whole generation of people going back and discovering YouTube.”
Key takeaways
- Beauty journalist Nadine Baggott, fashion and beauty creator Gary Thompson and lifestyle creator Daisy Louisa Herriott spoke to CORQ about the beauty community on YouTube, the pros and cons of the platform, the popularity of long-form content and brand partnership dilemmas.
- The beauty community has changed and evolved since its peak in the 2010s, with many beauty gurus and their subscribers leaving the platform. However, OG creators such as Tanya Burr and Sam Chapman have since returned to prioritise long-form content.
- YouTube has 2.5 billion monthly active users and in 2023, YouTube videos with variations of “grwm” (which stands for “get ready with me”) in the title had more than six billion views.
- Vloggers said the benefits of YouTube include having an engaged audience, connecting with people via long-form content and achieving more consistent views.
- They also believe influencers and consumers are growing tired of short-form content and craving longer videos.
- The platform’s pitfalls include the time commitment required to create and post a quality video, fewer brand opportunities and slower growth.
Influencers regularly focus on Instagram and TikTok, even though YouTube is the second most popular social media site worldwide after Facebook and offers creators more money for an ad in comparison to other platforms, according to influencer agency SevenSix’s 2023 pricing report. The platform has more than 2.5 billion global monthly active users (MAUs), up from two billion in 2019. In comparison, Instagram has more than two billion MAUs and TikTok has more than 1.5 billion. YouTube is also growing its short-form vertical content via YouTube Shorts, which is watched by more than two billion monthly logged-in users.
According to Ofcom’s Media Nations 2023 report, 81% of teens and adults in the UK watched YouTube content between December 2022 and February 2023. More recently, the communications regulator’s 2024 report found that videos up to 15 minutes in length are the most popular type of YouTube video, according to 62% of its survey respondents, followed by YouTube Shorts (47%).
The pros and cons of making long-form YouTube content
The main benefit of YouTube for creators is the ability to upload horizontal, long-form content. Herriott began uploading YouTube videos in February 2023 and has more than 191,000 subscribers. She told CORQ that she can show more of her life through longer videos and said: “People feel more connected [to a creator] when they see the human side of an influencer rather than a girl in front of a mirror doing her makeup to a trending song.”
Thompson, known online as The Plastic Boy, started uploading YouTube videos in 2010 and explained to CORQ that a YouTube subscriber will regularly watch a vlogger’s content, similar to tuning into a TV show. On YouTube, a user can easily see when a vlogger uploads a new video by checking their Subscriptions tab. In comparison, users might miss when their favourite creators post TikTok or Instagram content due to the platforms’ algorithms.
Herriott has the most followers on TikTok (more than 1.3 million) and sees higher views on the short-form video app, but said this can be “very up and down”. In comparison, she has the most consistent engagement and views on YouTube.
Another benefit of YouTube is that the content never goes out of style. Thompson said that his content can continue to receive views if a brand or product mentioned in the video starts trending again, even if it’s years later. Also on YouTube, creators can put product links in the description of their videos, which Thompson said people will continue to click on and purchase through as time goes on.
One of the pitfalls of YouTube is that it’s harder to go viral or rapidly gain a following compared to other platforms, despite it taking more time to film and edit a long-form video. “When you don’t really see your audience growing, it’s really disheartening,” Thompson shared.
Due to this, many creators have started uploading more infrequently. When Baggott started her channel, she uploaded two videos a week. This later went down to weekly and then twice a month. She explained: “It’s very hard work to create enough content to fulfil every single platform.” Creators can upload vertical content on YouTube, and Baggott now tends to reshare her Instagram content on YouTube.
For Baggott, she’s in “two minds” about whether to prioritise YouTube but said she will focus on the long-form content if her engagement grows. At the moment, she’s mostly focused on Instagram, where she has more than 203,000 followers.
Still, as Herriott emphasised: “There is one hundred percent a more authentic connection when watching someone on YouTube.”
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What beauty content works on YouTube
In 2023, there were more than six billion views of YouTube videos with variations of “grwm” (get ready with me) in the title. On the platform, #Beauty has been tagged in more than 6.5 million videos by 1.3 million channels, #Makeup in more than 8.2 million videos by 1.4 million channels and #Skincare in 3.9 million videos by 732,000 channels.
Thompson’s chatty videos with personal tidbits or life updates receive the highest views. When it comes to product reviews, the creator said: “People want to know ‘is the product good?’ They don’t want to spend 30 minutes watching you. They want you to get straight to the point [and explain]: ‘Why should I buy it? Is it good? Is it going to solve my skincare problems? Is it worth the money?’ and they want you to do that in fewer than ten minutes.”
For Baggott, educational, consumer-driven and informative content performs the best. This could be a ten-minute deep-dive explaining how retinol works and its benefits. Her most viewed video discusses “the truth about retinols” and has had 486K views across seven years. A more recent video, a chatty makeup tutorial from April 2023, has also proved popular, with more than 351,000 views.
Similarly, Herriott uses YouTube to create more in-depth makeup and hair tutorials that are more than 20 minutes in length. Her most viewed video explains how people can embrace the clean girl aesthetic. It was uploaded in September 2023 and has had more than 800,000 views.
Brand opportunities
Brands should note that the way users consume YouTube content is different from TikTok and Instagram. Ofcom’s recent report found that 34% of all in-home viewing of YouTube in 2023 was via a TV, up 29% from 2022. As of December 2023, users watched an average of 38 minutes of YouTube at home a day, a 20% increase from the start of 2022. YouTube reported that worldwide, viewers watch an average of more than one billion hours of YouTube content on their TVs every day.
All three vloggers told CORQ that beauty brands are not prioritising YouTube and are instead focused on Instagram and TikTok campaigns. Thompson said that the last time a company contacted him for a YouTube ad was more than one year ago.
Baggott has also experienced companies prioritising short-form video apps but said some businesses have recently returned to YouTube, particularly if they want to launch a new product that needs a key message explained or have a code with a trackable link that they want to monitor. In March 2024, the beauty journalist worked with The Ordinary to launch and review its Retinal 0.2% Emulsion, a skincare product that needed an in-depth explanation. Her educational seven-minute video has had more than 28,000 views, 1,000 likes and 57 comments.
For companies wanting to advertise on YouTube, there are two main types of creator video options: integrated or dedicated ads. An integrated video is cheaper, as a product will be mentioned alongside other goods from non-competitor brands. In comparison, a dedicated video would be similar to Baggott’s campaign for The Ordinary, which is focused on one business or product.
The future of YouTube’s beauty scene
The future of beauty content on YouTube is uncertain. Makeup has always been one of the main content formats on YouTube, but Thompson believes the platform is now prioritising gaming, football and boxing content. YouTube’s 2023 round-up of the most popular videos and creators in the UK did not feature anyone from the beauty community. Instead, the top content was focused on entertainment, news, music or sport.
Still, there’s a new wave of beauty creators such as Herriott who are continuing to join the platform. The vlogger thinks YouTube will be “huge” again in 2025 because audiences will crave more behind-the-scenes or personal content.
In 2023, OG creators Dan Howell and Phil Lester brought back their gaming channel after a five-year hiatus and in 2024, lifestyle creator Gemma Tomlinson (Hello Gemma) rejoined the platform after three years away. In August 2024, lifestyle creator Libby Faulkner also returned to the platform after a three-year hiatus. Dermatologist Dr Aamna Adel and her twin sister Dr Ree started creating long-form skincare content on YouTube in September 2023 and their channel now has more than 180,000 subscribers.
Within the beauty community, Herriott hopes that soft glam and “satin skin” makeup will make a return and that YouTubers will recreate US Vogue’s successful series, Beauty Secrets.
Thompson is planning to “get back into” YouTube and believes that people have short-form content fatigue. As he pointed out, people don’t remember the last video or creator they watched on TikTok but they can recall the last YouTube video they consumed.
He said: “Short-form content will always be there and people are going to swipe, but there’s nothing like putting everything down and just focusing on one long video.”
By Caroline Edwards, CORQ news and features writer. Picture credit: Gary Thompson, Nadine Baggott and Daisy Louisa Herriott
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