For world of beauty, vlogging in, blogging out

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Lifestyle

Sat, December 2, 2023 | 20:48

Life

For world of beauty, vlogging in, blogging out

Posted : 2014-08-26 18:44

Updated : 2014-08-26 18:44

Up close, personal approach dovetails with new needs for individuality

By Rachel Lee

MsRosieBea, a YouTube channel run by British teenage beauty guru Rosie, shows off her innovative make-up techniques to her fans. It's fun watching her transforming herself with just a handful of products.

The viewers absolutely adore her bubbly, lovely character, but most importantly, the young beauty expert gives her female audience some easy-to-follow tutorials on make-up techniques as well as hairdos. She also shows off her own seasonal lookbooks as well.

A growing number of small-screen performers on YouTube wield considerable clout and influence in the beauty, hair and cosmetics industries today. They are known as video loggers or vloggers.

Vloggers with large fan bases earn money through YouTube, but few actually know how to monetize the video-uploading site. YouTube reported last year that one million users earn money from their videos. Since vlogging has become one of the fastest-growing businesses, especially in Europe, with millions of viewers on the Google-owned site, some big names have already secured sponsorship deals with some big-time, global beauty labels.

What about here in Korea? The answer is that people have just begun to take interest in vlogging, but the majority of them still rely on blog postings on Naver, especially when they search for product reviews. Naver is the country's largest web portal.

Rosie's lookbooks

"I have subscribed to 15 beauty-related Naver blogs to get styling tips and advice," Kim Hee-won, a 27-year-old merchandiser, said in an interview with The Korea Times. "One of my friends was telling me about online skincare and make-up tutorials the other day and we saw some videos together on YouTube. The content is great. And I think it's amazing to see how vloggers express their individuality with their presentation and personality, because you can't really see it just by reading weblogs."

In that sense, video logging is definitely a good way to present beauty tips and products in the beauty industry. It gives consumers what web blogs can't do: more vivid descriptions of skincare and make-up products by actually showing viewers how to apply them on your skin in real-time. Plus, you can make your channel as exciting and fancy as you want thanks to the power of adding music and quality editing.

Etude House
Princess Happy Ending Fairy Glitter

Of the world's well-known beauty vloggers such as Pixiwoo and Zoella, Liah Yoo is the first one in Korea. The 25-year-old celebrity, who started posting videos on YouTube four years ago, has attracted about 60,000 subscribers and more than 2.5 million views.

"I wanted to introduce Korea's hottest make-up trends to the world through my online beauty channel," Yoo told The Korea Times in an interview in Seoul. Yoo appeared shy, unlike the relaxed, confident demeanor she presents in her videos. The YouTube star now works for the ecommerce team at AmorePacific Group, the nation's biggest cosmetics company.

IOPE Air Cushion

According to the beauty expert, the vast majority of her viewers are K-pop fans from English-speaking countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

"More and more Korean viewers are clicking on my stuff these days. The number has tripled over the last year, making up about 20 percent of viewers now. And you know more beauty gurus are moving on to online video blogging. The future is bright," said the vlogger.

He fluent English seems to be one of the reasons she steals the show; K-pop fans outside Korea crave for local people who like Yoo and can update them on the country's latest make-up looks in English. It also helps her to communicate with the viewers, from which Yoo often get new ideas for her channel.

Kate Super Sharp Liner

To encourage more beauty gurus to vlog in the country, Google Korea has teamed up with AmorePacific Group and last month held "Beauty Creator Day" in Seoul. About 100 beauty bloggers attended and learned about vlogging, including creating, editing and uploading content on YouTube.

"This isn't just a one-off event. It's rather a long-term program," Lisa Yeom told The Korea Times in an interview. Yoem is an associate at AmorePacific Group's marketing strategic team. "We are planning on giving lessons in filming and image editing to 20 selected teams out of the program's participants." She added that the cosmetics company will sponsor them with their products when necessary.

The two leaders aim to attract local viewers and will gradually expand their target audience from there. The program will kick off at the end of August.