YouTube Is Helping to Sell a Lot of Makeup

“I was not paid or sponsored to recommend anything at all," Michelle Phan declares as the YouTube star's video begins. Wearing long black braids and a crop top, she praises a cheap lipstick, a dome shaped blush, and Tiger Balm, among dozens of other products in her best-of-the-year roundup. More than a million people have watched the video. The top comment calls her a “trusty older sister.”

With 2.2 million followers on Instagram and 3.1 million on Facebook, Phan is a beauty dynamo. The launching point of her empire is a YouTube channel, where she has amassed 8.7 million subscribers since 2006. The 29-year-old former waitress came into prominence as a result of her channel, where she shared tips on how to take a selfie and how to fix shattered blush. Since becoming one of the most followed beauty vloggers on the site, she has walked the fine line between the earnest beauty product recommendations that first gained her a following and her burgeoning businesses. Among her commercial interests are the beauty-box subscription service Ipsy, a makeup line called em by Michelle Phan, and the lifestyle network Icon.