The OG MUA: Michelle Phan

Who would’ve thought that the makeup world today consists of a million palette launches, brand collabs, tea spill videos, and drama with enormous legal ramifications? *Coughs in Jeffree Starr*

I started watching YouTube videos in middle school, mostly the comedic ones my friends shared on social media or talked about in class. In those days for me, it was hours of early content creators like HappySlip, KevJumba, and Fred (serious throwback!).

Then I entered the realm of beauty YouTube and man, it reeled me in.

My introduction to BeautyTube was Michelle Phan. I still remember being captivated by her makeup tutorials. Everything from her “Picture-perfect day” makeup tutorial to the more radical transformations like the “Angelina Jolie” look and “How to look like Miranda Kerr” (it’s insane how much she got herself to look like them). Over the years, she diversified her content with skincare tips, beauty basics, her “Pillow Talk” series and sprinkled in the occasional travel or personal vlog.

There’s no tried and true formula to be a popular content creator and amass a large following. But what I’ve noticed, as a YouTube consumer of almost 15 years now--is that the creators I respect, and who’ve maintained the respect, admiration, and business of many, share some commonalities. And no, they weren’t SEO experts or content marketing wizards.

It’s deeper than that. A bulk of it is learned. Not through a 3-month course, but through trial and error, failure, and good ol’ life experience.

Resiliency:

In Michelle’s Draw My Life video, it was the first time I saw her get vulnerable with us.

She talked about her early life in Boston, where her family settled for a while before moving to San Francisco, California. The family moved several times after, and unbeknownst to her and her brother, their vagabond lifestyle was due to her father’s gambling addiction. He squandered their rent money, which forced them to get evicted multiple times. She noted a time where she saw her mother cry, and she said “I couldn’t wait to grow up, so I could help her.” The family then moved to Tampa, Florida, where she stuck out like a sore thumb as one of the only Vietnamese kids in school. Tampa was the beginning of painful times. Facing cruel racial taunts at school, she found serenity through doodles in her notebook.

One morning when she woke up, her father was gone.

Her mom raised her and her brother alone and then remarried, giving birth to a baby girl with her new husband. Though Michelle doesn’t get into detail, her stepfather became abusive towards her and her mother. By Senior year of high school, her mother left him and took care of the family as a single mother. She and her brother Steve worked to help support the family, while they could only afford to rent a room in a family’s house. Her most prized gift was her Sailor Moon doll, whose aesthetic she often borrowed from in her sketches.

Drawing was her escape from reality. She often drew herself as cape-wearing superheroes, a feeling she longed to have back in her grasp. When her mother gradually allowed her to wear makeup, she played with different color combinations, citing makeup as “drawing for the face.”

When she got her first laptop through school, that was when she took her passions to the screen and filmed her first YouTube video “Natural Looking Makeup Tutorial.”

What started off as 40,000 views, amassed into a large YouTube following. She went on to acquire millions of subscribers, collaborate with Lancome, and co-found the monthly makeup subscription, Ipsy. She was killing the game. I mean she basically pioneered YouTuber collaborations and influencer-created makeup brands-- now a plentiful and successful enterprise. She intelligently parlayed her online presence to create a successful, multi-million dollar company. She started on YouTube when there was absolutely no incentive to be a YouTuber. Heck, she started before the word “YouTuber” was even coined.

But the hardships weren’t over.

The nonstop grind, the unsuccessful launch of Em Cosmetics with Loreal, complaints of cheap formulation and packaging, and to boot, the 7.5 million dollar copyright infringement claim against her by Ultra Records in 2014 was the breaking point. And without warning, she disappeared from the public eye.

Shrewd and agile entrepreneurship:

Michelle became successful at a time when social media was at its peak use in the late 2000s and early 2010s. It was also a time where it started to become progressively toxic. At that time, there was no literature or advice on how to deal with trolls, negativity from anonymous people, and deep fakes.

She escaped to Zermatt, Switzerland, and jettisoned her unabated schedule. I’m glad she took that time off.

Can you imagine being at the peak of your career, launching a company that you’ve envisioned for years, only for it to be a commercial failure? For your name to be dragged in the community you found solace in, and for doctored messages and posts to creep out of the woodworks and shame you for words you didn’t say?

But she’s a comeback kid. After dealing with the lawsuit from Ultra Records for using their music in her video--something she claimed she had permission to use--she co-founded Thematic. The company holds an online marketplace of musicians who can license their work with pre-cleared rights to video creators--removing the potentiality for another creator to get in a legal tiff with a large corporation.

Oh, and did I mention that she bought out her shares of Ipsy, which was worth a whopping half a billion dollars, and bought back Em Cosmetics from L’oreal? Tired of the lack of creative control over her name, she took her brand back.

She worked on new formulations from Italy and perfected product prototypes. She infused the visual branding of Em Cosmetics with the Sailor Moon aesthetic that she’s loved since childhood, against the backdrop of the natural world she revisited during her social media detox.

Now, you can’t get her Divine Skies makeup palette and even some of her serum blushes--because they’re sold out. The regrowth of her brand is thanks to her marketing acumen. She expanded her social presence to TikTok, utilized her YouTube and Instagram base for product launches, and matched the color palette we know and love from her YouTube channel with her website and products.

Every single problem she faced, she found a solution. Didn’t like the lack of control over her own brand? She bought it back. Didn't like the power that large conglomerate music entities held over small creators? She created Thematic to help them.

And not to mention--aesthetic AF:

She started off making tutorials on her laptop computer, with grainy, saturated light filling her surroundings. Yet, they were calm and authentic in their own way. I continued to watch as her production quality got better and better and progressed into an ethereal, dream-like visual.

The enchanting ballet of airy colors in tandem with her soothing ASMR voice (seriously Michelle, please consider ASMR) was perfect for her style of videos. And her content was always concise and refined. She had this cinematic style to her videos where she’d pull you into her world.

I mean--just look at this video. The first comment says “Vietnamese Airlines needs this as their commercial.” I agree! Get on it Vietnam Airlines!

Her bread and butter was always the content. The high definition camera quality, glassy audio, and lo-fi music were all icing on the cake. But most importantly, she's an honest storyteller. Every single makeup look she did, she'd introduce it with an anecdote. Because it was never only about the makeup. It was never about drama, or tea or clickbait, or getting views. It was and continues to be about creating meaning with what life has given you, a philosophy she imbues.

I’m so glad to have Michelle back on YouTube. I think she set the gold standard for classiness on the platform and for the makeup community and she was ahead of her time. I stan. I also ordered her eyeliner and lipgloss.