Lauren Luke and social networking in the beauty world
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
For Sunday’s Image section, I wrote a story about Lauren Luke, a YouTube personality (see above) whose video makeup tutorials have such an enormous fan base that she was able to launch her own makeup line, By Lauren Luke.
While Luke’s popularity grew through everyone’s favorite buzz words these days, social networking, she’s certainly not the first to get a line going from scratch. Just as examples: Laura Gellerwas an established New York City makeup artist with a few private-label products when QVC approached her about expanding. She did one show and sold out of all 750 units in less than seven minutes. Carol’s Daughter’s Lisa Price started by trial and error in her Brooklyn kitchen, perfecting products with family and friends, (‘I’m not good at chemistry, I’m good at cooking,’ Price says in a phone interview) and developing a loyal following with locals and with her TV industry contacts. Even Estee Lauder started (somewhat) small by selling to beauty salons and hotels.
However, Luke is among the growing crop of faces who’ve used the Internet to break through. Allen Burke, QVC’s director of beauty merchandising, (who had not heard of Luke when we spoke) figures this is just the beginning.
‘I think a lot of that stuff is still in its infancy,’ Burke says. In the next few years, ‘we’ll see that there can be successes coming out of there.’
And does it matter that Luke has little formal training as a makeup artist? Burke says this shouldn’t affect her sticking power -- adding that ‘Leslie Blodgett -- the force behind Bare Escentuals -- is a product developer.’
In the next few weeks, the Image section will delve a bit deeper into the ways fashion and beauty are taking shape on the Web. But what say you: Do you get beauty and fashion tips from YouTube and personal blogs or do you stick to advice from magazines and (ahem) the fashion and lifestyle sections of newspapers?
-- Whitney Friedlander
Lauren Luke’s makeup tutorials lead to a new line of work
Follow the Image section on Twitter
Picture: Lauren Luke’s new makeup line, By Lauren Luke