MILLENNIALS’ LUST FOR MAKEUP DRIVES COSMETICS BOOM

enclave of Sir Richard Branson in the British Virgin Islands; and Kauai in Hawaii for lavish, allexpenses-paid vacations. In exchange, most influencers agree to post a certain number of YouTube videos or Instagram posts about the company’s products.

“The trips are being villainized in a way because people feel since we’re going on the trips that we won’t be genuine about the products and our reviews,” said Samantha Ravndahl, a 24-year-old influencer from Canada with 2.4 million Instagram followers who has gone to Bora Bora and the Cannes Film Festival with cosmetics companies. “But the reality of the situation is, with the amount of money that people are making in this industry, a trip to wherever is a drop in the bucket. It’s simply not enough to buy people.”

For brands, there are other risks. Unlike scripted commercials with paid actresses, the brands lose some control over the messaging and content on a video blog. And many influencers, especially mega-influencers with followers that number in the millions, typically have relationships with multiple brands, raising the prospect that an unlucky product will get lost in a mix of hashtags.

Gabriel Zamora, a 24-yearold “beauty boy” vlogger from Los Angeles, said he has relationships with about 20 brands. He said he mostly receives free products from the companies and has been selective about his paid endorsements. Earlier this year, Zamora partnered with Mac Cosmetics, owned by Estée Lauder, for his own lipstick.

“A lot of brands are still playing with the idea, ‘How do we work with influencers and have them not bash our products?’” said Zamora. “There are brands that do get their feelings hurt when you do speak badly about a product but the fact is, not every brand is going to launch an entire line of products that are all going to be good. There is going to be a miss.”

During a weekend at the music festival Coachella, one mega-influencer posted for 12 brands, said Tarang P. Amin, the chief executive of e.l.f. Beauty. A company that started on the internet, e.l.f. has eschewed celebrities, including megainfluencers, to tout its relatively inexpensive products. Instead, e.l.f. focused its efforts on locating micro-influencers, up-andcoming beauty vloggers who are still building their audiences. But executives say staying ahead of millennials is a tricky business.

“Five years ago, no one talked about Instagram and today, Instagram is probably the number one social media platform for our products,” said Amin, who has spent 30 years in the packaged goods industry. “And five years from now, it will be something else.”