FACING OFF
▶ Chinese beauty vloggers transform into celebrities
The plot from the Hollywood blockbuster Face/
Off (1997) has now become true, this time with nothing but cosmetics in fangzhuang videos where beauty vloggers mimic celebrities, which has become a trend on social media.
He Yuhong, a beauty vlogger and makeup artist in Southwest China’s Chongqing, uses her face as a canvas to transform into celebrities.
She has become a global internet sensation due to her amazing makeup skills that enable her to transform herself into almost any celebrity you can think of.
Under the pseudonym Yuyamika, she puts videos of her work on various social networks and has over 243,000 fans on China’s Sina Weibo platform and over 600,000 followers on Instagram.
On her Sina Weibo homepage, the video of her mirroring Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was liked by over 6,000 Sina Weibo users and reposted 500 times.
The video of the transformation shows her applying high-burnishing powder and shadow powder on her face to recreate the subtle gradations of the light and shade on Mona Lisa’s face. She added careful lines on her brows and cheeks and put on the vintage clothes and hairstyle to complete the style.
“As if Mona Lisa were alive in the video,” one Sina Weibo follower commented.
“Those who spend a lot of money on cosmetic surgery must feel upset,” said another.
Aside from mimicking Mona Lisa, she can also transform into many other celebrities, including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson’s character Natasha Romanoff from The Avengers, the late Audrey Hepburn, Cristiano Ronaldo and Johnny Depp.
Her work of the famous picture of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue was viewed 1 million times on Instagram. “You are a great artist. The only difference is that your canvas is your own face!” one Instagram user commented.
“You could trick people,” another user said.
Life as a beauty vlogger
The job comes with applause, attention and money, but it also requires much practice.
Now a full-time beauty vlogger and social media influencer, she has made and posted almost 50 videos online since March 2018, among which is her favorite Albert Einstein video.
“The moment when I stick out my tongue I feel so cute,” she said.
The most challenging of her 50 works is the imitation of Mona Lisa. “I had to keep mirroring that mysterious smile and I almost gave up,” she admitted. What does it take to transform one’s face into another? You need both makeup skills and acting skills.
She concluded that a successful look is made up of 70 percent of makeup and 30 percent of acting.
“You need to study your facial features as well as the facial features of the celebrities and try to find a common ground with the cosmetics. You also need to control your facial muscles and expressions to mimic those of the celebrity,” He said.
A makeup video less than a minute usually takes hours to record. “The process is actually very hard. It often takes a long time to record. But what I find most attractive about the job is turning myself into somebody else. It is so amazing for me,” she said.
Ruby (pseudonym), a beauty vlogger based in Shanghai, also agrees with the hardships.
“You have to spend a lot of time studying different faces, choose the best shooting angle and imitate the celebrity’s expression. After that you need to edit the video clip and find out the shot that makes you most resemble the celebrity,” Ruby told the Global Times.
As a full-time beauty vlogger, she now updates her vlog once a week to entertain her two million followers on Sina Weibo.
Her famous looks include actress Athena Chu, Alyssa Chia and Michele Monique Reis.
Efforts to be beautiful
The popularity of imitation makeup videos is in line with the videos entertaining function and that more and more Chinese women are caring more about their facial image.
For example, Ruby would like to edit some clips of TV series into her videos and play a part in them in the place of the original actresses.
“I enjoy conceiving the whole plot and realizing it by myself,” said Ruby, who does all the shooting and editing by herself.
On the other hand, women nowadays invest more on cosmetics, which is why such videos have become popular, Ruby said.
Indeed, Chinese women are spending more money on beauty products, especially at a younger age.
According to a survey by OC&C Strategy Consultants in 2018, of over 2,800 women consumers, 88 percent of the respondents increased their skin care spending in 2017.
A survey jointly conducted by China Youth Daily and wenjuan.com of 1,865 women showed that over 50 percent of women started using makeup in college.
“Through the imitation makeup videos I hope more women can understand the magic and importance of makeup, be interested in makeup, and be more beautiful through makeup,” He said.