Should you get fashion tutorials from YouTube?

“How To” videos can be a treacherous path. It is far better to have a one-on-one face-to-face consultation with experts who will help you find your colour, colouring, face shape and the kind of makeup that works not just with your look but also with your lifestyle.

PHOTOS: ANTONY NJOROGE.

What you need to know:

  • This is the place I found dark skinned Sudanese beauties who are great at doing foundation swatches.
  • Women with such luxurious ebony skin and, curiously, very British accents.
  • They are gorgeous without makeup. And it blows up their comments section.

I admit it. I am a sucker for YouTube tutorials. I have fallen so deep into this rabbit hole that like a meme, I have once, or severally, used them to get ready before leaving the house. Breaking open an eyeshadow palette, lining up my lip colours and glosses and turning on all the available light sources in my bedroom. Moving back and forth between bedroom to bathroom to check my makeup against different lights. Recently I have even learnt how to take selfies to make sure my subtly applied layers do not reveal themselves on the lens simply because the mirror and typical 40W or 60W bulbs did not disclose the flaws in my technique.

 I have seen Instagram brows, and will not, no matter what, teach myself how to make my brows dark and otherworldly, chiselling and refining them for well over a half hour. I do know how to make my eyes pop with nothing but falsies, applying strips meticulously and with great irritation. I know Vaseline on my lids will not work. I never leave the house without a cat flicked with the darkest eyeliner I can find. I am still shopping for the perfect reverse lipstick which means it stays longer on my lips than it transfers, and despite how many times I lick my lips I do not ingest a tube of lipstick every month. All of these I learnt just by watching YouTube.

This is the place I found dark skinned Sudanese beauties who are great at doing foundation swatches. Women with such luxurious ebony skin and, curiously, very British accents. They are gorgeous without makeup. And it blows up their comments section. They also made me feel at ease. Just like the naturalistas with hair like mine who are not obsessive about temporarily acquiring ringlets or wavy curls. They are proud of their kink. YouTube is the land where beauty is accessible to anyone. Where I learnt why my eyeshadow looks very different post application versus on screen. It is because I have hooded eyes. Apparently, my makeup artistes have not known this, which is why my technique should be different. I can never wear my eyeliner like Nicki Minaj, which I wanted to for years, frustrated at what I thought was a lack of skill, till I found video after video of women like me, of all skin colours, who taught me what I did not know that I did not know.

Yet YouTube is not the land of tutorial milk and honey. I have noticed everyone has the same foundation, concealer, highlighting and contouring technique, regardless of their colour. There is a certain sameness to this beauty where specific spots are designed to glow, cheekbones are created and noses suddenly look thinner. The range of lipsticks are similar. The products are not immediately available locally. There are more light skinned, brown vloggers than there are dark skinned ones. Everyone wears lashes, eye shadow and the same trendy lip colours.

Then again, there is a corner in the virtual world for every kind of look. I stumbled across videos for older women and was rapt. They rubbish the contouring and highlighting done by the 20 somethings, who seem to populate YouTube. The techniques for mature women and skin care are not as many as the Millennials, who clearly have found their universe. And there are even fewer older women of colour giving tutorials. Women spending the most amount of time on makeup have plump, youthful, naturally radiant skin. Or, they are so good at turning scarred skin into a flawless canvas. Before and after pictures are jarring. And another thing. On camera, technique jumps out. Watch enough videos and you start to notice what needs blending, turns skin dry, makes the vlogger change colour. The comment section should be skipped altogether sometimes.

The problem with learning from YouTube is, like me, it might take you years to figure out your eye shape. Mine are, I gather, almond shaped and of course hooded, with less room to eye shadow it and rules out certain eyeliner techniques. Maybe you have very heightened cheekbones and need not highlight them, or your face shape is distinctly different, or this is a paid for post promoting products, or that your complexion is a whole other kettle of fishes. You have no idea what is age appropriate – mainly because a beat face tends to make younger women look older. Watching “How To” videos can be a treacherous path. It is far better to have a one-on-one face-to-face consultation with experts who will help you find your colour, colouring, face shape and the kind of makeup that works not just with your look but also with your lifestyle. Because the only thing worse than wearing the wrong shade of foundation is wearing the wrong shade of lipstick.