Filtered beauty on camera lens

I love some YouTube videos. They are how I became familiar with the basics of makeup not to mention trends and the latest products.

But then I came across a video by one makeup artist by the name Wayne Goss. The 39 year old does tutorials mostly on his own face and has a line of successful makeup brushes along with over 15 years experience in the beauty industry.

He is also known as being ‘mouthy’ which means he spills the beauty community’s secrets. The biggest one being a seven minute video exposing a veteran makeup artist for using a digital filter.

The make-up artist is identified by the beauty community and Goss’s description, as Bobbi Brown. In his expose he took his audience behind the scenes showing the difference between natural light, normal camera lighting and the difference when a vlogger uses a filter.

It all seemed significant when watching a short clip of Bishop Kathy Kiuna when she was giving a shout out to her makeup artistes and got trolled for wearing far too much makeup. It is because we have been exposed to Snapchat filters, Instagram filters, photoshopped magazine images and of course, beauty filters on YouTube tutorials that we have lost all sense of what real life makeup looks like.

If you have ever wondered why you look nothing like anything on social media, TV and magazines, it is because you are used to altered images. Digital filters on YouTube that alter the way you look make such a difference they are practically an anti-aging tool. And many a YouTube beauty guru has been called out for faking blemish free skin by people who have seen them in real life.

Makeup tutorials with a filter and tutorials with usual camera lighting have such distinct differences they explain why you should not believe your own eyes. It is basically live photoshop. In 2016 Racked magazine did an article titled The Biggest YouTube Secret Has Nothing To Do With Makeup during a beauty product launch where the set up were mirrors with lights around them, called ring lights or more aptly, Diva Lights.

Diva Lights form a light around the face and bounce prettily off the forehead in such a way it immediately illuminates the face just so. It comes with a tripod and both cameras and phones can be mounted on it and takes perfect selfies. The filter conundrum that can be switched on and off cameras has helped accelerate the rise of heavy makeup on YouTube and now real life said to be influenced by the drag culture. Drag queens, who are men in women’s garb and appearance, spend hours doing makeup.

Except these men want to soften their features so they look more feminine, hence the highlighting, contouring and false lashes not to mention brilliant eyeshadow. This is what makeup videos do now all day using near identical techniques to doll up. The result is a look that is perfect for bright lights such as shoots and entertainment but looks too much for real life. Here is the other conundrum.

If you have ever wondered why your skin does not look poreless, your makeup changes once you step out into the reality of the sun and your selfies somehow never look like the ones you see on Instagram, here is why. Filters capture, intensify yet soften in such detail you can see the iris pattern. This softens not just your skin but also your features to make you look younger, by about 10 years, which Goss mentions when it comes to the look of Bobbi Brown, not to mention softly contoured like a natural beauty.

It hides any and all blemishes, acne scars and wrinkles. Plus with these lights, filming can be done anytime. A vlogger does not have to rely on the whimsical sun. This is why your colour correction and contouring simply does not look like you would have hoped. There are a series of videos explaining and describing the kind of cameras used to the setup of a vlogging section, with some comparing tutorials side by side using no filters and filters. It is remarkable.

With filters going mainstream it is easy to forget that once a supermodel said, “Even Cindy Crawford doesn’t look like Cindy Crawford when she wakes up.” The difference now is the comments section. That, and how YouTube now looks and feels like TV and magazines with all the polished HD images.

Next time you buy a concealer, foundation, lip colour or whatever else you fancy, and use a vlogger’s instructions to put it on because they endorse it, don’t beat yourself up for being imperfect. Instead, remember to give yourself a reality check because nothing is ever really as it seems.