Nyadollie Deng was just 11 years old when she first started watching beauty YouTube videos. She was quickly taken with the transformative makeup looks of James Charles, Nyma Tang and Patrick Starrr. Now, the 23-year-old is quickly on her way to reaching their level of influence, but not through YouTube.

On Dec. 5, TikTok announced that a makeup tutorial by Deng was its top video of the year in the US, with over 500 million views. In the March video, the creator, who only started posting makeup content on TikTok in January, shares her everyday routine. She highlights a Fenty Beauty foundation and a neon pink Morphe 2 eyeshadow. Now, Deng has over 2 million followers and regularly works with Fenty Beauty, Mac Cosmetics, Nars, L’Oréal Paris and Rem Beauty after signing with talent agency A3 in April.

Like Deng, most newly minted top beauty influencers such as Mikayla Nogueira and Meredith Duxbury have found their big break on TikTok rather than other platforms, marking a shift from the early days of beauty YouTube and Instagram. Still, other platforms like YouTube are working to hold their place in the online beauty conversation as they lean further into short-form video and incentivise exclusive content.

But according to Megan Levy, senior talent manager at Shine Talent Group, the days of a star beauty influencer being born exclusively on YouTube are over as reaching subscriber counts over 1 million has become a challenge without a preexisting following on other platforms. “If you have a very big audience on YouTube, most likely, you have an audience to match that on TikTok or Instagram,” she said.

Just as TikTok highlighted Deng as one of its top video stars, YouTube also announced its 2023 “beauty queen” Sydney Morgan, who is known for her special effects-style makeup routines and has 7 million subscribers on the platform. Like Deng, Morgan also first rose to fame on TikTok, where she has over 10 million followers.

The Rush to Short-Form Video

As TikTok has become the main social media platform for delivering new mega beauty influencers, competitors have moved into short video to remain relevant.

Morgan got her start in 2020 when, like many influencers, she started posting her attention-grabbing makeup looks on TikTok and saw fast virality. She had been posting on Instagram and YouTube for years with little traction.

“When YouTube rolled out YouTube Shorts is really what changed the game … and blew up my subscriber count,” said Morgan.

YouTube has gone beyond the introduction of Shorts to attract a younger generation of beauty stars to the platform. It works with Morgan and other influencers to provide a flat rate to keep videos exclusive to YouTube, and promote e-commerce listings such as a Sydney Morgan-branded rose gold lip gloss launched via YouTube e-commerce earlier this year.

“It was much harder to cast a wide net and expand your audience before vertical short-form content on YouTube,” said Morgan.

The Multi-Platform Beauty Guru

YouTube has not given up on longer-form content, however, as it encourages influencers to build their audiences via Shorts and then create longer-form videos to keep them hooked.

Madeline Buxton, culture and trends manager at YouTube said, “The creators that we see breaking through the most are the ones who are creating content that is multi-format, so they’re creating Shorts; they’re creating long-form; they’re experimenting with livestreams; they’re experimenting with podcasts.”

Deng expanded to Instagram and then YouTube after her success on TikTok. She plans to create more YouTube content in the future. “As of right now, I’m doing short-form, but I do want to do long-form videos on YouTube,” she said.

According to Levy, younger beauty influencers have been creating more long-form content beyond tutorials. “I’ve seen a really, really big shift within the past three months where they have been spending more time on YouTube because a lot of their followers want to see more into their personal life,” she said.

Morgan has built her audience with entertainment-based content, creating both long-form and short-form videos showcasing special-effects costume-inspired makeup and gaming-related makeup videos.

“Back in the OG beauty YouTuber days, like the 2016 era, it was very clean cut, polished, a plain white background, like ‘I’m going to show you how to wing an eyeliner.’ I just don’t think people are looking for that as much anymore. [We’re] Gen-Z-ifying the old beauty community,” said Morgan.

Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans has resigned from Farfetch’s board, the luxury e-tailer disclosed in a regulatory filing Wednesday.

Evans joined the board in December 2020, as part of a deal that saw Alibaba and Farfetch form a joint venture in China. That partnership also included a $1.1 billion investment from Alibaba and Cartier-owner Richemont.

Evans’ departure was effective Nov. 30, two days after The Telegraph reported that Farfetch chief executive José Neves was in talks with top shareholders, including Alibaba and Richemont, and JP Morgan to take the company private. Soon after, Farfetch announced that it was cancelling a scheduled earnings call, and that all prior financial forecasts or guidance should no longer be relied upon.

Richemont has since said it did not plan to invest further in Farfetch, and a deal to sell a 47.5 percent stake in Yoox Net-a-Porter to Farfetch appears to have stalled. Alibaba has not commented on the situation.

According to the filing, Evans’ departure from the board was not “the result of any disagreement with the Company or with its operations, policies or practices.”

Farfetch is currently exploring options amid a worsening cash position, including tapping existing partners for new investments, selling off assets, BoF reported on Monday.

Farfetch declined to comment beyond the regulatory filing and Alibaba did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Evans could not immediately be reached for comment.

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A top U.S. banking regulator on Wednesday warned banks to manage the risks to consumers posed by increasingly popular “buy now, pay later” financing for retail spending, saying the service creates pitfalls for retail shoppers.

As the year-end holidays approach, the statement from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an independent arm of the US Treasury, was the latest sign that federal regulators are scrutinising the increasingly popular form of consumer credit.

The loans allow borrowers to pay off a purchase in four or fewer interest-free installments but regulators warn they can lead to trouble, leaving unsuspecting borrowers overextended.

“As the ‘buy now, pay later’ market grows and we enter the holiday shopping season, the guidance confirms our expectation that OCC-supervised institutions offering these products do so in a responsible manner,” Michael Hsu, acting Comptroller of the Currency, said in a statement.

Consumers with fewer dollars to spend are increasingly turning to “buy now, pay later” loans, with a record number borrowing nearly $1 billion this way during the annual Cyber Monday shopping spree alone, analysts say. The surge in business has boosted shares in “buy now, pay later” company Affirm.

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A “substantial volume” of clothing tainted by the use of Uyghur forced labour is entering the European Union market, according to a report, as campaigners say the EU’s checks are not doing enough to weed out coercive work from large supply chains.

Dozens of well-known brands including H&M and Zara are identified as being at high risk of sourcing materials, particularly cotton and PVC, made by Uyghurs compelled to participate in state-imposed labour transfer programmes, according to a report from Uyghur Rights Monitor, Sheffield Hallam University and the Uyghur Centre for Democracy and Human Rights.

The researchers investigated four leading Chinese apparel companies that have “significant ties” to Xinjiang, via sourcing, subsidiaries, and manufacturing, and have links with western brands. Those companies have supplied brands including Zara and Primark, according to the report.

Xinjiang, a region in north-west China where most of the country’s ethnic Uyghur minority live, accounts for more than 80 percent of China’s cotton. It is also a region where there are widespread reports of human rights abuses, including an estimated 1 million people who have been held in extrajudicial detention camps. Apart from the detention camps, however, there is also a longstanding programme of state-sponsored labour transfers, which Uyghur activists and human rights campaigners say involve a high risk of coercion.

Beijing describes these transfers as a poverty alleviation tool. Under the programmes, unemployed people are transferred to farms or factories in different locations where there is a need for workers. This happens within Xinjiang and from the region to other parts of China.

The report’s authors highlight several examples of the Chinese companies being involved in these programmes. Beijing Guanghua Textile Group, for example, has a joint venture with Xinjiang Jinghe Textile Technology, a firm with links to labour transfer programmes. In 2018, Xinjiang Jinghe said it was investing 200m yuan (£22.3m) to expand its production facilities and employ 2,000 people via rural surplus labour programmes. In March this year, a Xinjiang newspaper reported that 73 “poverty-stricken households” had sent workers to the firm to become industrial workers.

Beijing Guanghua’s parent company, Beijing Fashion Holdings, advertises its links with a number of well-known western brands, including Zara and Next. One of the group’s subsidiaries, TopNew, is a supplier for H&M.

A spokesperson for Inditex, Zara’s parent company, said the western fashion brand no longer purchased products from Beijing Guanghau Textile Group or Beijing Fashion Holdings, and had “no plans to do so in future”.

“Inditex has no commercial ties with any factories located in [Xinjiang]. Inditex is fully committed to respecting, protecting and promoting human rights across its entire value chain and rigorously adheres to all forced labour regulations. We regularly conduct detailed due diligence and monitoring of our suppliers to ensure compliance with our stringent standards and we are fully committed to the traceability of the raw materials used in our products.

“All suppliers and manufacturers of the Inditex group must comply with our traceability requirements, including selecting a supply chain made up of ethical and responsible companies and providing accurate, true and appropriate information about the supply chain used for each order, from raw materials to final garment.”

A spokesperson for H&M said: “Transparency about our supply chain is very important to us and we have come far in that work.” TopNew is listed as one of H&M group’s suppliers on its website.

A spokesperson for Primark said: “We can confirm the use of Anhui Huamao Group Co Ltd in two suppliers’ supply chains. We have spoken at length with the suppliers linked to this facility and, so far, we have not been able to find any direct link to the XUAR [Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region] ... Out of caution, our supplier has agreed with us to immediately stop using the facility in question while our investigation is ongoing.”

Anhui Huamao is a textile company with three subsidiaries in Xinjiang, according to its most recent annual report.

Beijing Fashion Holdings and Next did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2020, H&M expressed concerns about the risk of forced Uyghur labour in cotton production. That led to a backlash in China and a widespread boycott of the brand, leading to a drop in sales of nearly 25 percent. The brand later said its commitment to China remained strong.

In December 2021, the US government passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which treats goods from Xinjiang as being tainted with forced labour – and therefore banned from the US – unless an importer can prove otherwise. To date, the legislation has resulted in more than $500m (£397 m) worth of goods being denied entry to the US.

The report’s researchers said: “This is a sea change that only legislation could have made happen. Companies are now subject to investigation of their entire supply chains, which has encouraged more due diligence and more visibility in what were previously incredibly opaque relationships.”

But the EU has no such stance on goods from Xinjiang, something the researchers said needed to change.

The report’s authors also noted that state-sponsored labour transfer programmes were less widely understood than Xinjiang’s detention camps, which have received widespread media attention and which, according to the UN Human Rights Office, “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”.

This means that while many of the western brands named in the report celebrate their participation in ESG (environmental, social and governance) rankings and validation schemes, such as the global organic textile standard and the Better Cotton initiative, “the significance of these certifications vary widely” as they “typically do not account for state-imposed forced labour”.

“It is highly important to incorporate state-sponsored labour transfers and participation in other forms of repressive policies implemented in the Uyghur region as a red flag while evaluating companies based in mainland China,” said Yalkun Uluyol, one of the researchers.

The report was commissioned by Raphaël Glucksmann, a member of the European parliament from the centre-left Place publique party, which is part of the parliament’s Socialists & Democrats grouping.

By Amy Hawkins

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