Michelle Phan urges beauty influencers to be honest about using filters

Michelle Phan has urged beauty influencers on YouTube to be honest about when they use filters.

The 34-year-old makeup artist – who amassed a following of almost 9 million by sharing beauty tutorial videos before founding the multimillion dollar cosmetics line EM Cosmetics – thinks that YouTubers should notify viewers that their appearance has been altered by a filter.

She said: “I’ve been trying to get back on YouTube, but I’m not using any beauty filters on my recent videos. I even have a disclaimer saying I don’t use it. I would say 100% of beauty YouTubers [use filters], unless they make a disclaimer. I know Katie Jane Hughes doesn’t use any beauty filters, which is great. It’s super refreshing. But most, if not all of them, use beauty filters. It’s subtle, but you can see it. I know the ones who are using them, which can look really natural.

“We can try to at least normalize, or even let people know, Hey, I’m using a beauty filter.”

The businesswoman then went on to claim that using a disclaimer could make the “biggest difference” for anyone feeling self-conscious when they watch a beauty video, reminding fans that how someone looks in a video is not true to life.

She told Glamour: “Something as small as that can make the biggest difference for people who feel really self-conscious. How you look on camera is not actually how you look in real life. There are certain lenses that literally distort your face and make you look weird. There are lenses that can flatter you and make you look like you, but they’re super expensive. There’s a reason why cinema lenses cost more than our camera lenses. Ours are cheaper, and it’s very wide-angle and distorts your face. A lot of people think they look ugly when they’re not ugly. They look good. How you see yourself in the mirror is how you actually look. Camera lens, it’s hard for them to translate that look in the mirror.”