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DIY beauty
Frédérique Passot eCairn Inc. May 2014
Table of contents
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1. Context and objective Social media is teeming with tips, tutorials and recipes for making your own beauty products. The DIY beauty trend ties in with several other areas where influencers are actively relaying and publishing content demonstrating their skills and expressing their creativity thereby encouraging their readers and followers to claim ownership of the process of making their lives more beautiful. In numbers, beauty influencers and others are building a virtual community of individuals and consumers, i.e. a market, where new values emerge. If those values for the most part stand clear of those of the mainstream industry, they are not necessarily in contradiction with them. The objective of this study is twofold: to make the case for the existence of a new market defined around the values and concerns dear to the DIY beauty influencers; to provide insights on the issues covered within this community of beauty afficionados and identify the ones mainstream actors in the industry can leverage to participate and eventually enter the market. Indeed, this new space where doing things yourself and doing things together is a defining feature offers great potential for growth and innovation for brands big and small.
2. Methodology To provide data points to measure and analyse the phenomenon, eCairn compiled a tribe of social media influencers interested in this new model of production for products related to beauty and fashion. About 1800 influencers sensitive to our issues were gathered: influencers with an interest in DIY cosmetics and perfume, DIY fashion, as well as minimalism. Leveraging the eCairn ConversationTM application, we will study our tribe along three axes (or topics) pertaining to DIY beauty: “make your own”: the conversations found on this axis include recipes and tutorials in which influencers share their knowhow in the area of homemade beauty products. “socially conscious”: the conversations found on this axis include concerns about the economic, social and environmental impact of producing and therefore consuming cosmetics and other beauty products. “perception of beauty”: the conversations found on this axis include threads about beauty as an expression of the self, as well as beauty as an external ideal, a product of normative edicts. Our social media analysis will bring answers to the following questions to gauge the scale of the
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DIY beauty market and define it further: Who are the influencers who are the most sensitive to the DIY issues? What are their favorite social media outlets? What kind of reach do they have? How much of the conversation is devoted to the topics through which the DIY trend is expressed? What are the most commonly used keywords and keyphrases in each of the three contexts and how do they relate to one another?
3. Getting to know the DIY beauty influencers
3.1 Centrality of the DIY beauty topics in the tribe The following graph presents the core of the network of connections between influencers (blogs) within the tribe. In blue are bloggers relevant to the “make your own” topic. In yellow are bloggers relevant to the “socially conscious” topic. In green are bloggers concerned with both types of issues.
The number and distribution of colored nodes show that the topics are very widespread and evenly covered across the network, regardless of the main focus of the blogger (cosmetics, perfume, fashion, or minimalism). The high proportion of green nodes indicates that both topics (“make your own” and “socially conscious”) are frequently covered by the same influencer. This picture shows how central the DIY beauty topics are to the tribe of 1800+ influencers we are looking at. In this tightly knit network, any influencer is within at most two degrees of separation
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from someone who publishes content pertaining to DIY beauty. It is obvious that the interest for DIY beauty is not a marginal phenomenon, and that it goes beyond the cosmetics tribe to include influencers with a slightly different focus. The widespread interest for DIY themes across the domains under scrutiny suggests that the cosmetics and perfume industries should be able to learn from other related industries. These industries may indeed be ahead of them in identifying and engaging the conscious consumers in ways that make sense to them, and therefore in penetrating the growing market they constitute.
3.2 Top influencers on the DIY beauty topics
3.2.1 “Make your own” influencers The following are influencers who publish a significant amount of content relevant to the “make your own” topic. The number next to the bar chart symbol indicates the percentage of relevant content published by each of them. For example, one out of five conversations (19%) published by Holly of beautynewbie.com is relevant to the topic.
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3.2.2 “Socially conscious” influencers The following are influencers who publish a significant amount of content relevant to the “socially conscious” topic. For example, one out of three conversations (34%) published by Holly of beautynewbie.com is relevant to the topic. This particular influencer, also in the list of influencers relevant to the “make your own” topic, is very sensitive to the DIY beauty issues.
3.2.3 “Perception of beauty” influencers The following are influencers who publish a significant amount of content relevant to the “perception of beauty” topic. For example, one out of three conversations (34%) published by Carol Tuttle of thecarolblog.com is relevant to the topic. On top of being very relevant to the topic, this influencer also has a lot of reach (as symbolized by the green signal strength icon).
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3.3 Relevant influencers with high reach Among the people who are sensitive to our three topics are influencers with a high level of reach. Our reach score for a given influencer is an indication of the size of their actual audience. It is a combination of the numbers of content view and followership on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The following table contains a sample of influencers who are relevant to the DIY beauty topics and who have a high level of online reach:
http://www.phyrra.net Tampa, FL, USA Twitter 8.83K followers Facebook 533K likes, 10.8K talking about YouTube 296K views, 5.53K subscribers More than 10% of the posts by this influencer are relevant to the “socially conscious” topic.
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http://www.thebeautydepartment.com Los Angeles, CA, USA Twitter 89K followers Facebook 387K likes, 5.32K talking about More than 10% of the posts by this influencer are relevant to the “make your own” topic. http://www.mybeautybunny.com Jen Mathews Los Angeles, CA, USA Twitter 41K followers Facebook 503K likes, 5.32K talking about YouTube 6.86K views, 698 subscribers More than 15% of the posts by this influencer are relevant to the “socially conscious” topic. http://www.beautynewbie.com/ Holly Canada Twitter 315 followers Facebook 375 likes, 3 talking about YouTube 3.74M views, 20.2K subscribers More than 15% of the posts by this influencer are relevant to the “socially conscious” topic. She is also relevant to the “make your own” topic. http://www.kandeej.com/ Kandee Johnson USA Twitter 206K followers Facebook 367K likes, 21.8K talking about YouTube 232M views, 2.01M subscribers This influencer is relevant to the “perception of beauty” and “make your own” topics. http://www.pixiwoo.com/ Sam Chapman London, UK Twitter 174K followers Facebook 258K likes, 23.1K talking about YouTube 196M views, 1.54M subscribers This influencer is relevant to the “perception of beauty” and “make your own” topics.
YouTube is an especially powerful channel to reach out to large numbers of viewers. Some of these influencers, who embrace the DIY beauty topics, generate several hundred million views each and serve millions of subscribers, further indicating that DIY beauty is a viable market for the cosmetics and perfume industry. To get an idea of where these influencers are standing compared to the influencers with the largest audience in the domain in general, here are Michelle Phan’s reach numbers:
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http://www.michellephan.com Michelle Phan Twitter 531K followers Facebook 2.4M likes, 185K talking about YouTube 740M views, 6.1M followers (Michelle Phan is also sensitive to the DIY beauty issues.)
It is worth noting that YouTube is a channel where original content is posted, a channel which lends itself very well to the visual quality of beauty related content. The DIY beauty audience is not just eager to click on links posted or reposted on Twitter, it is looking for more visual, more personal content with a visible editorial stance: not only do YouTube beauty channels feature a face, they also feature a voice and a story.
4. Getting a sense of what is keeping the DIY beauty influencers abuzz This section of the study allows us to dive into the content published by the DIY beauty influencers to better understand what they are discussing and to what extent their topics of interest are intertwined, paying particular attention to the language in which they are expressed. We will focus on the three topics defined above: “make your own” “socially conscious” “perception of beauty”
4.1 Relative weight of the three topics The share of voice of each topic varies depending on the channel we listen to. In blogs, the “socially conscious” topic is by far the most popular, with as many matching conversations as the other two combined. The “make your own” topic comes second, with about 70 conversations a day over the past six months.
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On Twitter, the “perception of beauty” topic is clearly the most popular, almost eclipsing the “make your own” topic.
What this tends to show is that at least some aspects of the conversation on the perception of beauty lend themselves well to Twitter’s 140 character format, whereas the “make your own” conversation requires more space, which the blog format is more likely to provide. The immediacy vs permanence of the medium may also be a factor in the preference for one channel over the other depending on the topic at hand. Twitter’s faster refresh rate is well suited to the more anecdotal aspects of the conversation on the perception of beauty (e.g. a celebrity posting a selfie). Where more elaborate content may be used as reference in the longer run (e.g. a recipe, a reflection on inner beauty), blogs seem to be preferred.
4.2 Semantic identity of the three topics The following expression clouds capture the uniqueness of each of the three topics, by highlighting the keywords and keyphrases that are the most frequently used in each context.
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4.2.1 Make your own The “make your own” topic is focused on beauty products in general. Among the specific types of products are “lip balm”, “nail polish”, “body wash”, “body lotion”, “makeup”, “eye shadow”. Body parts relevant to beauty products also rank high: “lip”, “hair”, “face”, “eye”. Other noteworthy terms are “kit”, “oil”, “natural” and “price”, echoing the question “why pay a lot to get a brand name when I can make my own beauty products from more simple ingredients?”
4.2.2 Socially conscious The most frequently used expressions in the conversations relevant to the “socially conscious” topic reflect the concerns of conscious consumers. These concerns range from the production of the ingredients to the use of the wealth generated by beauty product sales from an environmental, socioeconomic and ethical standpoint. Animal testing, in particular, is a very popular topic, with “cruelty free”, “animal testing” and “tested on animals” ranking high. Social responsibility is present in “fair trade” and “charity”. The high ranking of “breast cancer” is a result of frequent mentions of awareness campaigns or charitable initiatives launched by a number of brands, as well as mentions of influencers’ personal stories. Of interest is the fact that the term “brand” is among the top expressions for this topic: brands do belong in the conversations published by this conscious market.
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4.2.3 Perception of beauty Matching the “perception of beauty” topic is a collection of conversations revolving around beauty as an expression of the self or as a projection of an ideal defined by outside norms. From the angle of selfexpression, beauty is defined as a personal mindset: “body image”, “personal style”, “feel beautiful”. The high ranking of “social media” is a reminder of the democratization of the canons of beauty made possible by the virtually free access to ubiquitous publication outlets, especially outlets with a strong visual flair (picture and video sharing services, personal blogs, personal Twitter accounts, message boards, fan pages, Facebook groups, etc.). In this context, a “selfie” expresses the quintessential claim that beauty lies everywhere. At the same time, selfies by celebrities can be viewed as reinforcing the normative idea of beauty as perfection, and therefore as something desirable or not, but at least as something worthy of a debate. In this context, beauty is an ideal (“perfect”) whose norms are set by very few, in a mostly controlled environment: “show”, “red carpet” and “new york” contribute to this thread. On top of the terms relevant to cosmetics (“skin”, “face”, hair”, “eye”, “makeup”), more fashionoriented come up in the “perception of beauty” conversations: “fashion”, “wear”, “dress”, among others.
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4.3 Interconnectivity between the topics This section provides a different view on the expressions that are frequently used in the context of our three topics and allows us to answer the following questions: How much and what do the topics share semantically overall? How much and what is really specific to a given topic? Which of the three topics are closest together semantically? Which are the most different?
4.3.1 Overview and method The following graph presents an overview of the interconnections between our three topics through the lense of their semantic content, expressed as the top 100 expressions used in each context. As in all the network views presented in this section, the strength of the connection between an expression and a topic, symbolized by the size of the expression in the cloud, is reflected in the width of the edge. In this map, the connection of a specific expression to a topic is color coded: the color of the edge corresponds to the color of the topic (e.g. pink for “make your own”), the color of the node corresponds to the number of topics the expression is connected (e.g. dark grey for expressions common to all three topics).
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It is immediately apparent from this graph that all three topics share a good portion of their top expressions, but that the “socially conscious” and “make your own” topics have more in common than with the third. This section will draw on this first map to take a closer look at the expressions common to all three topics, as well as the ones common to only two. This process will allow us to characterize each of the three topics based on the proximity of its content to the other two.
4.3.2 Semantic overlap The following graph presents a zoom on the center of the overall map, and shows the extent to which the three topics overlap semantically. The top expressions common to all three contexts represent about 30% of the top expressions for each of them, and are very much expected in conversations about beauty. The connection between the expressions and each of the topics is rather strong, even though a few weaker links stand out: “makeup artist” is not as central to the “make your own” topic as to the other two, and neither is “wear”.
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4.3.3 Semantic specificity and proximity This section focuses on subparts of the first map, highlighting the semantic specificity of each of the three topics and its proximity with the other two.
4.3.3.1 Make your own The following graph visualizes the connections between the expressions which are frequently used in conversations relevant to the “make your own” topic and, where applicable, to the other topics as well. In pink are the expressions connected to the “make your own” topic only. In white are the expressions which are also frequently used in the conversations relevant to either of the other topics. In grey are the expressions which are frequently used in the conversations relevant to all three topics.
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This graph shows that only about a third of the top 100 expressions for the conversations relevant to the “make your own” topic are actually specific to them. These expressions detail DIY methods and ingredients for making your own cosmetics (“diy”, “kit”, “tutorial”, “recipe”, “step”, “mix”, “water”, “olive oil”, “clean”, “wash”), as well as packaging (“bottle”, “packaging”, “box”, “bag”, “item”). Apart from the expressions common to all three topics, there are very few expressions that the “make your own” topic shares with the “perception of beauty”. As we said earlier, however, a greater proximity exists between the “make your own” and “socially conscious” topics. The two topics share such expressions as “ingredients”, “contains”, “oil”, “essential oils” and “coconut oil”.
4.3.3.2 Socially conscious As with the “make your own” topic, the conversations relevant to the “socially conscious” topic share a large portion of their vocabulary with the other three topics (more than ⅔).
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The expressions which are specific to the “socially conscious” theme are captured in the expression cloud presented earlier. They have to do with animal testing and conscious business practices. Other expressions of note include “vegan” and “organic”. “Social media” and “show” are some of the few expressions common to the topic and the “perception of beauty” thread. As we said earlier, the “socially conscious” and “make your own” topics are semantically quite intertwined, with as much as 30% of the top 100 expressions for “socially conscious” conversations in common with “make your own” only, on top of the 30% all three topics have in common.
4.3.3.3 Perception of beauty The semantic footprint of the conversations relevant to the “perception of beauty” topic is the most unique of the three. It is also the most complex.
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Half of the top 100 expressions found in the thread are not frequently found in the conversations relevant to the other topics. They confirm the findings highlighted in the analysis of the expression cloud. The strong connection of this topic with social media is confirmed with the presence of “social”, “bloggers”, “twitter”, “instagram” and “facebook” in the top 100. The dichotomy found earlier in the cloud between two conceptions of beauty finds more ways to express itself here. On the one hand, “inner beauty”, “true beauty”, “feel good”, “feel beautiful”, “personal style” are all strongly connected to the topic, “express” less so, all contributing to the view of beauty as a personal quest, an expression of the self. On the other hand, “picture perfect” and “celebrity” complement the view of beauty as an ideal dictated by professionals.
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5. Conclusion
5.1 Conscious brands in a conscious market To a large extent, the DIY beauty trend can be viewed as a response to the lack of transparency on the source and the nature of the ingredients used in the mainstream industry. To appeal to a conscious market, it is recommended for a brand to embrace the same values, and to publicly emphasize how much is being done in this direction. Two points of concern are very visible in the tribe under scrutiny: The toxicity of ingredients rank high in the concerns of the DIY beauty influencers and the general public. The trend shows a preference for simple recipes involving few, natural ingredients, which have not been tested on animals. The environmental and social impact of the production of the ingredients is another important concern, voiced by influencers who are interested in tracing cosmetics back to the land where the raw material was cultivated and to the people who harvested and processed it. Changing business practices to become a conscious brand can bring longterm innovation to a company’s supply chain and manufacturing operations. Backed by solid PR campaigns, it can also be a very powerful leverage point into conscious markets such as the DIY beauty market.
5.2 Empowering the consumer Our analysis of the DIY beauty trend also revealed a divide between a personal and a professional approach to beauty. To gain access to the DIY beauty market, it seems important for brands to captivate people’s imagination not by reinforcing the canons of beauty, but by empowering them to define beauty in their own terms. The DIY beauty influencers demonstrate a lot of knowhow when it comes to making your own cosmetics or creating a new look. They are beauty professionals, and some of them have also become social media professionals. As such, they contribute to a vibrant, handson research field. However, they are unlikely to have access to a chemistry lab or to panels of aromachologists. Therefore, they could benefit from the extensive experience gathered by the mainstream brands over the years, sometimes generations, that they have been in business. This growing interest for DIY beauty products can be leveraged by brands to establish themselves as trusted experts on those issues by sharing some of their expertise with this market. Ambassador campaigns can help establish this relationship. By working with a few influencers from the DIY beauty tribe who are already recognized by their peers as carrying the values the market cares about, big brands can benefit from the ambassadors’ reach, creativity
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and authenticity and get their voices heard throughout this tightly knit network and very active market. Other ways for brands to participate in this trend could involve finding their own voice to educate the audience on simple ways to make their own cosmetics: publishing tutorials, or tips and tricks, or even providing kits to get people started on their DIY beauty projects.
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