With over 14 million followers, Nogueira is one of the most popular beauty influencers on TikTok and is known for her makeup tutorials and beauty product reviews. Nogueira recently posted a paid partnership video promoting a L’Oreal Paris mascara, which received millions of views but, after much speculation, she revealed several days later that she was in fact wearing fake eyelashes, thus misleading her followers.
The outrage at influencers promoting poor-quality products is especially disappointing because of their apparent authenticity
Naturally, many of her followers were enraged by this discovery that they had been lied to and scammed into buying the mascara, and several other influencers spoke about the controversy on the app. Meghan Rienks, a fellow beauty and lifestyle influencer, spoke about her experience doing paid advertisements by stating that will test out products for weeks before promoting them and, as a result, turns down a lot of offers; however, this incident will definitely make some of us think twice about buying certain products just because our favourite influencers told us to.
But is it really that surprising to discover that our favourite beauty influencers who are being paid thousands to promote products are in fact lying to us? After all, many beauty influencers, including TikTok’s current ‘it-girl’ Alix Earle, were gifted an all-expenses paid trip to Dubai by makeup brand Tarte. And being ‘scammed’ into buying substandard products isn’t a new phenomenon.
Should we all be starting to question whether we can truly trust these people?
Like many other people of my generation, I spent much of the 2010s avidly watching YouTube and was a particular fan of Zoe Sugg (or Zoella) whose popular makeup hauls and tutorials led her to become Forbes’ top beauty influencer of 2017 and could easily be referred to as the UK’s original influencer.
Although Sugg popularised the Rimmel 107 lipstick, it was another product that saw her face significant controversy in 2017: her infamous £50 advent calendar. The advent calendar, promoted by Sugg, included only 12 doors, and contained products such as stickers, a keyring, and a pen, which caused outrage on Twitter with many feeling that it wasn’t worth the steep £50 price that it was being sold at.
The outrage at influencers promoting poor-quality products is especially disappointing because of their apparent authenticity. The main reason people follow influencers is because they are seemingly ordinary people who start out as being very relatable therefore, we trust their opinions and recommendations of products and it is easy to forget that they are often being paid to promote the products that they are talking about.
People are starting to become conscious of the fact that influencers may not be as trustworthy as we once thought with the new ‘de-influencing’ trend starting to grow as many people are discussing the products that they regret buying because their favourite influencer told them to. And while I have been influenced myself to buy products just because I saw an influencer talk about how great it is, it is important that we understand that we do not know these influencers and while we hope we can trust them, many are simply trying to make money.