Best Instagram Beauty Influencers: Top Choices
Around 67% of beauty product shoppers consider turning to social media influencers as one of the top options to discover new products. Additionally, 42% of the buyers are more likely to buy a beauty product promoted by an influencer.
With the increasing belief and trust in social media personalities, the number of beauty influencers leveraging content promotion is also growing significantly.
These influencers are trusted by many and are best known for sharing their beauty expertise with millions of people leveraging various social media platforms, especially Instagram.
As a beauty enthusiast who constantly likes to try out new products or is planning to join the industry, it is essential to follow expert people who can guide you better on various beauty products or help you promote your cosmetic brand by keeping up with the latest beauty trends.
Hence, I have compiled a list of the top 10 beauty influencers who provide the best cosmetic insights and even advertise cosmetic brands for better audience exposure and improved brand awareness.
Top Instagram Beauty Influencers
Here is a list of the best Instagram beauty influencers to follow for a better understanding of the beauty world:
Safiya Nygaard
Total Instagram Followers: 2.1 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 9.65 Million
Total Instagram Posts: 720
Net Worth: $3 Million
Born in 1992, Safiya Nygaard is a famous and one of the most successful social media influencers and YouTuber who regularly posts videos, reels, and photos showcasing innovative beauty hacks and tricks.
She is best known for her ‘bad makeup science experiments’ where she mixes her beauty products into one to make new products.
Safiya Nygaard was once a part of Buzzfeed’s famous series, Lady Like, which helped her gain popularity in the beauty arena.
Her witty personality is what keeps her followers engaged with her. She often makes videos containing weird and bold fashion with confidence and ease, making her stand out from her competitors.
In addition to posting videos and photos on social media platforms, Safiya has collaborated with top brands, including ColorPop.
She has also been nominated for Streamy Awards in the Beauty and Creator of the Year category several times.
Huda Kattan
Total Instagram Followers: 2.7 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 4.14 Million
Total Instagram Posts: 642
Net Worth: $560 Million
Huda Katten is a leading entrepreneur, fashion blogger, makeup artist, and founder of the famous cosmetic brand Huda Beauty.
Born in 1983, Huda Katten majored in finance and studied makeup in Los Angeles. During her initial career years, she has worked with top brands and celebrities, including Revlon, Eva Longoria, and Nicole Richie.
Her Huda Beauty started as a WordPress blog that contained beauty hacks, tips, and tutorials. Post that blog in 2013. She started it as her cosmetic brand.
Huda Beauty is now a top-notch cosmetic brand with a full range of makeup products, including lipsticks, lip liners, highlighters, foundations, concealers, and eyeshadows.
This successful entrepreneur is also a social media star and has bagged many accreditations for her expertise and audience engagement. She has been ranked no.1 on the 2017 ‘Influencer Instagram Rich List’ and ‘Cosmetify Beauty Influencer Rich List.’
Besides, she has been named among one of the most influential people on the Internet by leading brands, including Time and Forbes.
One of the key reasons behind her super success on Instagram is her sister Alya who handles her social media handles efficiently.
Michelle Phan
Total Instagram Followers: 1.9 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 8.72 Million
Total Instagram Posts: 2276
Net Worth: $50 Million
Michelle Phan is one of the top-earning Instagram stars, YouTuber, and entrepreneur who started as a beauty blogger in 2005.
She enlightened and delivered information to her followers through makeup tutorials on personal blogs, which later turned into vlogs on Xanga. Following this, Phan started her YouTube channel, which currently has 8.72 million subscribers.
Michelle Phan posts makeup tutorials, imitating top celebrities' looks on her social handles. BuzzFeed's' How To Get Lady Gaga's Eyes' was one of the top tutorial videos that helped her gain millions of subscribers.
She took Instagram as a medium in 2016 to announce that she bought shares of EM Cosmetics through Ipsy. Later on, she went on to acquire the company and relaunched it as her brand.
Michelle Phan also wrote a beauty book titled ‘Makeup: Your Life Guide to Beauty, Style, and Success with Random House.
This Instagram personality has been nominated and awarded for various beauty category awards, including ‘Streamy Award for Inspiration Icon Award’ and ‘Shorty Award for Best YouTube Guru.’
Nyane Lebajoam
Total Instagram Followers: 1.5 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 40.3K
Total Instagram Posts: 2944
Net Worth: $87 Million
Born in 1994, Nyane Lebajoam is a leading Instagram and YouTube sensation best known for her good looks and unique style statement.
She started her beauty career as a model when she was a 14-year-old teenager. Nyane Lebajoam is a model, writer, designer, and Instagram blogger.
Her followers have grown immensely due to her love and dedication to makeup. However, in one of her most famous videos, Nyane confessed that she usually goes for a makeup-free look.
Besides posting videos, posts, and reels on her social media handles, Nyane is among the most successful women entrepreneurs. She started her own company, Temper, which is focused on hair products. Her company sells high-quality wigs with a wide range of colors and styles.
She often posts Q&A stories where she answers her followers' queries and problems relating to the cosmetic world.
Nikkie de Jager
Total Instagram Followers: 17.3 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 14.1 Million
Total Instagram Posts: 2920
Net Worth: $6 Million
Born in 1994, Nikkie de Jager is a Dutch cosmetic artist and beauty vlogger who gained popularity with the YouTube video ‘The Power of Makeup.’
With a massive fan following on Instagram, Nikkie also has a considerable fan base on YouTube. Her YouTube channel goes by the name Nikkie Tutorials.
She is one of the few beauty influencers who started her career as early as 14 with a YouTube video. She used to make tutorial videos that recreated celebrity looks.
By 2011, Nikkie started working as a professional makeup artist with Colourfool Agency which she left in 2014 to work as a freelance makeup artist.
After following her dream of becoming a successful and renowned makeup artist, she has been accredited with many titles. Ranked as one of the top beauty influencers in 2017 by Forbes magazine is one of the top titles that she received as a beauty influencer.
Additionally, Nikkie has also collaborated with top beauty brands and celebrities, including Maybelline, OFRA Cosmetics, and Lady Gaga, to promote their products, leveraging her fan base.
To add one more feather to her success, she launched a cosmetic brand, Nimya, that sells a full range of beauty products. She also collaborated with Beauty Bay to launch her eyeshadow palette in 2020.
Nikkie has also bagged awards and nominations for various beauty influencer-related categories.
Chiara Ferragni
Total Instagram Followers: 28.9 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 157K
Total Instagram Posts: 16606
Net Worth: $20 Million
Chiara Ferragni, an Italy-based entrepreneur, model, fashion designer, and blogger, is among the first few beauty influencers who crossed 10 million and earned approximately $12000 for a paid post on Instagram.
She founded the leading beauty and lifestyle brand, Chiara Ferragni.
She began her beauty career as a model when she was just 16. Ferragni started her own beauty and fashion blog, ‘The Blonde Salad’ after working as a model for an agency for two years.
Chiara established herself in the blogging arena and gained a massive fan following, for which she was named the Blogger of the Moment in Teen Vogue.
Known for her extraordinary fashion and beauty sense, Chiara modeled for one of the top lifestyle brands, Guess. This beauty influencer even collaborated with the leading fashion designer and businessman, Steve Madden, to design a unique shoe collection. Chiara also announced the inauguration of her fragrance line.
Due to her tremendous work in the industry, Chiara’s blog and shoe collection became a case study at Harvard Business School. She became the first ever fashion blogger to appear on the cover page of Vogue.
Chiara has been recognized for various categories \by top magazines and blogs, including The New York Magazine, Business of Fashion, Bloglovin, Forbes, and The Footwear News.
James Charles
Total Instagram Followers: 21.9 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 23.8 Million
Total Instagram Posts: 1137
Net Worth: $22 Million
James Charles is an American of the best beauty influencers and one of the youngest beauty artists who gained a massive fan following and success with his makeup skills.
He started his beauty career by self-teaching himself, which further led to getting the girls of his area makeup-ready professionally.
As far as his social presence is concerned, James began making makeup tutorials on YouTube. He became one of the first male ambassadors for CoverGirl at the age of 17. For this particular brand, he started promoting and appearing in their advertisement for the mascara.
Further, he launched his clothing line, ‘Sisters Apparel’ and makeup collection, ‘Sister Collection’ by collaborating with Morphe Cosmetics. It's because Charles calls his fans sisters.
This social media sensation has been doing makeup for top celebrities, including Iggy Azalea. He even made an appearance in the rapper’s music video.
James has also created collaborative makeup videos with top celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Lil Nas X, Addison Rae, Trixie Mattel, and Bretman Rock.
He has also won the 10th Streamy Award for his reality show ‘Instant Influencer,’ which premiered on his YouTube channel. Further, he was referred to as one of the most famous YouTube makeup artists and beauty influencers around by Teen Vogue.
Jeffree Star
Total Instagram Followers: 13.8 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 15.9 Million
Total Instagram Posts: 6169
Net Worth: $200 Million
Born in 1985, Jeffree Star, earlier known as Jeffree Lynn Steininger Jr., is an American makeup artist, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur, and social media personality. He is the founder of the famous brand Jeffree Star Cosmetics.
He began experimenting with various kinds of makeup on his mother and himself. He began earning with various makeup, modeling, and music assignments in high school.
In his early career, Jeffree used a fake ID card to enter Hollywood clubs and connected with top celebrities to get hired as their makeup artist.
To begin his social media journey, Jeffree used MySpace as a blogging platform to share his personal beauty experiences. With his emerging popularity on MySpace, Jeffree became famous as one of the most popular independent artists as he secured top rankings in daily platform analysis.
Jeffree’s Instagram and YouTube handles are filled with cosmetic product reviews, makeup tutorials, Q&A, and clothing hauls.
His first collection was velour liquid lipsticks when he started his cosmetic brand. Further, the cosmetic range increased with products like highlighter palettes, lip balms, eyeshadows, clothing, and accessories.
Jeffree has been nominated for various awards in 2019 and 2020 in the category of beauty and YouTuber of the year, respectively.
Zoe Sugg
Total Instagram Followers: 9.2 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 4.94 Million
Total Instagram Posts: 2087
Net Worth: $4.5 Million
Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella on the internet, is an entrepreneur, author, and beauty influencer. She has her cosmetic brand, Zoella Beauty, which has been extended to homeware products too.
She started her beauty career as a blogger while working as an interior designer trainee with a company. Her blog gained over 500 million views within a year due to her high-quality content.
Zoe took a step further in her beauty career by creating her YouTube and Instagram channels that had cosmetic product reviews, clothing hauls, and beauty hacks.
She also debuted as a writer by writing her very first book, Girl Online, in 2014. Her book talks about blogs and the internet world.
This beauty influencer has bagged many awards in various categories, including Best Established Beauty Blog, Best Beauty Vlogger, UK Favorite Vlogger, Choice Webstar: Fashion/Beauty, Best British Vlogger, and Choice Webstar: Fashion/Beauty.
Bretman Rock
Total Instagram Followers: 18.6 Million
Total YouTube Subscribers: 8.86 Million
Total Instagram Posts: 1794
Net Worth: $1.5 Million
Born in 1998, Bretman Rock is a Hawaii-based social media beauty influencer best known for his humorous comments and makeup tutorials. He has even launched his show, MTV's Following: Bretman Rock, which features this social media influencer’s daily life.
Bretman started his social media journey as a comedian on YouTube. Inspired by Talia Joy and Patrick Starrr, he later shifted his focus to makeup tutorials and personal vlogs.
Rock is also known for collaborating with fellow celebrities and beauty influencers, including James Charles, Nikita Dragun, Chelsea Handler, and Bella Poarch.
Time has named this mega-famous beauty influencer one of the 30 most influential teens. Additionally, Gay Times featured Rock as one of the celebrities on the Pride Month cover in 2019.
Bretman has launched his cosmetic collection by collaborating with Wet n Wild Cosmetics. On collaborating with Dime Optics, Bretman created his own eyewear range.
He is actively involved in promoting top brands like BuzzFeed, Hearst, and Conde Nast and even made appearances in various TV shows including Escape the Night and Instant Influencer.
Bretman has also been named the first gay man to get featured on the cover page of Playboy magazine.
Rock has been winning various awards for his contribution to the beauty-influencing world. He bagged awards in the category of Beauty Influencer and Breakthrough Social Star.
Bretman has also been nominated for the ‘GLAAD Media Awards' and the ‘WOWIE Awards’ in social media and beauty-related categories.
Conclusion
There is abundant information related to anything on the internet, especially beauty. Trying out all the products and hacks available on the internet can work adversely on skin and hair for a beauty non-specialist. Hence, trusting these videos and information is not always good.
However, if the product reviews and hacks come from a reliable source, say a leading beauty influencer who has tried and tested the product gives a surety to use it.
As a beauty brand, collaborating with these cosmetic influencers to promote your product line will help your brand improve awareness and build a sense of trust among the audiences.
Additionally, their huge fan following can become your prospective customers if the marketing and branding are done right at the right time.
Want to promote your beauty brand? Schedule a one-on-one marketing call with Brenton Way’s team of experts. We will help you plan and execute your advertising strategy leveraging our wide range of beauty marketing services, including influencers and PR hacking, social media marketing, paid campaign management, branding, and creative content creation.
Tags
Joydeep
Content Writer