WITH OVER 3.6 MILLION
YOUTUBE FOLLOWERS,
Lauren Curtis I S
AUSTRALIA’S BIGGEST
BEAUTY INFLUENCER. BUT
IT’S HER PERSONALITY
THAT SHINES THROUGH
HER FLAWLESS MAKEUP,
WRITES SALLY HUNWICKI
f you were to meet Lauren
Curtis in person before you
saw her YouTube channel
(although honestly, with
over 3.6 million subscribers,
are there any of you still out
there?), you would definitely
think she was beautiful. You
would also clock that she has
great makeup skills. But most
of all, you would think she is
a really lovely girl. So friendly,
so polite, even a little shy.
The truth is, Lauren Curtis
is as sweet as they come. But
that’s not where it ends. She is
also intelligent, doesn’t take
herself too seriously, isn’t afraid
to be genuinely herself – and
knows the value of keeping her
viewers entertained.
‘There’s only so many
times you can watch a brown
smoky eye on YouTube,’ laughs
Lauren. ‘I have comments from
people who follow me who say
they don’t even wear makeup;
they just like my videos. It’s
the biggest compliment.’
She’s also a self-confessed
homebody who loves nothing
more than hanging out with
her boyfriend, Reece, and their
adopted dog, Mia. Basically,
Lauren is the girlfriend we all
want to have.
Then she steps in front of
the camera and suddenly it’s
easy to see the massive star
power that Lauren Curtis (‘Loz’
to her millions of adoring fans)
actually possesses.Lauren has one of those
faces that can’t help looking
drop-dead gorgeous on camera.
When we get her on set for the
Cosmo beauty how-to (P50),
the first shot of the day is of
Lauren completely makeup-
free (yep, nada). Many would
recoil at the thought of having
a professional camera pointed
at their face sans makeup, but
not Lauren Curtis. She’s never
been afraid to go bare-faced.
‘You can have a full face of
makeup or have nothing on and
you’re still just as beautiful,’
Lauren tells me at the end of
the shoot. ‘Makeup is fun, it’s
creative; it’s not to be taken too
seriously. It washes off at the
end of the day, after all.’
So how does a pretty girl
from Perth, working in the
cosmetics section of her local
Target, become one of the
country’s leading social media
faces? We find out.How did you first
get into YouTube?
‘I was fresh out of
high school. I went
to study photo-
graphy for a year
and at that time I
had a blossoming
interest in makeup.
I was bored one
day and thought,
What if I combined my love of
filming and cameras with my
blossoming love of makeup? So
I filmed a few videos from my
bedroom and told no one. It
just went from there.’What was the moment when
you thought, I’m really good
at this?
‘I was working as a makeup
artist for Bobbi Brown at David
Jones and I started earningthe same amount of money
from my retail job as I was
from YouTube. I had to make
the decision: do I move over
to YouTube or stay with my
job? Obviously it was much
safer to stay with my job but
I thought I’d come so much
further than I thought I ever
would, so why not?’How has your life changed
since you started YouTube?
‘I don’t know where to start!
I started out in the Perth Hills
with my mum, working part-
time at Target in the cosmetics
section, but when my YouTube
channel started taking off
a few years later, I moved to
Sydney. I was 20 and I just
grew so much in such a short
period of time. My personality
has changed and evolved in
every single way. I’m much
more confident and outgoing
because I’ve had to do media
and publicity.’What do you shoot
your videos on?
‘A Canon 70D. I
started with my
iPhone, moved to
a hand-held video
camera then up
to a DSLR, then
I moved up in the
range of DSLRs.’Do you think that
there’s a lot of
pressure on women to look a
certain way?
‘One hundred per cent, yes. It’s
hard when you look online and
everyone’s makeup is f lawless.
A lot of it is touched up and
airbrushed, which is fine, but
it can sometimes create an
unrealistic expectation of what
girls should look like. Makeup
doesn’t define you as a person
or ref lect the quality of your
character. It’s just makeup.’How do you deal with negative
feedback?
‘That was the hardest thing. As
you get bigger, the number
of people who have something
negative to say increases. I had
to get used to people saying
I’m ugly or fake; you get used
to it. I’m very happy with my
life, I have love all around me
and I feel sympathy towards
people who feel the need to
say that stuff, because if they
were happy and content with
their lives, they wouldn’t need
to say stuff like that.’Do your parents watch your
YouTube videos?
‘I get messages from Mum and
Dad all the time. Mum will say,
“Loved the video, you should
do a blue eyeshadow tutorial!”
or something like that.’You often add humour to your
videos. Do you think that’s
part of your success?
‘YouTube is about personality.
It’s a friendship between you
and your viewers, there’s some-
thing very personal about it;
you are in your bedroom and
it’s you sharing what you like.
People grow an appreciation for
your personality and develop
a sense of trust, which is hard
to get from other media. My
number one thing is to remain
authentic and genuine.’Do you have any tips for
readers who are thinking
about getting into vlogging?
‘Only do it if you are sure this
is something you want to do
because, as fun and glamorous
as it is, there is a dark side to
it too. People will comment on
every part of your life; how you
look, your opinions... Just be
in it for the right reasons.’ >celebrity
‘Makeup doesn’t
define you as
a person. It’s
just makeup’COSMOPOLITAN SEPTEMBER 2017 93
LAUREN WEARS
DRESS: ZIMMERMANN, $550 (ZIMMERMANNWEAR.COM). SHOES: WITTNER, $179.95 (WITTNER.COM.AU). EARRINGS: BY CHARLOTTE, $189 (BYCHARLOTTE.COM.AU). NECKLACE: YCL JEWELS, $126 (YCLJEWELS.COM)