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Dubbed the 'Male Michelle Phan' by The Cut today, Wayne Goss has distinguished himself in the vast world of online makeup tutorials by being to the point and demonstrating on his own face—even though he doesn't wear makeup IRL ("It's not my cup of tea").
"I feel like my videos fill a gap in the market," the self-taught vlogger with more than 1.2 million YouTube followers said. "I keep them short and clearly explain what I'm doing. My point of view is that you don't have to have a degree in art to be able to explain it." And by using the techniques on himself instead of a model, the viewers learn how the look works on a "real" person—even though he's a guy. "Models have good skin, very large eyes, so that makes everything very easy to do. If I apply eye shadow, you get a more realistic impression of what it looks like on my eye, not someone who is genetically blessed."
He's been banking on his newfound success, specifically on a brush collaboration with Beautylish that sold out within five minutes of its launch. But he's not in the social media game for the money. "The bulk of us who started doing YouTube did it for the love of doing it. Those of us that did it for the right reasons are still around for the right reasons. There has been an influx of people thinking, I should make a fortune here. 95 percent of them don't make it anyway."
·Interview: Meet Wayne Goss, the 'Male Michelle Phan' Selling Out Product in Five Minutes [The Cut]
·GossMakeupArtist [YouTube]
·All Beauty Posts [Racked]