French Beauty Vloggers Get Their Own Incubator Program

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

The YouTube beauty tutorial phenomenon, grown out of no-budget videos filmed in kitchens and on bedroom floors, has turned into a lucrative business for successful vloggers as brands look to harness their popularity with everyday consumers. Now, L'Oréal Paris is aiming to make YouTubers' work slightly more professional — more appealing, perhaps, to those corporate sponsors.

According to WWD, L'Oréal Paris and YouTube are launching a six-month incubator program for French vloggers called BeautyTube, which will teach them about video production, channel and audience management, and "development of beauty expertise." The whole thing will be filmed reality television-style and aired weekly on L'Oréal Paris France's YouTube channel. Meta. But also smart: you can imagine how many regular tutorial viewers and wannabe vlogging stars would tune in for the series, which will definitely might read as a prolonged advertisement for L'Oréal products.

Reps for L'Oréal and YouTube did not immediately respond to request for comment. WWD says the first edition of the course, whose participants were selected based on potential rather than follower count, will go live in June.

Does this institutionalization of beauty vlogging spell trouble for the authenticity and approachability that made tutorials so popular in the first place? Some would argue that brand partnerships already took care of that. One thing seems likely, though — that the makeup we'll be seeing on BeautyTube will be much more minimal than what American vloggers would cook up. Please enjoy this shockingly tasteful contouring video from L'Oréal Paris France.