Best of Beauty Gurus: YouTube Tutorials

We've come a long way since 1968, baby, but between our appetite for the cult of celebrity, reality TV, and the wonders of The Moderrin Internet, Andy Warhol was spookily spot-on in '68 about how everyone and their granny would have their 15 minutes of fame in the future. Heck, YouTube even extended its time limit to the magical quarter of an hour for all users earlier this year. That extension hasn't necessarily translated into longer high-quality videos, of course - the number of breathtakingly craptacular 15 minute reviews for iPhone cases is testament to that.

There are at least as many awful beauty tutorials on YouTube as there are rubbish iPhone case reviews. Often they're shot in terrible lighting with a camera lens that looks to have been smeared in Vaseline  so poor is the picture quality, or filmed by a user who's so far from the lens that they might as well be in the next county and it's quite impossible to see whether they're applying lipstick or smacking themselves in the gob. Furthermore, I reckon there's a special place reserved in hell for people who mostly film their new make-up purchases, or "hauls", to show off, and there is an awful lot of that on YouTube too.

Happily, there are also lots of gems on there that can guide you through creating a whole new look or just help you to brush up on your application skillz. Here are three of my own favourites, chosen because they post new videos regularly, are good for tips as well as full-blown tutorials, it's easy to see exactly what they're doing, and, er, their voices don't completely wreck my head.

Hey. It's an important consideration when you're going to be listening to someone for 15 minutes straight.

panacea81: Lauren Luke
You'll probably already know Lauren Luke's name: her down-to-earth approach helped to make her one of YouTube's big success stories and she now has a make-up line, book, and Nintendo DS game under her belt. You'll probably also know that she's from South Shields in Newcastle - yep, just like Cheryl and Joe McElderry. What you might not know is that her birthday is exactly a month before mine, right to the day. (Actually, I wish I didn't know that. Must get cracking on my own plan for global domination.)

Luke continues to update her channel regularly with celebrity-inspired tutorials, and I really like that they aren't rehearsed or full of jargon or special effects - her delivery speaks to the fact that this is an ordinary girl with a love for make-up who done good.

MichellePhan: Michelle Phan
At the time of writing, Michelle Phan's videos had been viewed a staggering 237,943,120 times, and she's probably passed the quarter of a million milestone at this stage. Since starting her YouTube channel, the Vietnamese American has found work as a freelance make-up artist, is a Lancome spokesperson and video make-up artist, and has a skincare range called IQQU to her name.

There's much more going on here in terms of production: Phan's signature style involves splicing only relevant clips together, in-video text notes for users, background music, and a voiceover that's dubbed in post filming. Some have branded her a sell-out for partnering with Lancome, which seems unduly harsh, but she could probably do with making it more obvious which are her Lancome videos and which are her own personal submissions on her channel.

pixiwoo: Sam & Nic Chapman
This sister act duo from the UK are a little different to my other picks, since they're actually professional make-up artists. There's no sense that the girls are talking down to viewers in any way because of they're pros, but there are plenty of tips and tricks of the trade to be had as a result.

Sam and Nic are from the "sit down and do a full face of make-up from scratch" school of YouTube videos, so it's dead simple to follow along with their instructions in real time. There are no bells and whistles but the tutorials are all the better for it: everything is really well explained and illustrated and very easy to understand.

Also well worth a look are Sarah Victor, who is like the US equivalent of Lauren Luke (she has that nice girl next door thing going on) and does a particularly good line in smokey eyes, and, for the season that's in it, Petrilude and MissChievous for amazing Halloween looks.

Share your favourites in a comment!