An experiment with eyebrow pencil and a bit of Givenchy foundation two years ago hooked Song Yewen on the world of make-up.
Now, the 21-year-old beauty vlogger is defying traditional Chinese gender norms on a mission to make his audience to feel as empowered as he does: “I feel good about myself when I wear make-up — I feel confident.”
Song live-streams and posts make-up tips and tricks to his 1.5 million online followers across China several times a week, one of a spate of male beauty vloggers who represent a growing shift in gender attitudes.
Their popularity is leading a boom in China’s male cosmetics market, estimated to grow to 20 per cent over the next four years to a whopping 2.4 billion in 2022, according to Euromonitor, a market research firm.
It’s also paving the way for more young Chinese men to experiment with gender-bending make-up and clothes, in a culture with a long history of swaggering, masculine stereotypes.
Even in 2019, parents can enroll sons in training camps to teach them to be tough and manly.
Single men looking to marry face pressure to fit certain norms — be the breadwinner and own property; multiple houses are a plus.
The change in gender ideals, vloggers told The Daily Telegraph, has been influenced by South Korean pop culture, where male celebrities and boy bands have popularised a softer, effeminate look.
“Sometimes my sister asks me to teach her little tricks,” laughed Zhang Wu’er, 24, another beauty vlogger. “My make-up skills are better than hers.”
Wang Zilu, 22, has used make-up for three years — hooked after realising how just a little could “change the shape of your eyebrows, the style of your lips".
He learned via other vloggers before starting a social media account to post his own before-and-after videos.
Make-up, for some, has gone from a fun hobby to a lucrative lifeline — China’s most popular beauty vloggers can reportedly pull in as much as 10 million yuan (£1.2 million) a year.
For Song, sharing his video tutorials and working as a brand ambassador is a part-time gig that brings in about 20,000 yuan (around R39,000) a month, which he uses to support his studies in traditional Chinese medicine.
But even with more young men trying out a bit of blush, not everyone is used to it.
“Sometimes people judge me, a guy, for putting on make-up; I would go, 'so what?'," said Song. “I don’t pay much attention to what others say.” - The Daily Telegraph