Beautycon LA Day One

Attending Beautycon LA allows you to be in an immersive experience of all things beauty in one place, at one time! Companies from affordable beauty brands to luxury brands all gather together to create the most glamourous conference in the United States.

Refinery29, a multi-national platform that focuses on all creatives and "young people", hosts this event annually for everyone in the industry to connect, network, and show appreciation for the beauty industry.

Within the event, Beautycon has creator stations to take photo-ops, podcast booths where you can shoot content live in action, as well as panels, workshops, and masterclasses for all to learn!

Some of the guest speakers for day one of Beautycon LA 2024 included CW's Riverdale actress and beauty enthusiast Lili Reinhart, Gloss Angeles Podcast hosts Kirbie Johnson and Sara Tan, and influencers such as Toni Bravo, Cynthia Victory, Jinny Ann, and Caroline Stern.

Throughout the day they touched on topics such as growing your brand, marketing strategies, partnerships, building brand relationships and so much more. Here are some of the most important takeaways from today's panels.

For Creators:

How do you stand out as an influencer meanwhile there are so many other people also creating content about the same types of products?

• Personality: You are your brand! People are watching your content for your personality. Lean into being yourself in your content. There are thousands and thousands of other people reviewing the same products, think about why are they watching yours!

• Authenticity: Opinions on beauty and certain trends are subjective. You could like a product that works so well on your skin, but doesnt work well on the person next to you. Be authentic! This is what makes people either want to try a product or not. One of the speakers mentioned how authenticity is the currency of influencer marketing. Entertaining and educating at the same time is what makes your content so different than others.

• Storyline: Think about how you watch a video on tiktok and once you are asked about it, you know the whole storyline and can repeat what happened to someone else. You are engaged in that content because of the storyline. Now, lets take this to beauty, a storyline is how you connect with others, especially through a screen. A story gives memorability to others :)

Creating Organic vs. Sponsored Content:

• Organic content is so easy because you are sharing products that you already use on a daily basis. Just like speaking to your friends on FaceTime about what products you love and use, you share that same insight to your friends on your social media.

• When doing a sponsored advertisement, following up with organic videos relating to the product afterwards grows the authenticity. This shows how you actually believe in the product or company you are working with.

• Sponsored content should align with your organic content as well. Believing in a product and the company you are promoting is crucial for you to gain the trust of your following and/or viewers.

Partnering and collaborating in the Beauty Community:

• Working closely with someone you trust on a personal level as well as a professional one can be groundbreaking in this industry. This line of work is very competitive, and you never truly know anyones intentions if they are fighting for the same thing as you. Trust in your peers and lifting others up will get you so much farther in life and the content field.

• Sometimes as a content creator you need a second opinion, to bounce ideas off of eachother. For example, the beauty industry is changing every day, how does this relate to your content? Speaking with other creators on the status of the industry you are in is major to your success in the industry.

• Being supportive of your peerss regardless of if you are a bigger or smaller creator.

• Building brand relationships is super important! If you look at the wider picture, just lean into brands that you already use organically, the ones you swear by!

• Aligning your values and ethics with the companies you are working for. Meeting people face to face in the industry tells you a lot about a person and their brand.

• Take initiative! Creators are masters at their craft, and their audience. Brands understand that. They are hiring you to promote to your audience. If you feel like there is another way to go about creating an advertisement, respectfully give your opinions and ideas for content while also getting their message across.

How do you make sure that you are nurturing your supportive rather than mean comments?

• Talk and communicate with your audience. Open communication with your followers allows you to build your community.

• Being accessible to your viewers, creating that engagement back and forth allows you to again, like mentioned earlier, grow authenticity of your brand.

• Your followers become your friends! Influencers on the panel have explained that they can point out specific usernames and profile pictures just because of the support they give them. Between responding in the comment section, going back and forth from DM's, and taking what they say into play in your new upcoming content! (listening to your audience makes people want to come back!)

• What does your audience want to see? You have to give and take. It's just like an ecosystem.

For Brands:

What would you want to see beauty brands do with influencers in the next five to ten years?

• Listen to creators! Influencers have a big voice and they know their audience. Brands need to show that they believe in creators and their craft.

• Integrated posts over dedicated posts; putting the key message in a way that works but in a way that people want to hear rather than have to hear.

• Including creators in the behind the scenes of creations; this could be a game changer for brands!!!

Gloss Angeles Live Taping

In today's episode on Gloss Angeles with very special guest speaker Lili Reinhart,

they covered topics such as make up, skin care, mental health, entertainment and acting!

Personal Day

Reinhart spoke about her skincare line Personal Day and the story behind its creation. She has been working and perfecting the line for the past three years; being the brands own test dummy and working with chemists to create the perfect skin care line for all. Although Personal Day is an acne line, people who do not have acne prone skin are safe to use it.

Besides the fact that Lili had the advantage and opportunity presented to her to manufacture Personal Day, she stresses that she is not like any other star who just decided to make a brand and slap her face on it. Her story goes beyond that. She has a personal connection with this community as she has been very open about her skin health over the years. Her relationship with mental health and the acne space does not go unnoticed. She vocalizes that as someone who has suffered from acne prone skin and been on accutane twice; she truly just wanted nothing more than to have her skin not be irritated anymore.

During her journey of trying out any and every product that would possibly clear up her, skin she would make lists of all the ingredients in each product and compare them. She then realized that there were so many acne triggering ingredients in so many of her favorite brands. After using unhelpful products on her face over the years, trying to see what would work, she decided to make her own.

Personal Day's website actually has a feature where you are able to see what ingredients in your favorite products are acne triggering. Personal Day is not only a brand, but an educational tool as well! You can use this tool here.

Some highlights other than the products itself about this brand is it is affordable. All products are less than $40 and have ingredients that are offered in luxury skincare. This project is a project that is fully hers. She has an amazing team and applauds every single one of them for making her vision come to life.

Maintaining a sense of confidence in the industry

Lili explains how we live in such a performative time in the world that everyone can relate to. If you even have social media it’s a persona and a performance. Because of this, what she has tried to do with her platforms are to be as real as she can.

Handling rejection

Rejection does not get easier. Even as a well known actress, she is still being rejected. She has learned from both sides of things, as an actress and as a producer, rejection is so hard. For example, trying to tell real stories in her production company right now, it's really just finding the right actor or actress to tell these stories the way they were meant to be told.

Advice to your younger self

When people are a**holes it’s usually a projection. Happy people aren’t bullies, on social media or in person. When people are mean, it is not a reflection of you. It is more of a their projection and insecurities within.

What would she change about the beauty industry?

"Body shapes and sizes are trends that people and brands hop on and off of. It’s clear that a certain body type is very in right now." Stop putting a trend on the shape of a human body.

What would she change about the entertainment Industry?

"Let young women tell their stories." Lots of producers don't tell a woman's story because they aren't "likable"; but if you look at the bigger picture, that's just life.

How do you protect your peace?

When she was asked this question she jokingly remarked "Do I?", then continued to speak up about social media addiction. As someone who has a large amount of following, she feels very exposed at times, but lately she has been listening to audio books about dopamine detox. She then further explains how she along with almost every single person on social media has phone addiction. "Walking up the stairs for ten seconds" and she is looking at her phone. She is being more conscious of trying to not fill the void of empty space with her phone.

Thanks for reading along The Gift To Gab at Beautycon day one! I can't wait to share more with you on day two :) For more content on Beautycon follow @thegifttogab on instagram!