Tati Westbrook is a famous beauty guru who has almost five million subscribers. She uploads every weekday at 10 a.m. PST and gets roughly half a million to one million views per video. Her videos are mostly reviews, PR unboxings, trying odd makeup products, and first impressions. She lives in California with her husband James Westbrook and adorable pupper Puka, both of whom are in some of her videos. She also has a stepson named Taylor Westbrook who makes the occasional appearance in her videos. With her large platform there is some controversy that goes with it, because there are millions of people watching her every move.
One of my guilty pleasures is watching some drama videos on YouTube; however, I take what they say with a grain of salt. John Kuckian, a controversial drama channel, is my favorite to watch because he always brings the receipts with the tea. Most of the tea involving Tati circles around her brand “Halo Beauty”, and what goes on behind the scenes. “Halo Beauty” is a line of vitamin supplements for people’s hair, skin, and nails. Currently there are two types of these supplements her original formula and her kiwi formula. The original formula is marketed for hair, skin, and nails; however, the kiwi formula is more geared towards skin.
Some of her fans were very confused by her launching vitamin supplements versus an actual makeup line. This made some people very suspicious because she does not have a background in any medical or science field. Also, upon examination by John Kuckian, he found out that her husband is a member of a company that sponsors “Halo Beauty.” This made people uneasy because she is putting out a product that she has no background in and is literally “in bed” with one of her sponsors. Also, she is charging thirty to forty dollars for her product, which is extremely high considering you can get other hair, skin, and nail vitamins for around fifteen dollars. However, I must admit that the before and after pictures from customers do not lie, people are seeing results.
Another more recent example of her being involved in drama is when she did a review of the collaboration palettes between Emily Noel and Makeup Revolution. For the face palette she had many problems with the formulas of the powders that she used. The blush was patchy and did not have the bendability that she hoped for. For the highlight it was kind of lackluster for her because the shine and pigmentation she likes was not there. Overall, she did not enjoy the face palette and said that she would probably not reach for it again. Then she went on to the eyeshadow palette and did say that she enjoyed her eye look at the end and that they are pigmented. She did critique the formula saying that they were not blending well, and she could not create the look that she envisioned. She claimed to have to work extra hard to get the shadows to work well with her.
Overall, she probably will not reach for those palettes in the future and did not recommend them to her audience. This video had a ton of backlash and negativity in her comment section. People were calling her names, critiquing the look she did, saying she was being negative on purpose, and a lot more. This lead to her disabling the comments on the video and making a response video a couple days later.
As a wrap up, I believe that Tati is a genuine person with a love of makeup, just like her subscribers. She has a very happy and bubbly personality, while also not taking negativity from comments or brands. I believe that she gives honest reviews of products and truly wants to make sure people spend their money on great products. She does not share only the good about products, she shares her criticisms on where the brand could have done better, or what did not work for her. I do agree that some shady things have gone on, but everyone does shady things sometimes. I do not think that she should be in business with her husband’s company sponsoring it because that may seem shady. It seems shady because he could influence her, not saying he would ever do that, but because he is her husband, he plays a huge role in her personal life. People say don’t mix business with pleasure for a reason and it is because it may cause trouble in both business life, and personal life. Another factor is that if the company falls it could put a ton of stress on their marriage. All in all just because Tati has a major platform does not make her a perfect person, and she is a human like all of us at the end of the day. She is human which means that she makes mistakes just like you or I do; however, our mistakes are usually not blown up and given out for the world to see.