The influencers that marketers once underestimated have now become their greatest assets. With the influencer marketing market size more than tripling since 2020, the personalities of TikTok and Instagram have become a driving force for brands’ marketing budgets. Statista estimates the market to reach a record $33 billion by the end of this year, with no brands planning to hit the brakes on their influencer marketing spend anytime soon.

But at what other costs do these influencers come with?

The beauty industry flourished last year, driven by the rise of digital and influencer marketing strategies. According to McKinsey & Company, it is projected to reach $590 billion in sales by 2028, growing at a 6% annual rate. However, the expanding variety of beauty products, combined with the influence of social media personalities, may come at a high cost for consumers.

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What was once an industry of legacy brands leading the market, such as Dove, Estee Lauder, and MAC, has now been taken over by companies that choose the right influencers to boost their brand. This has an effect on when and how the next generation of consumers begins their beauty purchases.

“Young girls get their first exposure to it so much earlier now,” Professor of Clinical Marketing at the University of Southern California, Diane Badame, said. “It’s no longer the organic and trustworthy brands they’re adding to their cart, it’s the ones that pop up first with the most likes.”

Influencer culture has reshaped how beauty brands market their products, blurring the lines between authenticity and advertising. Social media personalities, once everyday consumers, now hold immense power in shaping trends and driving sales through carefully curated content, brand partnerships, and viral product endorsements. While this dynamic has increased innovation and accessibility, it has also led to a cycle of overconsumption.

“When I started posting videos on TikTok, I did day in the life vlogs and makeup routines because that’s what I always searched for in my FYP,” social media influencer MaryKate Nix said. “I didn’t think much of it until DMs started rolling in from companies asking for my address.”

With 41.5K followers and counting on TikTok, Nix had begun to receive weekly PR packages from beauty brands such as YSL Beauty, Charlotte Tilbury, Patrick Ta, Dibs Beauty, Murad Skincare, Babe Original, Ilia, IT Cosmetics, Plur, Merit, Milk Makeup, and more.

“I try and test every brand, whether I knew it before or not, because I know they want a post in return for the PR, but I don’t want to boost a product to my following that I don’t believe in,” Nix said. “I’d say about 50% of the products I’m sent, I don’t like the look or they make me break out, and I won’t post those, but I know many other influencers will still post them anyway.”

While influencers with larger followings and more solidified brand deals, like Nix, may feel less pressure to post brands they don’t support, smaller influencers feel obligated to.

“I’ve posted all of the PR I’ve received since I moved to New York earlier this year, whether I actually use it or not, because I want to grow a following and to do that I have to post as often as I can,” social media micro-influencer Francesca Lucente said. “I also think that when other brands see their competitors getting involved, they’ll want to send products too.”

With just over 6K followers on Instagram, Lucente began regularly posting after graduating from the University of South Carolina in August of 2024 to make extra money in her free time.

“I understand that a lot of girls enter the influencer world to grow a community, but in reality, there are also a lot of women in their 20s and 30s who see posting for the beneficial side hustle that it can be,” Lucente said.

In contrast to Lucente, Nix has been growing her platform for over three years. Throughout that time, Nix has seen an overall positive response to building her personal brand and creating a community within her social media audience. However, she is aware of the drawbacks of posting her life online. From blocking hate comments to feeling overly attached to scrolling, Nix can't ignore the negatives of her social media presence either.

“A negative aspect of it is definitely the comments from random people or fake accounts, hiding behind their screens, who think that they can be ruthless and mean because they think you’ll never know who it is,” Nix said. “They’ll comment on everything–like my voice, makeup, skin, eyes–you name it. I’ve gotten better about not letting that hate get to me, but it still stings and sometimes makes me hyper aware of some of my features that I never thought twice about before.”

Whether there are positive or negative assumptions about influencers, Nix recognizes the toxic culture that surrounds social media for many users. The FYP can appear as a realistic portrayal of ideal days, when in reality, it’s a curated assortment of only the best moments.

“I’m posting my day-to-day routine, and my followers can see a lot of aspects of my life, and people make assumptions about you before they meet you, when in reality they’re only seeing the highlights of influencers’ lives,” Nix said. “They think, oh this girl has a picture-perfect life, when in reality that is most definitely not the case, and I do think that the belief that everyone is perfect online can be hurtful for many influencers’ followings.”

While there have been many instances of the beauty industry outperforming over time, the phenomenon of consumers investing in small luxury goods didn’t always look the way it does now. Also known as the ‘Lipstick Effect,’ economists and beauty brands alike have seen this rise in cosmetic sales during times of economic downturns play out again and again.

Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have turned beauty influencers into trusted experts for the next generation of consumers, creating hype around new product launches with a single post. As fleeting trends and new aesthetics flood FYPs, there’s a price to pay as a new generation of consumers constantly chase the next ‘must-have’ brand–economic recessions be damned. This is the social media beauty boom.

“The new generation is always looking for newness,” Marketing Director at Estée Lauder Companies, Nadia Morehand, said. “So the boom is also in itself cyclical because the consumer demand is super high. But it's not high for the same things, it’s high for new things constantly, and because new brands are constantly able to churn out new products and new brands coming out, it's like this microcosm of growth.”

Rather than having a beauty boom driven by innovative new products from existing, staple brands from larger conglomerates such as Estee Lauder Companies, smaller start-ups have taken the reins. With new celebrity-created and influencer-supported releases in the industry, such as Hailey Bieber’s Rhode in 2022 or Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Gores Ireland’s Summer Fridays in 2018, there has been overwhelming noise–some regulated and some not–making it harder for consumers to discern what’s truly effective and safe for their skin.

“These smaller brands, like Rhode and Merit, have fewer restrictions when it comes to product development compared to when you're part of a big company,” Morehand said. “At Estee Lauder, we have a lot of different safety protocols because we need to be super risk-averse since you're part of a bigger thing..."