Grandma becomes "sister", makeup artist Tu Zi transforms into a celebrity online

This article will take you into the unique world of makeup, and let you know how makeup artist Bunny became a celebrity through explosive changes, and what new model is beginning to emerge in the makeup industry.

Recently, the term "explosive change" has become popular again. "Explosive change" means a major transformation. In most cases, it is to change or modify the appearance of someone or something to make it more beautiful.

There is an endless stream of "explosive changes" on major social platforms, for example, a male amateur solicits opinions from netizens online and "explosively changes" a handsome guy by listening to their advice, a beauty blogger "explosively changes" the villain Yeon-jin in the famous Korean drama "Dark Glory", and "explosively changes" a pet puppy, etc.

Among them, the most eye-catching is a series of "explosive" makeup videos created by the celebrity @一个妆艺人兔子in Banna (hereinafter referred to as Makeup Artist Rabbit), in which celebrities such as Zhu Zixiao and @我是田老佬 have "changed their heads" in her videos.

Zhu Zixiao transformed into a silver-haired exotic prince, @我是田老妈 transformed into a Lolita girl, Dapeng "explosively transformed" into an ancient-style handsome man... The "explosive transformation" effect of makeup artist Tu Zi is amazing, driving the entire "explosive transformation" series of content to go viral. In the past two months, makeup artist Tu Zi has gained more than 1.5 million followers.

From the initial makeup sharing and makeup tutorial bloggers to today's "explosive reform" bloggers, the beauty and makeup track has brought about new trends.

01. "Explosive Change" 100 people challenge to break out of the circle

"Challenge the 100 People to Make a Big Change, Part 2, Teacher Zhu Zixiao"

This is the classic opening of the makeup artist Rabbit's "Challenge to Makeover 100 People" series of videos. The makeup artist Rabbit will shout out the title of this video and the "makeover" object, and let the guest greet the audience before the "makeover". Then, the makeup artist Rabbit and his colleagues will start to put on contact lenses and wigs for the guests, and put on makeup. After the makeup is done, they will use a set of blockbuster photos to show it.

Among them, the two episodes with the best likes data were the "explosive" videos of two celebrities - Zhu Zixiao and Jin Jing.

Zhu Zixiao became well-known to the public for his role in the TV series "Let's Watch Meteor Shower Together" in his early years. Now he has focused his personal career on Douyin, created a lot of down-to-earth humorous content, and accumulated more than 15 million fans on Douyin.

In the video of makeup artist Tu Zi, Zhu Zixiao surpassed his peak of beauty after his "dramatic transformation". He changed his funny temperament on the Internet and transformed into a cool exotic handsome man with silver hair. In the last blockbuster showing his makeup, he was riding a white horse, which was full of atmosphere.

Image source: Tik Tok screenshot

Netizens commented, "I feel like I've seen him before, he looks like the Elf King" and posted the original painting of Hou Yi's "Elf King" skin in "Honor of Kings". Indeed, his demeanor and atmosphere are very similar. Zhu Zixiao himself also commented, "If I looked like this, I would wake up laughing in my dreams!"

Jin Jing is a star who became famous for her humor and comedy. After the "dramatic change", she looks like the "Korean rich daughter" on Xiaohongshu or Instagram, which is a huge contrast to her usual image in variety shows. Comments on the video said "She doesn't look like her at all, she's too beautiful!" and "She directly became a member of a girl group." This video of Jin Jing was on the hot search on Weibo twice in a row, with more than 200 million views.

The 76-year-old funny celebrity @我是田老佬 was "dramatically transformed" by makeup artist Tu Zi and turned into Miss Tian wearing a lace puffy skirt. She looked like two completely different people before and after the "dramatic transformation". Combined with lighting, filters and post-production effects, Grandma Tian's visual age dropped by 50 years. The "dramatically transformed head-changing technique" that can significantly change the visual age amazed the audience.

Image source: Tik Tok screenshot

In this "explosive transformation" challenge series, most of the celebrities invited by makeup artist Tu Zi are funny bloggers whose looks are not particularly outstanding, such as Uncle French Fries, Ma Xiaotiao, Audrey Houben, etc. In the videos, they are "explosively transformed" into various ancient handsome men, European goddesses or "fugitive princesses". The contrast before and after the "explosive transformation" is amazing, and the makeup effect is stunning.

The key to the popularity of makeup artist Rabbit's series of explosive transformation videos is not only the popularity of the "explosive transformation" topic itself, but also the "explosive transformation" techniques of makeup artist Rabbit and the contrast between the before and after effects, which are also the eye-catching part of the video. The before and after makeup are like two different people. In addition, most of the guests that makeup artist Rabbit cooperates with have a certain amount of fans. @我是田老佬 has more than 35 million fans on Douyin. The celebrity effect will also accelerate the content to break the circle.

As of January 18, makeup artist Tu Zi's #ChallengeOneHundredPeople series has been updated for 28 episodes, and the series has received a total of 510 million views on Douyin.

02. Beauty and appearance bloggers enter the 2.0 era

Before Makeup Artist Bunny, many similar makeup artist bloggers had already emerged in the beauty blogger track . The emergence of makeup artists and photo bloggers represents that beauty and appearance bloggers have entered the 2.0 era - "volume" towards specialization and "volume" towards cross-field.

The makeup artist bloggers on current content platforms can be roughly divided into three categories: brand makeup artists, celebrity makeup artists and amateur makeup artists.

As the name suggests, a brand makeup artist is generally the founder of a certain makeup brand, such as @毛戈平 who has 900,000 followers on Bilibili, and @唐毅TangYi, the founder of the Caitang brand who has 4.6 million followers on Douyin.

This type of makeup artist blogger may be a famous makeup artist in the film, television or fashion industry, with many years of industry experience and his or her own makeup methodology. The content they create is usually more informative, such as celebrity makeup, makeup tutorials, etc., and they conduct brand marketing by creating personal accounts.

Another type of blogger is celebrity makeup artists . They mainly do makeup for celebrities and often create makeup looks for celebrities on the red carpet and for photo shoots. For example, @春楠 on Xiaohongshu is the makeup artist for celebrities such as Gu Ailing, Tang Yan, and Zhao Liying. There are also @杨单, @王亚飞YaFei, and @华天崎. This type of makeup artist also shares more celebrity makeup and makeup tutorials, and celebrities appear more frequently in their content.

There is also another type of makeup artist, which is an amateur makeup artist. These makeup artists are generally practitioners in the clothing and makeup field that ordinary people can get in touch with, such as wedding photography makeup artists and portrait photography makeup artists. Makeup artist Rabbit belongs to this category. This type of blogger shares more makeup tutorials, and the content is generally more down-to-earth and more internet-savvy than the first two types of makeup artists.

In addition, a group of photo bloggers have emerged on Weibo and Xiaohongshu in recent years. These bloggers specialize in taking photos and producing films. Most of them are photographers or photography enthusiasts. Most of them can be scheduled for photo shoots or have opened their own photo galleries or studios. Some photo bloggers will include scheduling channels for photo shoots in their profiles.

For example, there are @夏废疾_(countryside version) on Xiaohongshu, who has a gorgeous and alternative photography style, @朱山尽, a photographer who is good at gorgeous and complicated ancient Chinese style, and @冉韵Chaiirey, who has taken ancient style photos for many female stars. They mainly share photos or short videos, and the photos themselves are very beautiful.

Image source: Xiaohongshu screenshot

The popularity of celebrity portraits and topics such as "Life Photos" has helped these bloggers gain popularity. On Xiaohongshu, the topic #LifePhotos has been viewed over 330 million times. "Life Photos" means photos that can never be taken a second time. Its meaning is just like its name, which is to use photos to freeze the beautiful moments in life that cannot be reproduced.

Looking at the entire beauty and appearance track, the beauty blogger group is developing towards specialization and cross-field development. More professional makeup artists and photographers are entering the market, bringing more professional-level visual content, and leading the content creators of the entire beauty and appearance track into the 2.0 era: the makeup is more exquisite; the content is more professional; the photos or videos are more complete, and they must have a sense of atmosphere and appeal.

At the same time, cross-domain content such as beauty/appearance + humor and comedy, beauty/appearance + food, appearance + travel, and beauty + celebrities are appearing more and more frequently, improving the problem that appearance bloggers or beauty bloggers only bring "visual enjoyment" and are relatively lacking in content, and increasing the sense of gain from content.

For example, there is the blogger @知名跨言人物BBBB大王 who shares a lot of observations on foreign cultures in his makeup videos, and the blogger @苏西苏西咕咕咕 who shares travel VLOGs and food content.

At the same time, the short-videoization of content on all platforms has also intensified the changes in the content of the beauty and appearance tracks. The current 1-2 minute short video volume needs to bring faster and stronger visual stimulation to the audience, and is no longer suitable for sharing complete and detailed makeup tutorials.

Several makeup tutorial videos shared by makeup artist Tu Zi have been sped up. She herself said in the comment section that the original video is more than two hours long and cannot be uploaded. If you want to learn makeup tutorials, you can download it and slow it down.

03. The travel photography craze has created many makeup artists who have undergone a transformation

Commercialization can motivate bloggers to continue creating content, and it is also the source of motivation for many bloggers to create.

It is worth mentioning that after makeup artist Tu Zi’s “Explosive Transformation of 100 People” challenge went viral, this series has had several episodes of embedded content, such as doing makeup for actor Dapeng in the movie “The Annual Meeting Can’t Stop” and embedding beauty products such as Shiseido eyebrow pencil and Mao Geping.

At the same time, some celebrities' "explosive changes" cooperation videos are also embedded videos. For example, the "explosive changes" video of celebrity Zhang Dian embedded the content of OPPO mobile phones. The "explosive changes" series has good effects, high traffic, and large embedding space. Participating in such cooperation is a win-win situation for makeup artist Tu Zi and the celebrity guests who are "explosively changed".

Makeup artist Tu Zi has various commercialization paths. In addition to video placement, live streaming, and product display, she has also opened an offline travel photo shop. She uses all kinds of "explosive" content online to attract fans and convert them into customers to take photos offline, thus converting public domain traffic into private domain traffic.

The cultural tourism boom since 2023 is also one of the reasons that has helped various travel makeup artists to become popular . The cultural tourism boom has driven the growth of travel photography, and topics related to "assembly line princesses" have become hot searches. At the same time, people's demand for "pleasure" has become more prominent, and various travel photography content has been very popular.

Image source: Xiaohongshu screenshot

According to public data, the number of domestic tourists in the first half of 2023 was 2.384 billion, an increase of 929 million over the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 63.9%. In the first half of 2023, domestic tourism revenue (total tourism expenditure) was 2.30 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 95.9%.

To date, makeup artist Tu Zi’s three pinned videos are all travel photography showcase videos. In addition to the “explosive makeover” series, she also often creates content such as the 100-dollar makeup challenge and the 100-dollar photo challenge, all in order to attract fans to convert into customers.

However, while the "explosive change" challenge has gone viral, there have been comments questioning the homogenization of makeup artist Tu Zi's "explosive change" makeup. After beauty bloggers entered the 2.0 era, if they want to go further, the requirements for content innovation have become higher.

Author: Laisheng Source: WeChat Official Account: KOL User Manual (ID: KOL-TOPKLOUT)