Mikayla’s Mascara: Would You Do It Too for A Check?

Image Courtesy: Strike Magazine Tallahassee

Over the course of many years, the online beauty community has become a popular place for makeup enthusiasts to find entertainment. On YouTube, creators like James Charles, Jeffree Star, and Manny MUA were audiences’ primary sources for reviews on beauty products and makeup tutorials.

Image Courtesy: Allure

With TikTok gaining relevancy, more makeup artists started to emerge onto the scene and into the beauty community. One of these makeup artists is Mikayla Nogueira. 

Image Courtesy: @MikaylaJMakeup via Instagram

Nogueira is known for her makeup tutorials and reviews on beauty products. However, her reliability has now come into question due to her recent review of L’Oreal’s Telescopic Lift mascara. Nogueira exclaimed that the mascara made it seem as though she was wearing false lashes, but her audience speculated that she was actually just wearing false lashes. In the TikTok video, she cuts from one clip of what her lashes look like with one coat to another clip where they suddenly have extreme length, saying that all she did was "add a second coat". This led to negative attention on across her social media platforms, and everyone in the comment section called her out for potentially lying. It soon became a “scandal”, and many beauty gurus began to review the same mascara, including Jeffree Star. The question is, is it really a “scandal,” or if you were in her position, would you do the same thing?

Image Courtesy: StyleNine (Mikayla Nogueira’s Tik Tok)

Nogueira was paid to promote this mascara on her TikTok, ensuring that she would talk it up and encourage her audience to purchase the product. In Jeffree Star’s review, he explained that he’s seen many beauty gurus accept a large sum of money from companies to hype up a product when the product isn’t that good, and that shouldn’t be the case because audiences want to spend their money on a product they know works. I believe if she added a false lash, it was harmless, and she’s simply doing her job. However, it is also her job to be honest about makeup products, and she owes it to her audience to truthfully tell them what she likes and dislikes about a product. Although many find Jeffree Star problematic, he is preferred in the community because he is known for being brutally honest in his reviews of products. 

Image Courtesy: @JeffreeStar via Instagram

If a company came to you saying they’d pay you $250,000 to say you like their product, would you take the money? I see both arguments in that it’s deceitful, and you’re breaking the trust of your fanbase, but influencers also ned to pay rent and put food on the table. But how much money would you really lose if you chose the honest route, or in Nogueira’s case, NOT add an enhancement? Adding a false lash is a bit extra, and she could’ve just applied two coats, explained how the mascara improved her natural lashes, and moved on. I think many were just upset because the false lashes seemed a bit obvious, as if Nogueira was testing their intelligence, or assumed no one would notice, insulting them in the process.

Although Nogueira denied the claims multiple times in her comment section, she never actually addressed them in a separate video. This was smart on her part because slowly over time, the talk will die down as she’s not feeding the fire. She continually posts new videos with no mention of the review. 

Strike Out,

Writer: Lindsey Limbach

Editor: Addy Crosby

Graphic Designer: Camila Denker

Tallahassee