On April 11, 1987, Michelle Phan was born in Boston, MA. The daughter of Vietnamese refugees, she grew up to become one of YouTube’s most successful stars. Considered the “Beyoncé of the Beauty-Vlogging World,” her YouTube channel has nearly nine million subscribers and one billion views. She parlayed her success as a vlogger into an online beauty subscription company, Ipsy, currently worth around $500 million. She also recently relaunched her makeup brand, EM Cosmetics. Turning 31 years old today, Phan is an inspiration to female entrepreneurs everywhere.
When she first began blogging in 2005, Phan concocted a glamorous backstory about herself. However, her real-life circumstances were far from ideal. Phan’s father had a gambling problem, forcing her family to frequently move. At times, the family subsisted on food stamps. Phan’s mother worked as a manicurist in nail salons, exposing Phan to the magic of beauty and self-care.
While in art school, Phan launched her makeup tutorial-focused YouTube channel in 2007. Her first video, in which she demonstrated everyday makeup tips, got 70,000 views within the first two weeks. The views jumped to a million in a year. When YouTube accepted her into their Partner Program, she eventually quit art school to devote all of her time to the channel. At first, she only made 25 cents a day from advertisements. Eventually, she built a $100 million dollar empire from YouTube, as one of the original beauty influencers. In 2010, Lancôme recognized her talent and hired Phan as their first official video makeup artist. Meanwhile, her YouTube videos continued to go viral, including her Barbie tutorial, Phan’s most popular video to date, with 66 million views.
In 2011, the YouTube megastar began to extend her success beyond the internet. She created a lucrative beauty products subscription service, Ipsy. Then, in 2013, she launched a new cosmetic line, Em Michelle Phan, with L’Oreal USA. However, when fans panned the brand, Phan discontinued the deal. In 2016, Phan took an extended vacation, as well as a digital detox, to recover from the stressful ordeal. After disappearing for a year, she returned to the internet with a video called “Why I Left.” In it, she shared, “Who I was on camera and who I was in real life began to feel like strangers… The life I led online was picture-perfect, but in reality, I was carefully curating the image of a life I wanted, not had.”
Now content to take a behind-the-scenes role in her career, Phan relaunched EM Cosmetics in 2017. On the site, she shares her mission, “EM
Cosmetics was created to give you the tools you need to express yourself—through colors, lines and other forms of creativity.”