The State of Beauty YouTube 2026
We tracked 159 active US beauty channels and 7.9K of their videos. Beauty creators say who pays them, and nearly every one runs an affiliate shelf. Here is who pays, for what, and what a sponsored video costs in views.
- Channels tracked
- 159
- Videos analysed
- 7.9K
- Brands seen paying
- 226
- Channels with an affiliate shelf
- 60%
Finding 1
Beauty creators disclose — 4× more often than fitness creators
35% of beauty channels wrote a "sponsored by" line or a #brandpartner tag in their latest uploads — across 359 videos. Among the fitness channels we tracked the same week it was 9%. That makes beauty one of the most visible creator markets on YouTube. Makeup leads at 65%; barbers and fragrance reviewers almost never disclose, and are paid mostly in codes when they are paid at all.
Share of channels with a paid-partnership disclosure
35%
of beauty channels disclose a sponsor
9%
of fitness channels do — see the fitness report
Finding 2
The affiliate shelf comes first: 60% of channels run one
Before any sponsor, there is the shelf: a ShopMy, LTK or Amazon storefront link under the video that pays the creator a commission on every product they mention. 96 of 159 channels link one. Every single Beauty Over 50 channel does, and so do 71% of skincare channels. For a brand, that shelf is the cheapest way in: get the product onto it, and the creator is paid to keep talking about it.
Share of channels with an affiliate shelf, by niche
Which shelf (share of all channels)
Finding 3
Skincare pays first — and one deal in 4 isn't beauty at all
We found 308 creator–brand deals across 226 brands, from disclosures and discount codes together. Skincare is the biggest buyer, ahead of makeup. But 26% of deals come from outside beauty — supplements, menopause telehealth, therapy apps, fashion and bedding — buying the same audience the cosmetics brands want. The brand on the most channels is a clothing label.
Who pays (share of creator–brand deals)
Brands on the most beauty channels
- 1QuinceFashion & jewelry9 creators
- 2e.l.f.Makeup6 creators
- 3CeraVeSkincare5 creators
- 4RitualSupplements & telehealth5 creators
- 5SephoraBeauty retailers5 creators
Finding 4
Sponsored videos break out less: 14% vs 20%
Against each channel's own norm for the same format, the median video with a disclosure or a brand code lands at 0.97× — close to normal. The difference is at the top: deal videos break out (2× the channel's usual) 14% of the time, against 20% for everything else. And it splits creators in half: 26 of 52 with at least three deal videos keep them at full reach. Which half a creator is in is the number to check before you book.
0.97×
median deal video vs. the creator's norm
14% vs 20%
breakout rate, deal vs. other videos
26 of 52
creators whose deal videos hold their usual reach
Finding 5
Subscribers don't buy views
Noel Deyzel and cathy on skincare both sit between 100K and 250K subscribers. A typical video from the first reaches 80× more people. Across all 159 channels, subscriber count explains only part of typical views (rank correlation 0.57), and 1M+ channels reach just 3% of their subscribers per video. Fragrance is the sleeper: small channels (median 195K subscribers) with the most loyal views in beauty — 17% per subscriber. Beauty Over 50 runs the other way from the rest of the category: 17% Shorts, long videos, and the highest engagement we measured (5.26%).
Noel Deyzel
204K subscribers
168.8K
median views per video, last 90 days
cathy on skincare
226K subscribers
2.1K
median views per video, last 90 days
Benchmarks
Beauty YouTube, niche by niche
| Niche | Channels | Median subs | Views / sub | Engagement | Shorts share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hair & Hairstyling | 40 | 270.5K | 6% | 4.54% | 85% |
| Makeup | 37 | 828K | 8% | 4.07% | 60% |
| Skincare | 24 | 652K | 4% | 2.73% | 84% |
In the full report
What brands use to plan a beauty campaign
The sponsor map
All 308 deals on 78 channels, with the video and the exact disclosure or code line as evidence.
Who runs which shelf
The 96 creators with a ShopMy, LTK or Amazon storefront — the fastest way to get a product in front of them.
Rate benchmarks by niche and format
Estimated cost per integration and per Short, built from each creator’s real median views.
Dermatologists on YouTube
15 of the 24 skincare channels are run by doctors — ranked by reach and sponsor history.
Sponsor-proof creators
The 26 creators whose deal videos hold full reach, ranked.
A shortlist for your brand
Tell us your product; Marble ranks the beauty creators your buyers already watch.
Browse the lists
Top beauty YouTubers by niche
Method
Public YouTube Data API counters for 159 active US beauty channels (≥30K subscribers, ≥3 uploads and ≥2K median views in the last 90 days), found through 41 sub-niche searches and reviewed by hand. Medians use videos 7–90 days old. Brand deals are read from the descriptions of each channel's last 50 uploads: literal paid-partnership disclosures ("sponsored by", #brandpartner), plus discount-code lines whose link we matched to a brand by hand — a floor, not a census. Affiliate shelves are links to ShopMy, LTK or an Amazon storefront in the same descriptions. Deal-video performance is measured against each channel's own median for the same format.
Data as of 2026-10-24. Observational, not causal; public counters only — no private analytics.
Get the full YouTube beauty report
Named creators, sponsor and shelf evidence and rate benchmarks — plus a shortlist built for your product.
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