Beauty Tips and Secrets: Perfect Beauty's Daisy Jing
Beauty Tips and Secrets:
Daisy Jing is the founder of Perfect Beauty, a site that encourages women to feel good about themselves and to cheer one another on. Daisy won the "Most Disruptive Product" award at the world's largest women's technology conference, Women 2.0, and caught the attention of Forbes. Daisy’s business advice goes beyond beauty, so guys would do well to read what she has to say this week on Sam’s Dream Blog.
Listen to Daisy talk about her what makes a woman beautiful as well as her dream for Perfect Beauty. Then read more afterward!
Sam's Dream Blog: Tell me about how Perfect Beauty came about.
Daisy Jing: I had really bad acne in middle and high school. During that time, my parents were nagging me to try all these different products. So I spent thousands of dollars on products for acne, and I felt like it was a waste of money. I felt like they weren’t providing good skin care products, but they were so expensive. It took me a long time to find out certain products that would work for my acne. It wasn’t until I found out these products from people on YouTube, peers who were similar to me in skin type and ethnicity and age. I started researching ingredients in products and the industry. I realized that a lot of it is just advertising. They tell you that you need to look like a celebrity, and you need to spend hundreds of dollars to buy a product to look like them. In the long run, they ruin your skin or hair or whatever.
I started a YouTube channel where I review beauty products. I wanted to expand it outside my YouTube channel and created a Web platform for that. My slogan is, "To empower you to feel beautiful." Anyone who uses beauty products needs to first of all feel comfortable in their own skin and second, to find products that will enhance their natural features.
SDB: How is the Web site different than the YouTube channel?
Daisy Jing: Our aim is to give women a voice about products and to get them to share. A lot of people don’t want to go on the YouTube channel, or they are not comfortable in front of the camera, or they don’t have time to do all that. I want to make it so it’s easy and fast, so you know what works and what doesn’t. You can ask people questions, and everyone gets points. You can see if they are a trusted person to ask advice from. Everyone has a profile so you can see what kind of skin or hair they have.
SDB: How have you been able to achieve credibility and popularity? What made you so great at cultivating a following?
Daisy Jing: I’ve had my YouTube channel for a few years now, and I have about 100,000 views per month. People like me because I’m very honest. I tell them, ?Hey, I don’t have perfect skin or perfect whatever, but this is what I use to help me.? Because I’m very honest about my opinions, I’ve garnered that following, and people trust me. I get people messaging me, saying, 'Oh, I bought these three things you recommended and I absolutely love them.'
SDB: Do you have any role models, either from a business point of view or in terms of beauty and fashion?
Daisy Jing: I would say a big role model is Oprah Winfrey. I used to watch her when I was in elementary school. She was always so positive and honest and kind of pushed women to go after their dreams. I’ve kind of had that mindset ever since I was young. Also I read a lot about Steve Jobs. Whenever I feel unsure about doing something, I read some of his writings. He pushes me off the edge to go for it.
SDB: What lessons have you learned along the way?
Daisy Jing: I’ve learned that you cannot make people happy, and you can’t try to please everyone. When I put myself out there on the Internet, it was very, very scary at first. You have to have a thick skin to put yourself out there like that, but I’m really glad I didn’t listen to all the negativity. People do say mean things, but I don’t let that get to me.
Also, I’ve learned from my YouTube channel that everyone can have an impact on someone else. I didn’t realize that my advice would help people that much. It was almost as if I gave people advice for fun, but it has changed people’s lives.
Visit Daisy’s Web site and her YouTube page for plenty of beauty tips and secrets. You can also follow her on Twitter.