With millions of viewers - and millions of pounds changing hands - online beauty tutorials are one of Britain’s fastest-growing businesses. But for the young people involved it is about far more than just make-up. Eva Wiseman meets the vloggers

We are in a warm black-walled room in central London and the air is thick with perfume. A group of teenage girls looks from face to face, not sure who should introduce themselves first. To start with they are shy, clutching cups of tea and lip gloss, but as time passes they relax. The room gets even warmer. This is a studio in YouTube’s offices, and these are amateur beauty video bloggers: vloggers. They are here to learn about lighting, presenting and networking. Then they’ll eat cake.

For YouTube, these small-screen performers mean big business, in shades of pastel, lime and bronze. The Google-owned site continues to produce young ambitious celebrities – 72 hours of video a minute are uploaded by documentary-makers, musicians, animators, each with thousands of subscribers to their channels. But the fastest-growing subsection is the beauty vloggers. Two-fifths of British women are viewing online beauty tutorials, an industry that attracts 700m hits a month.

Watching their videos one after the other, you risk slipping into a sweet sort of trance. They are all the same but slightly different. A young woman talks to you from the edge of her bed, fairy lights behind her, a pile of used make-up just out of sight. Piece by piece she will test the brushes, the lip glosses, and piece by piece she will make you her friend. In the process she might become a millionaire.

The most successful British beauty vloggers are little industries in themselves. They are Pixiwoo (make-up artists Sam and Nic Chapman, who have more than 200m views on YouTube), their protegée Tanya Burr (24 years old, with almost 2m YouTube subscribers), and Zoella (Zoe Sugg, 24, with 4.3m subscribers).

“While the typical YouTube age range is, say, 11-16, we have a really big range of people, starting from 16 right up to 65,” Pixiwoo’s Nic told the Financial Times. “Ours is a massive demographic of people who really want to learn. It also helps that our work is what YouTube calls evergreen content, which means it doesn’t date.”

Up close and personal: vbloggers hone their craft. Photograph: Casey Orr for the Observer

There is money here, but it’s hidden, a golden hare. Few seem willing or able to explain how it works. Last year, Google reported that a million YouTube users earn money from their videos, with more than 1,000 people worldwide earning at least $100,000 (£63,000) per year from advertising revenues. But the details are hazy. Of the beauty bloggers I meet, Anchal Seda is the only person who has any figures in mind. “I think you can get about £4 per 1,000 views?” she volunteers.

It becomes clear this isn’t accurate – one internal source suggests it is usually around £2, with YouTube then taking half. I ask a YouTube rep for figures – they can’t say. “But after a certain number of views, they get a share of the revenue generated,” the press officer tells me, but won’t divulge how many.

Why won’t they specify details? “These things are still finding their own equilibrium. The kind of revenue fluctuates greatly. There’s no standard.”

I ask Dominic Smales, manager of Zoella, Pixiwoo and Tanya Burr, and founder of Gleam Futures, the agency set up to look after these growing stars, for some details about the money. He dismisses me with an email: “I think it is bit ‘last year’ to hype the income,” he writes. “It is nothing special compared to standard celeb income and nothing that warrants news articles.”

I push him. What about the revenue not just from advertising, but from brands courting his clients? I have heard that when Zoella recommends, say, a Topshop blusher, there is a 40% click-through rate to the Topshop site. Smales doesn’t return my call.

Topshop is similarly unwilling to talk. American reports have claimed that beauty vloggers can make $5m a year, earning $10,000 to $15,000 per product placement. “It’s very achievable,” an internet networking expert called Chris Pirillo told Cosmopolitan. He threw a Vlogger Fair in Seattle for aspiring YouTube stars. “Ninety percent of the attendees were younger females,” he said. “ It doesn’t surprise me. Females focus on the storytelling and building trust with their communities. That’s what drives revenue and value.”

Flash light: Anchal through the looking glass. Photograph: Casey Orr for the Observer

Although the products are the starting point for these performances, they are not the main ingredient for success. If anything, the blushers and bronzers serve as a gateway for teenagers to talk about the things that teenagers have always talked about. As well as make-up, Zoella and Tanya Burr discuss their boyfriends, their pets and their battles with anxiety on camera. The ones who succeed make viewers feel as if they care, and that they are friends.

This form of online confessional can be therapeutic for the performers, too. Some of the vloggers I talk to in the YouTube meeting discuss their own crippling shyness, and it makes sense, the way they’re chiselling out a place for themselves alone in their rooms. Marc Zapanta from Nottinghamshire is the only boy in the room. “I’ve dealt with hate all my life,” he says breezily. “I came from the Philippines when I was 10. I was thin, gay, theatrical – an easy target.” After winning a competition, he became the face of a YouTube channel from the E4 show Skins, where he uses make-up as a way of discussing the issues that arise in the show. In his video “Experimenting” he splits his face in two with eyeliner, using “pretty pink Barbie blush” on the right – a “girly-girl look”, and gothic black lips and purple eyes on the left, to talk about the assumptions people will make based on your appearance.

“People transform throughout their lives,” he says. “I think it’s good to experiment with make-up to find out who you are.”

Jordan Bone from Norfolk started vlogging after she was paralysed from the chest down in a car accident. “I used to be depressed,” she tells me quietly, “but then I found meditation on YouTube.” In her videos she talks about positivity and strength; she is here to learn about “making the move into make-up”.

“I need help with a lot of things,” she says, gesturing towards her mother, who has accompanied her to London, “but this I can do alone.”

At the other end of the scale, this once-niche corner is making itself felt in traditional media. In April, Zoella became the first YouTube beauty star to appear on the cover of a mainstream magazine. The editor of Company, Victoria White, explains their choice. “Vloggers like Zoella have given young women hope that girls just like them can become successful from their bedrooms. Unlike the Big Brother pipe dreams of the 90s, it is a fame based in hard work.”

When Zoella announced to her online community that she was shooting Company’s cover, the magazine immediately had an 87% increase in web traffic. A Google hangout with her on the day the issue went on sale received 20,000 live views. “Our site had its biggest month ever thanks to content about her. To put this into context,” White adds, “we often feature behind-the-scenes videos with celebrities, such as Jessie J or Demi Lovato, that don’t get nearly as many views.”

In the black studio (one of a selection of editing suites and voice-over booths, free for any YouTuber who signs up), the group tentatively put their hands up to volunteer for a lighting masterclass. “Increase the value of your content!” says the man with the lights. Anchal’s face fills a screen as around her a clutch of girls refocus the glare. We watch her soften, sharpen – people call out instructions from their seats on how to best frame her for a beauty video. Anchal is a semi-professional vlogger – she posts regular videos in between tutorials for her BA in make-up artistry. She has the impossible energy of a children’s TV presenter and hair like a mirror. When she stands to give her tips to the room, everybody listens. “Find a quiet space – you don’t want your mum calling you for dinner halfway through,” she advises. “Invest in some fairy lights, some candles; make it look pretty. You don’t need a script,” she says, “just an idea. Don’t film in a bad mood! Have a routine. And turn your phone off!” The room leans in.

The biggest audiences on YouTube are teenage girls, and they are creating and consuming content themselves. The most successful vloggers appear to ramble and chat rather than educate. “Pretend you’re talking to your sister” is advice I hear repeated throughout the afternoon. But in order to make these conversations appear concise, there is technology to be mastered. Cameras must be navigated.

As the vloggers (aged from 14 upwards) ask questions about lenses and lights, I’m reminded of Lena Dunham discussing filming techniques in Girls. It was a Q&A in a cinema, with many of the questions about celebrity cameos, sex, feminism and nudity. And then a film student asked what camera she used, and she took her time explaining the benefits of her choices. It occurred to me that quite aside from the theory, it was in the practice of directing, of being in control of the technology, of being the boss, that Dunham has really helped change culture. As these teenagers make notes on their phones about resolution and external mics, it’s clear how little today has to do with lipstick. These young men and women are creating a whole new format.

A small proportion of vloggers will make successful careers from it: buy homes with their profits and bring out their own brush ranges. The majority, however, will remain oblivious to the money that streams past them directly to the brands they’re advertising. Off the record, one (anonymous) insider attempts to break it down for me. “Brands get interested in vloggers when they get around 20,000 to 30,000 views, but I’m not surprised YouTube can’t tell you more – there’s no real algorithm for success.”

And fees appear to vary wildly – an original video or a collaboration can vary from £500 to £20,000, with many of the deals running through a company called Style Haul, a network that monetises all the beauty channels. “The brands’ interest depends a lot on the tone of the person,” the insider says. “But beauty is a really attractive industry online, because it’s a purchase that’s easy to make. A video of a girl applying eyeliner in her room directly translates into sales for a brand like Topshop.”

James Marks, a video entertainment specialist, explains: “All YouTubers have different goals. And more are now talking about life off YouTube. They want to achieve other dreams: make a movie, be a TV presenter, become as big as possible on the interweb, save the world.”

At YouTube, DailyMix (the beauty and style channel that organised today’s masterclass) brings out a cake the size of a coffee table. Vloggers are encouraged to swap details. The more connections made, the more clicks. When they open their phones, their cameras are set to selfie. Ava talks to Anchal. Rupinder talks to Leena. Bonnie talks to me. She is 15 and thoughtful about her aims as a beauty vlogger.

“I want to be popular on YouTube, but I don’t want to lose myself. I want to grow as a channel? And as a person.” She smiles, a big lipsticky, cakey grin. “I like that, as a vlogger, you never feel alone.”