Source: Nikita Dragun
Beauty guru Nikita Dragun began her YouTube career five years ago when she uploaded her first video, “How To Get Silver Hair.” Ever since 2014, Dragun has been taking over YouTube with videos of makeup tutorials and stories of her experience as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Dragun posted a video three years ago called “I Am TRANSGENDER,” which received a lot of attention from the media and members of the community who commended Dragun for her courage and strength.
Dragun has accumulated nearly 2 million subscribers on YouTube and over 4 million followers on Instagram. Several brands have picked up on Dragun’s success, as she is a brand representative for companies including Missguided and Bondi Sands. Dragun is known for her creative makeup tutorials and Instagram pictures highlighting her physique.
This past December, Ed Razek, chief marketing officer of L Brands, Victoria’s Secret’s parent company, released a statement to Vogue saying, “Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should.” Razek continued, “… the show is a fantasy. It’s a 42-minute entertainment special.” Dragun released a video in response to these comments, showing that trans people can “sell the fantasy,” which quickly went viral and now has over 9 million views and 600,000 likes on Twitter.
On Monday, March 25, Dragun released her own makeup brand called Dragun Beauty. Dragun Beauty is the first ever makeup line to be owned by a transgender person which was designed specifically for transgender people. The brand features transgender, non-binary and gender fluid models of all shapes and sizes as a part of the campaign, making strides for not only the makeup community, but for the LGBTQ+ community as well.
A few weeks before the release of the collection, Dragun tweeted, “Let’s be real … I don’t look the same without makeup, so I wanted to create transformative products that I felt were missing from many people’s makeup routine. I basically made makeup for [you] to catfish everyone.”
The collection consists of a color-correcting concealer and face powder which comes packaged in a dragon egg. Dragun’s Iced Out Dragunegg TRANSformation Kit, which is packaged in a dragon egg and coated with Aurora Borealis crystals, has already sold out – only three days after its release.
Several YouTube makeup artists, including MannyMUA and PatrickStarrr, took time to try out the new products from Dragun Beauty and posted first impressions and reviews for their millions of subscribers. Dragun also gave up-and-coming makeup artists on social media a chance to receive the collection, creating even more diversity in the beauty community.
Many fans have yet to receive their packages containing the collection, but once they do, numerous tutorials and reviews will be posted on social media and looked at by Dragun herself on Twitter under @NikitaDragun and additionally on Instagram under the handle @Nikita_Dragun.
