Top 10 YouTube Special Effects Makeup Channels - TopX Ep.12

#10 – Kat Sketch
Channel URL: youtube.com/therealkatsketch

- Right off the bat, you’ll notice that the host of this channel, Kat Sketch, comes off as very personable and down to earth. What’s probably most ironic about this is that she focuses on looks that are rather frightening, giving you tutorials on how to turn yourself into all manner of frightening monsters.
- There are tons of Special Effects, costume and movie makeup artists out there on YouTube, as we’ll see today, and many do the same looks. Kat has found a pretty good way to differentiate herself from the pack by doing creative mashups of half-face looks of popular characters. These include a half Beauty half Beast look, and her most popular video, which is half snow covered face inspired by Frozen.
- One thing that’s notable about her style of video, compared to other makeup artists you’ll see, is that she narrate the videos with voice over, instead of talking you through it as she’s applying the makeup in real time. Not only does this give her points in the tech-savy department, but it definitely allows her to focus and fine tune exactly what she needs to say, while letting her focus be on her makeup while it’s being applied.

#9 – Emma Pickles
Channel URL: youtube.com/EuphoricCreation

- Coming in at #9 is Emma Pickles, who apparently began to use makeup to conquer her crippling shyness. Although she’s self-taught, she’s managed to carve out a decent place for herself in the YouTube makeup world.
- Although she does do some scarier stuff, like vampires and zombies, she doesn’t use a lot of extra materials like latex or putty. This makes her tutorials a bit easier to do, either at the last minute with stuff you have on hand, or just simply on a budget.
- Emma’s actually got a fair amount of nerd cred racked up, as many of her looks are taken directly from either sci-fi or video game culture. She has a Harley Quinn tutorial, one for Lightning from Final Fantasy and of course, one for Mystique. Her most popular video though, is her Pop Art/Comic Book style tutorial, which is easier to show than it is to explain.


#8 – BeautifulYouTv
Channel URL: youtube.com/BeautifulYouTV

- Coming up next is BeautifulYouTV, a channel that takes the award for the most ironically named channel on our list. I say that, because while there are a large number of videos on this channel that will make you look beautiful, the most popular tutorials are the ones that help you replicate horrendous physical trauma.
- Yes, Karina, who runs the channels, seems to specialize the best in gore makeup, much like a few of the other channels you’ll see later. The most popular of these focus less on total conversion looks and more on specific injuries or deformations: broken glass in your wrist, pins in your mouth or, most famously, a nail thru the finger.
- What’s funny is that aside from skin crawling gore makeup, Karina also specializes in duplicating the looks from various popular music videos, especially those by Rihanna.
- Another noteworthy thing about Karina’s channel is that she provides Russian subtitles for her videos, a nice touch that’s no doubt broadened her audience significantly.

#7 – Goldiestarling
Channel URL: youtube.com/goldiestarling

- Goldie Starling, or Angie as she calls herself on her About page, has been, and I quote, putting the “Art back in Youtube makeup tutorials since 2008”, and one look at her makeup styles and you’ll see what she means.
- Angie is a master of bright colors. Whether it’s something common like a sugar doll look or a crazy recreation of a Salvador Dali painting that she wears on her face, you’ll notice right off the bat that her tutorials feature bold, vivid colors and sharp well defined lines.
- When Angie says she’s putting the art back in youtube makeup tutorials, she’s really not joking. On top of the amazing colors and detail, her looks are impressive in a creative sense as well. Her looks are truly one of a kind, making her channel one to check out if you want to do something that nobody’s ever seen before. My personal favorite is her Van Gogh.

#6 – ellimax sfx makeup
Channel URL: youtube.com/macsmoser

- Ellimax is the creation of Ellinor Rosander and Macs Moser, hence the name, Ellimacs.
- While many of these channels specialize in things that would be more than appropriate for Halloween, there is one thing the Ellimax does especially well in that sense. Gore. Disgusting, graphic, you’ll swear it’s real gore.
- Right off the bat you’ll notice the production value of this channel is head and shoulders above most. That’s because Macs is a photographer and not a makeup artist. So, not only is each shot carefully composed, but the project is also tightly edited and narrated with voiceover, giving each tutorial the look of a professional production.
- The tutorials are so detailed and the makeup so convincing, while these looks would surely turn heads at a costume party, they’re all so elaborate that they would probably be better suited for making a movie or a photo shoot. Though they have nowhere near as many subscribers or views as pretty much anyone else on this list, they’re professionalism and high quality pushes them ahead of many of their peers.

#5 – Kiana Jones SFX
Channel URL: youtube.com/kianabjones

- We hope you weren’t sick of the gore tutorials, cause here we have yet another one and I’m afraid we only just past halfway done. Hailing from Perth, Australia, we have the self taught Kiana Jones, or Freakmo as she’s known online.
- For those of you that thought that the gore tutorials we’ve seen so far we just not detailed enough, Kiana’s channel might be just what you’re looking for. She divides her more elaborate tutorials into different parts, often starting with the creation of the molds or props in the earlier bits and moving to the actual application in the later episodes. While these are certainly less DIY as they require things like latex molding, if you’re really bent on making that sliced cheek look as realistic as possible, this is the way to go.
- On that note, on top of her straight up tutorials, she has a lot of videos that explain how to use some of the tools and materials that she uses, like modeling clay and latex, which is extremely useful if you’d like to make gore of your own.

#4 – KlairedelysArt
Channel URL: youtube.com/KlairedelysArt

- After wading thru a fair amount of blood and assorted bio-mater, we finally come back to a channel that’ll help you look good instead of just injured. #4 on our list is KlairedelysArt.
- While it’s not 100% related to the subject of this list, there is one thing that Klaire truly specializes in, and that’s nails. No, not nails thru your finger, although she coincidentally has one for staples, but creative, colorful designs for your fingernails. Her focus on her hands doesn’t stop there, as she’s the only channel on this list that features hand art as well.
- Of course, you can’t have a makeup channel without some face stuff, and Klaire has tons of that too. Her tutorials are heavily inspired by fantasy, going from simple things like a porcelain doll, to super elaborate like Darth Maul.
- One cool thing you should definitely check out is her series on the seven deadly sins, where she makes herself up to represent each sin, like Greed, Pride and Wrath.

#3 – Pinkstylist/Charlie Short
Channel URL: youtube.com/Pinkstylist

- At #3 is the only guy on our list, though with a channel name like Pinkstylist, you’d be forgiven if you didn’t guess that this channel belongs to a young man by the name of Charlie Short.
- While movies definitely inspire a lot of these channels, Charlie’s looks are almost all ripped directly from the big and small screen, specifically from horror movies and sci-fi. He’s got one for Pin-Head, one for the Exorcist girl, and even one for Chucky from Child’s play.
- One of the best parts of his channel is that when he’s done putting on his terrifying look of the day, he takes his looks for a ride on Omegle and films the reactions. Great stuff.
- Lastly, one last thing that should not go unmentioned is the pure dedication that Charlie puts into his channel. He updates on a weekly basis, making his channel one of the most active and dependable in this genre.

#2 - MadeYewLook/Alexis Fleming
Channel URL: youtube.com/MadeYewLook

- Our runner up to #1 is Alexis Flemming, the young lady in charge of the mind blowing MadeYewLook channel. I know a lot of you who commented on our Top 10 Makeup Gurus video were wondering where she was…and well, here she is.
- Alexis’ tutorials vary so much it’s actually sort of tough to find a connecting theme or thread. All that you can really say for certain is that they are almost all total transformations: her tutorials are so insanely elaborate and creative that she’s essentially completely unrecognizable by the end.
- Alexis’ tutorials, as I’ve mentioned, are definitely some of the most intense that we’ve seen. Looks that are relatively simple, like a skull face, are done with a staggering level of detail. All that to say, that these videos are as much a showcase on her talents as an artist as they are tutorials for how to do these looks yourself. They certainly aren’t easy, but dang are they ever impressive.

HMS
HM1 Bonnie Corban SFX
youtube.com/BonnieCorban

HM2 Glam and Gore
youtube.com/GlamAndGoreMakeup/

HM3 Julia Graf / MissChievous
youtube.com/MissChievous

HM4 Funsmusings
youtube.com/fumsmusings

HM5 grav3yardgirl
youtube.com/grav3yardgirl

#1 – Mystique /dope2111
Channel URL: youtube.com/dope2111

- While artists like Alexis Fleming demonstrate amazing ways to make yourself appear something other than human, Promise Phan goes the other direction gives you tutorials on how to make yourself like other people.
- In this sense, she’s dangerously close to your standard makeup guru, because many of her looks could almost double as regular day to day styles. However, her dedicated focus to making herself look like movie characters and celebrities, both male and female, landed her firmly on this list instead.
- Now, I say movies, but if you want to get specific, there is one common theme that has made Promise very popular, and that’s Disney Princesses. Her most popular clip is a transformation into Elsa from frozen, but she has one from pretty much the entire Disney Cannon, from Maleficent to Pocahontas.
- Lastly, because she does do a lot of celebrity makeup look tutorials as well, you could say that her channel doubles as a regular beauty guru page. I’d almost call this cheating for the top spot, if it wasn’t for the fact she has double the subscribers of our #2 spot. But seeing as she has double the subscribers that our #2 spot has, and way more than anybody else, it’s still fair game to put her as number #1. And you, the lucky viewer, get the best of both worlds when you subscribe to her channel.