Where was skincare by hyram born?

Yarbro was born and raised on a cattle ranch in (his words) “the middle of nowhere,” Arizona. At 18, he moved to Honolulu, where he's remained ever since. He trained as a makeup artist and started posting videos on YouTube, but pivoted when he developed an interest in helping others look after their skin.

The word skinfluencer is practically synonymous with one person: Hyram Yarbro. His social media following is enormous (more than 12 million across platforms), the products he recommends tend to fly off shelves, and his TikTok reaction videos have amassed upward of 10 million views. So how did a 26-year-old with no formal training as a dermatologist or aesthetician become TikTok’s most trusted—and most followed—skin care authority?

Yarbro was born and raised on a cattle ranch in (his words) “the middle of nowhere,” Arizona. At 18, he moved to Honolulu, where he’s remained ever since. He trained as a makeup artist and started posting videos on YouTube, but pivoted when he developed an interest in helping others look after their skin. “I was fascinated with it, because I saw the potential it had to unlock people’s ability to see themselves in a more confident light,” Yarbro tells BAZAAR.com.

But his YouTube channel was slow to take off. “Over the first two years, I grew to something like 2,000 followers,” he says. That began to change just before the onset of the pandemic. “I started noticing the most significant growth on YouTube at the end of 2019. That’s when I went from, I think, 10,000 followers to over a million within .”

Yarbro isn’t surprised that his skin care content saw such growth even before we were all stuck at home. “It was something that I kind of predicted. From 2016 to 2018, makeup YouTube was huge. People were using full-coverage foundation and heavy, dramatic makeup, which was awesome,” Yarbro recalls. “But I also realized, if people don’t know how to properly take care of their skin, it’s going to cause some skin concerns. So that motivated me to create the content that I did leading up to 2019.”

Then came COVID-19, and with it, a rush of creators moving to TikTok. Yarbro was one of them, and his growth was, once again, exponential. He grew from 100,000 followers to four million in just four months. Since then, he’s parlayed his success into other ventures: Last year, he launched a skincare line, Selfless by Hyram, and he recently started a podcast, Justaposition, focusing on everything from mental health to, yes, skin care.

Ahead, he talks to BAZAAR.com about his secrets to social media success, how he deals with the pressures of maintaining such a massive following, and, of course, which products currently have his seal of approval.

I was interested in makeup first, so I started working as a makeup artist. And then, that led me to skin care, and I started connecting to dermatologists and aestheticians and chemists online.

My goal was to simplify information as much as possible. were creating valuable information that was understood by people who knew a lot about skin care. But I wanted to speak to people who had no idea what products to use.

The primary reason I loved the platform was that it gave me an opportunity to connect with my followers and with the community at a level that I just couldn’t on YouTube or Instagram—being able to see their faces, see their skin care routines, all of that. And when I started doing reaction videos to people’s skin care routines and pointing them in the right direction for what products would work best for their faces, as well as just kind of seeing all the chaotic skin care trends and DIY hacks that people were doing, that’s when I noticed the significant growth. Before then, I didn’t take the platform seriously.

I remember the first video where I looped in skin care. I think I got over a million views on the first day, when I really didn’t have followers. From there, the videos started to gain a lot of traction. Before that, I had never seen such an intense interest from younger people, specifically Gen Z. Previously, on YouTube, people were looking to fade fine lines and aging, dark spots or age spots. TikTok was the first time I saw 15-year-olds interacting with my content. And I was inspired seeing that, because it meant that we have a whole generation of people who know about skin care.

One of the reasons why I’m grateful I was able to experience growth during the pandemic was that we were all at home. So, subjectively, my life didn’t change too much, because I was just at home every day filming videos in my bedroom.

I can only speak for myself, but when you experience that pace of growth, it doesn’t feel real. You’re just seeing numbers on the screen. When you’re used to your videos getting, maybe, 100 views each, it feels very surreal. I’m glad I was able to have that perspective, because if I was able to conceptualize the number of views my videos are getting, I think it would have put too much pressure on me. I would have felt too much anxiety to continue posting. But over time, I’ve been able to slowly understand the significance of it.

That being said, I do feel the pressure when it comes to the products I talk about. I’m a stickler when it comes to ingredient lists. I have my ingredient standards, and I do not stray from those. The same goes for products that I organically mention across my channel. I really feel the pressure there, because I owe it to my audience. At the end of the day, I just want them to have better skin and make sure that they’re using products that are good quality, affordable, accessible.

It’s definitely been helpful to see their love—it eases the pressure. I’ll be 100 percent honest, it is overwhelming at times. Sometimes it feels a little bit scary, just because of the magnitude and how the Internet can be. You have to deal with a lot of different opinions, a lot of different emotions from so many different people. But I try to focus on the impact that my videos have been able to make and remember the stories of people who say that their skin was improved, they were able to walk outside without foundation on, whatever it may be.

It’s definitely a passion project and something that I’m hoping can make a positive difference. Having been in the online space for a while, the way social media can contribute to people viewing others through very narrow lenses. We tend to associate people with one thing, whether it be a creator that’s solely associated with makeup, or beauty, or fashion. Or from a real-world sense, you know, not taking time to understand the complexities in people.

I wanted to name it Justaposition, a play on the word juxtaposition, to explore all sides of people and hopefully show audiences that humans are deeply complex beings. Let’s hear their stories. Let’s understand their challenges as a way to remind people to be more empathetic, to be more understanding, to be more kind.

It’s usually how to get rid of acne or acne scarring. That’s usually the first introduction that people have to skin care. I always recommend exfoliating your skin using ingredients like salicylic acid, or PHAs, to get rid of those dead skin cells. And then, I recommend not stripping your skin, making sure you’re moisturizing, and taking care of your skin overnight. And I always, always recommend sunscreen. Because even if you won’t see an immediate difference in your skin, it’ll help to prevent so much long-term damage. It’s really the best skincare product out there.

Probably DIY scrubs. When I first entered social media, that’s what you saw everywhere—DIY skincare, face scrubs using coffee grounds or sugar. There’s really no need to use a face scrub, especially one that is that harsh or abrasive.

I’ve been using the Youth to the People Superberry Dream Cleansing Balm. That one has been a nice, nourishing experience. For a cleanser, I’ve honestly just been sticking to Selfless by Hyram Centella & Green Tea Hydrating Gel Cleanser. Recently, I’ve enjoyed using a product I never anticipated, the Peter Thomas Roth Potent-C Eye Cream. I have been struggling with dark circles, and that one has been the best-performing product by far.

I always use the Selfless by Hyram Salicylic Acid & Sea Kelp Pore Clearing & Oil Control Serum. I have to use that one every day because my skin’s always so oily, and I want to make sure I’m preventing any potential breakouts from happening. It’s so lightweight on the skin. The I’ve used the most this summer is the Rovectin Clean Lotus Water Cream, a Korean lightweight gel moisturizer that makes sure my skin never gets too greasy. And for sunscreen, a recent thing that I’ve been loving is the Hero Cosmetics Mineral Sunscreen. It’s just a really good formula, very minimal. I honestly don’t see any white cast on my skin.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Hyram Yarbro is an American skincare influencer known for his Skincare by Hyram videos on YouTube and TikTok. His videos consist primarily of product reviews, skincare advice, and reactions to celebrity skincare routine videos. In 2021, he launched his own skin care product line, Selfless by Hyram, with Sephora.

Yarbo was born in Paulden, Arizona and grew up on a cattle ranch. He is one of five children and was raised in a deeply Mormon household; according to Yarbro, his childhood home "was a very religious environment with no internet and highly restricted materials". Deeply disapproving of homosexuality, Yarbro claimed his family expressed, "extremely violent rhetoric and dangerous remarks made about gay people" and that he was kicked out of the family home when he came out as gay. According to Yarbro, he suffered from depression, eating disorders and self-harm throughout his teen years and early twenties as a result, and he attempted suicide during this time.

Aged 18, Yarbro moved from Arizona to Honolulu, Hawaii in 2014 to study at Brigham Young University, later dropping out for financial reasons. According to Yarbro, while at college he experienced premature aging and became passionate about skincare products when he used them and saw how effective they could be. He went on to work as a make-up artist at Saks Fifth Avenue. Yarbro has described his motivation for starting his YouTube channel as being borne out of a realization whilst working the job that there weren't any resources online about skincare directed towards consumers.

Yarbro began his YouTube channel in 2017. In 2019, he went from 50,000 to 500,000 subscribers in under two weeks, and later in the year reached a million. He joined TikTok in 2020 and experienced further growth during the COVID-19 lockdown, going from 100,000 followers on TikTok in March to over 6 million by September. Between March and October 2020, Yarbro released videos about the L'Oréal sub-brand Cerave that were credited with contributing to increased popularity and sales of the brand. During this period, his videos contributed $3.2 million in media impact value for the brand and reportedly led to a 89% increase in its global sales in 2020. This led to Yarbro receiving a paid partnership from L'Oréal to create branded content on TikTok and YouTube. In October 2020, Yarbro signed with United Talent Agency. That December, he announced his first ever product collaboration with the Hyram x Kinship Sea the Good collection. A portion of the collection's profits were donated to Lonely Whale, a charity devoted to removing plastic from oceans. In 2022, he started a podcast called Justaposition, a play on the word juxtaposition, which is centred around exploring his and other influencers' mental health journeys. That year he also began posting to Flip, a social media app similar to TikTok; although according to Glossy, he had only a small following on the app as of that August.

In June 2021, Yarbro launched his own line of skincare products called Selfless by Hyram consisting of five products priced between $20 and $30. The line was created in collaboration with Colette Laxton and Mark Curry, co-founders of skincare brand The Inkey List, and released exclusively to Sephora stores in 29 countries and online on June 24. Yarbro teamed up with non-profits Rainforest Trust, Youth, and Thirst for the release of the line with the aim of protecting over 2,500 acres from deforestation, restoring over 370,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and funding clean water projects in over 60 African communities in the first year after release. The line was released in the UK in March 2022.

In a review of the line for The Independent, Louise Whitbread praised the choice of ingredients in the products, which she says are "proven to make a difference to skin" and gave especial praise to the Centella & Green Tea Hydrating Gel Cleanser. She also found the provided information about the social impact of the products "informative and useful". Marriska Fernandes of Yahoo! Canada Style praised the consistency and effectiveness of the products, and called the Niacinamide & Maracuja Daily Barrier Support Moisturizer "one of favourite products in the line".

Yarbro is amongst a wave of social media influencers on platforms such as TikTok referred to as "skinfluencers" for their focus on skincare products. He has also been described as "at the forefront of the men's skincare movement" by GQ Australia. His content consists of reviews and recommendations of beauty products, skincare tutorials, and reaction videos in which he reacts to the skincare regimes of his fans and online influencers. On TikTok, Yarbro utilizes the duet feature to make such reaction videos, often responding to users posting under the hashtag #skincarebyhyram. According to lifestyle magazine Elle, he also uses the feature to debunk skincare myths propagated by other users. He is known for recommending products which are at a lower price point, generally at a price under $50 and regularly under $10.

Yarbro's reviews have been described as taking an ingredients-first approach and he has become known for his catchphrase "the ingredients don't lie" which has appeared in his merchandising. According to The Washington Post, Yarbro's brand focuses on promoting "clean beauty" consisting of products with safe, organic ingredients. According to The Independent, he disapproves of products containing fragrances and essential oils whilst praising brands that utilise sustainable practices to make their products. Yarbro states in his content that he is not a licensed dermatologist or aesthetician, instead calling himself as "skincare specialist", and has claimed that his content should not be taken as medical advice but as "shopping with a best friend". Yarbro's audience is primarily made up of generation Z and is 90% women.

Yarbro makes money from his content via affiliate links, YouTube ads, and brand sponsorships. He has stated that he refuses 90 to 95% of brand deals offered to him on the basis of product ingredients and price, and a desire to retain the trust of his audience. Yarbro also avoids working with luxury brands due to his focus on recommending more affordable products.

Yarbro has been criticized along these lines for promoting a trend called "slugging" in which Vaseline is applied thickly to the face and left overnight which dermatologists say can worsen acne. Nylon included excessive slugging on their list of the 10 worst beauty trends on TikTok of 2021, naming Yarbro as one of the influencers that promoted the trend. Doctors have stated that consumers should not take skincare advice from influencers on TikTok.