[Music] welcome to your biscuits I’m Linc and I’m Rhett this week at the round table of dim lighting we have Elle and Blair Fowler beauty and fashion vloggers and real-life sisters their main YouTube channels are all that glitters 21 and juicy star o 7 both started in 2008 they’ve got a combined strieber base of over 3 million in over 400 million views and I gotta say I think that these sisters are very very much responsible for pioneering the style vertical on YouTube that attracts so many advertisers today yeah their makeup tutorials and clothing hauls among other related videos keep viewers coming back weekly but the girls have expanded their online personas to create their own makeup line skylark and handbag line with online retailer JustFab they were featured on Teen Vogue 17 Mary Claire Marie Claire I don’t you know I’m speaking out of school here Marie but I don’t really know glam I know glamour that’s a magazine as well as New York Times and Wall Street Journal I mean that’s that’s kind of thing I’m speaking a little out of school here so I was excited to get the backstory and to understand what makes them tick you know they’re they’re pioneers they’re helping shape a medium well because this is it this is a is a huge deal I remember the first time I saw a makeup tutorial video I didn’t will actually watch it perfect personally perfectly I saw your makeup wasn’t perfect I saw a thumbnail for it I was like that’s weird and it was probably one of these it was probably either Blair or Elle I don’t remember and then I started seeing more and more and just to give you some perspective if you watch YouTube videos on a regular basis you already know that this is a huge slice of the audience this is a huge slice of YouTube and online video in general is the beauty and fashion videos but this is such a big thing that there are people like the Fowler sisters like Michelle Phan who have built empires around these videos that started as girls in their bedroom telling you how to put on makeup yeah and as a listener you may not be into this type of content style halls makeup fashion and the like I mean but it’s still a great listen because as I said I feel like I really gained in right into two of the people who are shaping an entire world of content mm-hmm it’s it’s truly a phenomenon and it’s something to be reckoned with right we talked to them about dealing with online hate do they get an unusual amount because of what they do we talked about their relationships you know the struggle of being online for so long and being out there in the public eye keeping those relationships private and then what happens if they become very public and plus their relationship with each other I mean there’s got to be competition there what are the what are the similarities between the two of them the differences I you know it was fun to explore that as well as answering critics who say that their content is too superficial should they be doing more is there a sense of responsibility there I get into all that and more here it is our ear biscuit with the Fowler sisters Bret and I we do wear makeup in some of our videos quite a bit well I wasn’t gonna say quite a bit I was gonna say likes sometimes if we have to I’m gonna be like a famous shaving accident and then we’re shooting in a GMM I’m like the makeup has to happen oh I don’t I’m gonna come right out and tell you I wear makeup on every episode of good mythical or nice y’all greasy my forehead and noses well you don’t have to tell me I was just gonna cover for you I mean no I cover myself with makeup every time we get ready to film but I don’t really know what I’m doing so at this point it is it’s when you can say guys it’s okay to wear makeup well you know it’s totally fine if you’d like to wear makeup but I I can’t say that I have been around a lot of guys on YouTube that like to film wearing makeup yeah what do you Tory what do you think no I don’t what do you think of that and tell me the story that you’re saying you now don’t have no I I think it’s totally fine I think especially if you can joke about it but then if someone comments and it’s like wow you look like you’re wearing makeup and you get all defensive and you’re like right oh my gosh I would never do that all that I just sit there and I’m just like oh you wouldn’t I watch you I wouldn’t you wear makeup on camera though completely normal for guys to wear it on camera go in your everyday life that’s up to you don’t do that you get to make your own decision don’t wear makeup in everyday life on you don’t look very shiny jewel he doesn’t look shiny because he’s wearing makeup no you know I mean I don’t know maybe I wash my face in this afternoon or something now I will say I washed my face ten minutes ago okay sorry go you did yeah I did you wash your face first I washed my face for you you guys you got to understand something about link though I wanted to have it you should you can’t you can be flattered and you should be flattered but link will wash his face like sometimes I’ll be like where is he and then I’m I always in the bathroom washing his face I think he’s addicted to it in that’s kind of tell him it’s not good for his face to wash over wash his face y’all notice right but I I mean you apply makeup yeah okay I wear some makeup in good mythical morning if I’m like real shiny yes sometimes I’ll okay every time but I will just a little bit just a little bit just a little bit it’s not like well it’s not like eyeliner we can just turn into a pirate show mythical morning it did it is pirates aren’t mythical they’re real we’re gonna turn you into a unicorn that would make sense well those types of pirates are a little bit I mean eyeliner pirates if you go to Ethiopia off the coast of Ethiopia they’re not wearing eyeliner no I mean like Captain Jack Sparrow yeah I mean I understand in my dreams that’s what they look like tell me about the story of the guy who does it deny wearing makeup now that we’ve come clean I think he’ll threw you under the bus she was like has a story no I think it’s something that you’re not gonna say who it was as well but you could probably I mean if I gave you three guesses in the first two didn’t count you’d still probably be able to get it so I get three guesses this is dangerous yeah usually usually it doesn’t we don’t put somebody this on the spot until later on we let you off the hook we’ll come back to that but yeah I mean in all seriousness I’m not ashamed fact that yeah we wear powder I mean I don’t wear as much as a as an anchor like a news anchor but this is our this is our effort to try to connect with your content because you know it’s because you talk about a lot more than just makeup oh really like fashion do I’m not being facetious I know you do I make videos on my cat sometimes I make videos on my dog sometimes this world is expanding very quickly yep but you don’t have a home decor video sometimes but if you have makeup advice for us you feel free to give it at any point what type of translucent powder well are you using translucent yeah okay which is pretty good rice powder oh he’s like you need yeah okay what do you use rice powder I use it I use this makeup is it is it is that is that bad loose loose is that no that brush no I use some sort of little it’s like a pad okay what do you what is the other questionable yeah I would use a brush yeah I say but a different brush you should use a different brush than him yeah because his oil will go onto your face and then you guys will both be oily that’s already happening yeah get smile all the time that’s been happening for 3 to 5 years that’s why he’s addicted to washing his face I did notice your oil off my face notice if we make a video where we hire a makeup artist you know like some narrative video where we’re a music video or whatever and they do other stuff what brushes but then we’re doing gmn on the like I don’t want to just be mr. shiny man so I’m just like but I’m patting it down a little bit how often do you change that pad though when the makeup runs out it comes with the main bacteria that is harvested on that pad we don’t we we don’t harvest it we leave it on the pad oh it’s you it’s harvesting harvesting it but it’s good bacteria right by the kind of isn’t yogurt no that’s why I’m like well what are you and right they’re using rice paper we’re using the right rice powder yeah rice paper is a matte eyeshadow color yeah that’s the same color as rice powder yeah so I need to be using a brush you need a brush in you yeah you need to not use that pad we should just throw it away remember when Julian Smith gave us this really long tutorial on wearing makeup and he said my aunt told me you’re supposed to wash your face moisturize your face thoroughly and then put rice powder on top of that and this that’s why you use it okay can’t use rice powder my cards do probably yeah I don’t know why I use it I mean nothing because I just take the sheen off man no I know that but I don’t know why I chose that because I was like I don’t want something with color on it because I don’t want it to look like I have makeup on right and it seemed like yeah it was translucent but can we just talk about this all night yeah actually actually we can’t I’ve pretty much run out okay all right yeah you can’t we instead talk about I think our other point of connection is the South now y’all are from Tennessee right so whereabouts and where do you live now we live in LA okay yeah do you live together we live in the same building different units in the same apartment we weren’t very good roommates we tried so hard we just we didn’t make it yeah if we were a couple we would have broken up okay okay explain that tell me that conversation we’re just very different people as like girly as we both are we’re just incredibly you know what it is we both are OCD with neatness but only with like the way we want to keep things neat so we constantly were arguing over like the same type of thing because we wanted to keep things organized differently like we just like very different on so many things we just we needed our own space so we got our own space and now I know we’re like best friends again yep that’s how it works how bad did it get we like screamed at each other we never screamed at he I screamed at you maybe I scream at me yeah maybe I screamed at you and my mind so that’s another difference you’re a screamer I’m not a skel is not a screamer do I ever scream have you did you know have you ever hit have you ever hit each other no but so what was the fight over that broke the camel’s back it was probably over that little cabinet in our hallway in between our bedrooms that I want to go into a coffee bar and you wanted to how is there no stupid why do you need a coffee bar upstairs when there’s one downstairs and you not walk down a flight of stairs little corner knows it would have been declares we would have had to buy another combination it would have been you know we needed a place for our coffee mug collection that we both collect so it’s half your problem okay but we had a place in the kitchen cabinet above the coffee maker who moved out okay that means you were wrong no it means I was very right well technically we both moved out get our lease ended and but it was her she’s the one that was like I’m moving I mean our lease was ended for a while and we were doing like month-to-month because I can’t get our stuff together and so but the conversation – let’s not continue to live together was it your idea it kind of the chips fell into our lap yeah to do that because we were kind of discussing getting our own places but we were also at the same time looking for condos together like we were still gonna buy a place together and then we just happened to find a building that had to individual condos within our price budget in the same building it just kind of happened but the being in the same building that’s pretty cool gonna say how often are you in each other’s apartments it’s better than ours they have much none of them are the same and they all have a character on them and did you make a video about this not yet we got in honor of Teen Choice Awards see if we have a little TCAP a were you nominated yeah congratulations and when did when did that happen that was just like okay the awards are this Sunday they they just a few days yeah recently like last four days ago Monday yeah so does the the red carpet now first of all for women versus men I mean the red carpet is of dudes just wear a suit right you know and for girls it’s like it’s big everybody’s gonna be looking at you the pressure is on I mean this is like heightened expectations so how do you meet those expectations in one way like it might fall off err no I’m gonna maybe mine well yeah yours might yeah um no it’s just every red-carpet event has a style they all have like a reputation for the type of dresses like the range that you should be and the Teen Choice typically you wear little short dress kind of casual Billboard Awards you can get away with anything you want it’s a whole range so we kind of went a little bit outside of what would typically be seen at Teen Choice no I will tell you one thing by the time people are listening to this it will have happened okay they’re googling right now so and we’re not gonna tell anybody any details from this so I would love to know the approach that you’re bringing to this and how you think people responded to it so we picture so they can see it and help describe so oh wow we are being dressed by a really awesome designer Michael Costello so we went into his showroom and tried on a ton of different dresses and we walked in we were driving there together and I said we have to we can do anything we want but we have to pick short dresses like you don’t see long dresses at Teen Choice it’s a summary event it’s casual and it’s teens a lot of teens are young and youthful they don’t wear gowns you’re not doing short dresses no you’re doing tight dresses they are tight known for our body con tight dresses we pretty much always wear tight dresses so mine is like a hot neon yellow with a really low back and an awesome like train that then goes into this black fishnet it’s so cool event so you’ve got like neon yellow and then Elle’s got like hot pink it’s kind of like you got us you got a squint when you look directly at a dress involved in this yeah I’m gonna have I’m have to have tape on the sides because when I like glean for it it looks like it’s really tight but it actually this area just kind of and I can’t wear anything under it because it doesn’t have a back what is this glue stuff we actually were just talking about this the other day basically you know like that double-sided tape you can buy at the store like Christmas present okay basically like that’s not glue it’s not fun glue spray spray on yeah hairspray no it’s it’s a spray they actually have called glue for pageants and it keeps your underwear from during the swimsuit competition part of the badges it keeps it from going up the crack I don’t know if you could spray that on dresses though it might like mess it up so fashion day you’d have like a like a wet spot you don’t want a wet spot you know you just could be strong enough no we need some hardcore fashion yeah our fashion tape like it hurts to peel it off your skin like it peels my spray tan off has her dress little tiny straps that are the only thing holding on her dress and the way her dress is is that she slips into this the straps with her arms straight so if she leaned forward if I’m entire dress with just way if I like let my shoulder pouch it literally just like just come off it’s not like a sleeve like a typical sleeve where it comes from your back how you gonna keep track of that at all yeah I’m gonna keep my shoulders back chest out you gnashing tape stuck and and what happens when you when you win and you have to go out there well we’ve been nominated for three years and we’ve never won so so chances are you know who’s to say who are you up against in this category michelle phan bethany mota graveyard girl zoella yeah okay so good competition amazing competition we’ve never been up against other beauty gurus before and we’ve always been like random web stars and they put you at Black beat us the first year yes really and but they put two together yeah yeah we’ve always been nominated together as a duo which is great because and then one of us can’t win well neither of us have ever we’ve never so even together but maybe we weren’t together one of us would have won oh I didn’t say me I said one of us ha ha okay all right well we’ll let you guys work on that later can you figure out the coffee bar so let’s go back to Tennessee okay and continue the thread of being individuals but then also having live life together so how did it all start well we were born in Georgia okay that was I this is not about you brother huh not Georgia I’m I’m I’m interested in their story okay well I gotta tell him I was born in the same state Jackie you can’t expect me to hold that kind of stuff back man we were born in Georgia we lived there for until I was in fifth grade and then we moved to New Orleans for a year and then we moved to Tennessee so we weren’t until we weren’t in Tennessee till I was in middle school and then we went over to Tennessee and then L went to college and when she came back it was between her sophomore and junior year sophomore and junior marriage of college I started YouTube I was bored I was so bored so I was home from college and I was bored out of my mind you know I had been in college for two years I was in a sorority I was living my life like thinking my life was just the best thing ever and then I came back for the summer and there was just nothing for me to do all summer so I was like I need a hobby and so I decided actually myself putting on makeup and now this was before that that was a cool thing to do I mean this really like wasn’t it wasn’t really a thing it was summer of 2008 and there weren’t you know okay so two years into YouTube ish but no one was there were a few girls we were all the very first girls but in terms of it being you didn’t see them yet okay yeah the beauty community the way it is now wasn’t a thing what’s an assistant yeah why was that what you did what made you say I’m gonna make this type of video well I’ve always been in love with beauty and fashion our mom is really girly so mom’s taught us to wear makeup when we were really young if she wasn’t like a pageant mom she just was very accurately wouldn’t let me be a Hajin I said yeah higher from the like as young as I can remember until I was like 16 I begged them to let me be in pageants and they always said no and now looking back I’m fine with it but at the time I was very upset hmm yeah anyway so they weren’t pageant parents no I wish they had been I wanted them but you were schooled in the ways of makeup from a very young age like on special occasions she’d put a little blush on us I was wearing a full face of makeup to school every day by the time I was in sixth grade and curling my hair every single morning I was that girl really I would have hair rollers like in my hair every morning when I was like 11 yeah I look back on that and I’m like what kind of 11 year old was I well I mean what’s the answer the kind that turns into a beauty guru and she rose yeah the kind that comes home from college and doesn’t really have anything to do and she’s like I’m gonna film videos of myself putting on makeup were you trying to be somebody or were you just was it you were just really into it I definitely wasn’t trying to be somebody in fact I didn’t know at that point that you could be somebody I mean this was before I was even aware of the YouTube Partner even amongst your friends I mean like our friends for a year a long time took us a year to tell them it was a bit weirder well I actually I I was asking the question as an 11 year old I was still back there asking when you would put your hair in curlers and invest that amount of time and makeup in curlers and you’re asking yourself what kind of 11 year old was I do you have an answer now as to what your mode is worth then was it I’m just really into this as a hobby or was it you were after the results she wanted to look pretty for the boys at school did you want to look pretty for the boys wearing makeup I mean I didn’t really start wearing makeup but I was also really into it yeah I liked it and I I didn’t resent the process I mean I liked getting up early in order to do it but at the end of the day it was because I had a crush yeah who was this yeah who was it his name was Josh and if my friend Teddy is listening to this she’s gonna die you know what though can I just say that my first first crush of life yeah the crush I had in kindergarten the first boy I ever liked in this world I’m still friends with what’s his name his name is stone and he’s of course you liked him yeah yeah he’s one of my best friends still but what when you when you Facebook Josh you know all of my crush it’s nice my college crushes because by then they’re I mean by the time you’re in college you’re pretty much an adult you I mean you’re you’re kind of who you’re gonna be yeah but like the crushes I had when I was really small with the exception of stone he’s still really cute hi stone he’s probably listening but other than him they’re all weird every single one of them every single one of us so your judgment was clouded no I think I think it goes to show that you don’t want a peak in middle or high school no seriously I know that were like so popular and you wanted nothing more than to be like their best friend and stuff like have you lost a girlfriend yeah have you looked them up on Facebook like it’s it goes to show it’s okay not to be like the most popular kid in middle in high school because you might be sitting in Los Angeles doing a podcast and be cool one day so yeah so Blair you’re saying you were not popular it was always like so pretty though she doesn’t even know what she’s talking about except when she was two but then she was really cute she had a little bowl cut I some reason my mother thought it was a good idea to give me a bowl cut like one word at the cue today put the bowl on your head and shave up to the bowl like a little boy okay maybe she’s not confused maybe maybe it’s a possibility I think I think the little boy in front of me got it done in my mom was like oh so can you put a bowl on your head and I was like I’m gonna Bowl on my head and that’s probably how it happened so back to junior year in college or before junior year yeah you come back home you’re still you still have a love for putting on the makeup and so that was your first instinct to the type of YouTube video you were gonna make well and she also we live in such a small town there wasn’t a Sephora or anything like that we had drugstore makeup that’s it but if you wanted to invest in higher end makeup you had to order it now or something like that you had to order it online but when you would go read the reviews you never really knew who was reviewing it it could have been a salesperson for the company and me I wasn’t thinking about deep I was know enough about the process to think it was a salesperson I just didn’t think there was a really good way to order products online but your first video was a tutorial it was so bad it’s not up any it’s a yellow eyeshadow tutorial who wears yellow on their eyes honestly I mean you’ve done a couple yellowish-white or you know what bringing a full circle I use the color rice paper I’m not and that’s that’s the color that I used in that in that cheese really yeah and I didn’t talk it was a silent video shows were bad though I mean the quality was back there wasn’t it sound but the sound was not the audio wasn’t taking down to zero it was just it’s very slight brushing yeah stuff like that maybe a coffee are there no it’s like you didn’t know the webcam was running exactly and I was cooking at the web yeah it’s almost like someone put it where is Grand except it was me subscribers overnight and I’m like people are weird and how long until you meet your first YouTube for maybe like a week but she had put up a video and then I remember she came into my room at like 3 a.m. and she was like I need to make you a username and I was like what and she was like I’m gonna make you a YouTube account and I was like ok this is after your video posted you got 10 subscribers you’re like you’re getting in on this like it’s the most fun thing ever I’m gonna film you putting on makeup and she goes um excuse me no I was in post videos of you doing things in your bedroom by yourself on the internet but I’m not going to so she made my my username juicy star zero 7 I have her to thank for that which now looking back on it sounded good right what was the thought process behind that she asked me she was like she was like well what do you want and like for your username and she was sitting on the end of a bed and right like behind her was my coat rack with my Juicy Couture purse and I was like I like Juicy Couture and she was like ok juicy juicy star and juicy star was taken so 7 so you go you go back to college and Jan I didn’t have a computer anyway to film videos so for the first year or for the first six months I would only film like L came back for fall break and then Thanksgiving break and so I filmed a couple videos and then she edited and uploaded them for me like spaced him out a little bit so that it looked like I could have a good answer I’m responsible for her Channel yeah but what are your parents thinking at this point my mom knew about from the first night Blair did it but my mom did like she was in on it she watched the little yellow eye shadow look the night I put it up she thought it was weird but she was supportive our parents have been supportive since the very very beginning weirdly supportive like it’s a weird thing your kids are doing essentially back then because it wasn’t a thing right there was no reference point exactly it wasn’t back then how did it start to catch on when it was slow slow growth or something it was slow but you know it wasn’t that’s like looking back on it it wasn’t that slow yeah well I was working at a fast food restaurant this whole time so because she was on weiners I was I was the star of the Weiner grill what restaurant it’s called power it’s like basically like the in-n-out burger of but they make policy and we have hot dogs but there yeah when you order it when you’re like on loudspeaker you have to call out like Weiner and like she was a wiener girl what does that do for your reputation in a small town to be the Wiener girl you know something she like no I mean really online were my only like friends it’s also sad to say but like seriously like I didn’t really have anyone in town that I was like talking to except the people that worked at pal’s with me and they were awesome they were like yeah so I was working at the fast food restaurant and I saved up money over the course of the summer and up until Christmas for half of like the price of a macbook so then for Christmas my parents paid the additional money and so I got my own computer and was able to start making my own videos which was really exciting and for some reason I was like you got really addicted you really video every single day for like 90 days which was like unheard of at this point and we were like I look back at it 90 days yeah they were all really good video video they were all like how to give yourself a French manicure and I look back and I can’t do it to myself like the best how to do a French manicure video that exists like that I’ve ever seen yeah and I was waking up but it wasn’t immediate traction with those it was just I mean it wasn’t like the views were going through the roof or were they yeah that’s when they started like you see star became juicy star was during that 90 day time period she had her Rainbow Room and a lot of times when people think of juicy star oh seven they think of like her in that time period yeah what were you thinking too young or anything like that and L what were you think when this started taking off were you like hold on now second I mean I got you started but I was still like cuz I had been doing it for six months before her so even when this was happening I was still way above her she ended up passing me later on but at this point it was still like she was now also we didn’t mention we hadn’t told anyone we were sisters oh yeah you didn’t know that we were related looking back on it I don’t remember why we did that part of me thinks maybe we were trying to be like safe on the Internet that’s why it wasn’t any reason other than just also we didn’t think it was gonna be a big thing so we didn’t tell people and then there was a conspiracy that came out and it was like Elle and Blair Fowler said there’s a new lonely girl they’re the same they’re the same person that’s what it was this was right around the time of the lonely girl thing did you address it yeah and we were like we’re not a wrong person they’re like people would be watching my videos and be like last time I saw you you had blonde hair and I was like what that wasn’t me that wasn’t my channel that wasn’t my video like but you didn’t say that was my sister no yeah no not yet but then people started they they found out I mean we lived in the same house like with the same animals but you know it was a sister the same animals is funny but we never showed anything outside of our own individual bedroom so you wouldn’t have known it was the same house necessarily and really I only showed the cats and you only showed the dogs oh yeah we could have kept it secret except for the fact that we have the exact same voice and we sometimes look like we’re wearing a wig in each other’s color well this is an interesting thing because having just started to express yourself on YouTube and then finding that you have an audience and finding that you you’re becoming really really popular in that you’re starting to become scrutinized you know and this is a good example of it I think it goes even further in terms of criticism which we want to talk about but figuring out what’s the what’s the line of privacy like even a quick Wikipedia search you can kind of see okay people talk about what are their real names I mean you tell the story but there’s question about well those aren’t their real names their legal names are different and at some point you have to make a decision are we gonna address this when first started I wanted to be incredibly private like always been a super private private person but I never did this seeking celebrity in any sense of the word I wanted to keep my online persona completely separate from my real life persona and when I started I didn’t know that was unrealistic I mean I didn’t know what path might my channel was going to take mm-hmm Blair wasn’t like that at all if she hadn’t been my sister I probably would have been able to keep a lot more things private a lot of the things that came out about us happened because this one in there did interviews where she was like all this stuff that like I would have never put out there if people don’t know how to track you they can’t track you well this one here made it real easy to try maybe you could find our address because of this one here doing interviews instead so ever so Ellen Blair the names so L was my nickname anyway that was the name I was going by in college it was short for L for Lisa and I’ve talked about how Lisa is my legal name in like video a very long time ago I don’t bring it up a lot anymore because at this point it’s controversy that’s followed us for six years but that’s how it started and I thought you know what I’m doing this channel I’m not putting my last name out there I’m just gonna go by my nickname like why go by Lisa when I’m going by L anyway and when for privacy reasons it makes more sense regardless so I went by out and then I’m glad I did because that’s what I go by since she had gone by a nickname I was like well I’m gonna go by a different name and and Blair was not my nickname before this just throwing it out there but I never had gone by my first name Laura I had always gone by my middle name Elizabeth so I’ve always just had a very odd name she had because when she decided to go by Elizabeth which she was a couple years old when this happened yeah and I told him I would only respond to Elizabeth I still called her Laura for a really long time but I was the only person that did it so she always said you let her through with Laura only her but I think I just I don’t think we actually talked enough for me to care we weren’t close growing up yeah which you know we were five years apart we were never in the same school at the same time we didn’t have any friends that overlapped and honestly our personalities weren’t ones that made us get along easily the funny thing is though she slept in the same that is me yeah our entire child like her entire like you slept together yeah yeah like she had her own bedroom but she would come and get in bed with me every single night don’t call it we like wouldn’t but when you were awake do you or not you wouldn’t that weird a little bit mom brings that up now and she’s like that’s how I always knew that you guys had potential to be friends one day is you guys you slept in the same bed loved each other as sister I was just I was just scared of the dark did I let you sleep with me every night when I was like in high school so was the first relationship initiative when you said I’m making a YouTube account for you and I’m gonna I did this now you need to do it is that when you guys started to be friends yep yeah YouTube but it wasn’t until so we started being friends like she filmed like my first couple videos and edited them for me and stuff like that I still didn’t get along so like even I wish we had kept the raw footage of those videos cuz it probably would have been me I was rolling my eyes at you and like we still weren’t really friends but then we put up a sister video together and you can tell if you watch it now like we can tell looking back on it we were not close we were like we weren’t in like friends we didn’t even have fun filming that video that video was hard to film but back to the name thing whenever you were going by L then you were like well I’m gonna go by Blair yeah well and she was she was older when like she was had lived off for two years from our parents I had just turned 15 so when I was starting at my parents were like you know you are still very young yeah our parents told her she needed to go by they were like buh-bye they were like just go by a nickname her screen name just go by juic star then and I was like guys what was the transition personally because well online as that started to grow you were only known as Blair right but personally do you Blair from the day you started your YouTube you guys switched from like Laura – Blair yeah and she had never called me and skipped Elizabeth entirely so comfortable calling her Elizabeth but I was the only person she went by Elizabeth yeah everyone else in her life yeah but everyone now cause you Blair yeah personally like your parents young and it’s funny because I actually took a guy home like maybe a year ago and he ended up like after he had like met my parents and stuff we were just like sitting watching a movie or something and he was like you know I have to say I didn’t believe you when you told me that your parents called you Blair and I was like it kinda made her mad I was like why would I lie about that like I would have told you’re my boyfriend I would have told you if like you know yeah I’ll tell you this I think for some people they can look at our name story and think it’s weird as heck and be like I don’t understand there’s no way they go by those names in real life they’re not their names but the thing is they are first of all and second of all our family like I said have always been weird with names we’re a huge nickname family like our youngest sister I’ve only called her jelly jelly in her life or well the interesting thing for me is the challenge of having to deal with this perceived controversy because people were saying that we were trying to our viewers that we were trying we weren’t and that’s not what it was yeah so that’s why it made us upset at first did you in retrospect did you handle it correctly no I didn’t address it for like four years just because I was like dead maybe I did I don’t know just at that first summer this summer after we started summer 2009 I was interning for Seventeen magazine city and that’s the summer that hate started like we didn’t have it before then because I remember I was living in New York when this hate bubble started and when it started it just like exploded characterized that hate bubble what do you mean I’ve been till that point we had a really amazing like we might have had one comment that was like you’re ugly get off the internet and that was like for like yeah I don’t have I don’t think I got a single comment like that for the fried here I got it yeah like I didn’t get any like every comment was so nice and we had never been exposed to hate and it was that summer I was living in New York and I remember starting to get the little trickles of mean comments and once they started they just explode it exploded and turned into this this thing where like everyone who ever wanted to say something mean to me saw someone else do it and said I’m going to say something mean to and how did you deal with that each other it was awful like I almost quit that summer how bad did it get what did you do I mean you cried a lot yeah oh yeah we’ve cried a lot and really considered quitting um it’s you have to remember especially when it wasn’t a career at this point we weren’t really making money off of it I mean there was no reason to stay other than that we loved it but it was fun that’s the only reason in the snuffle of it like and I remember I would say like I would go to school and I was being bullied at school because of it because I hadn’t told anyone about it and then Seventeen magazine did an article on us that came out like two months before I before summer for my sophomore year of high school and I just I hadn’t told anyone because I’ve in my mind I thought that they were gonna think I was like trying to brag about it or something like oh like you know I’m doing this and but they found out anyway because it’s like well what if it doesn’t have yeah and then I was like what if I’m that girl it’s like I’m gonna be in a magazine and then it doesn’t happen and then and I was like I don’t want to brag about it anyways but they ended up finding out and I remember the day I walked into school and like this huge group of girls came up to me and they were like you know we’re gonna like beat your ass in the lunchroom and I was like why like I’m not sorry I was like okay you like I’ll see you there what’s going on Amy today they tried yeah but they I put my hands up like this and then I ran away and then I ended up I didn’t go back to my lunch room the entire rest of the two months I ended up sitting in my fringe teachers classroom so I just ate alone in the classroom for the rest of the two months and then I was allowed to come in five minutes late and leave five minutes early to go get in my car because then they would start waiting at my car is that what eventually led to you dropping out of high school was that related yeah well I didn’t drop out of high school I became homeschooled okay so yeah my parents would have never let me drop out of high school and I wouldn’t have wanted to you know just for personal reasons but I became homeschooled because of that yes but no junior and senior junior and senior year of high school yeah but she finished in one year yeah what component of it was I’m gonna make this a career was that even on the table yeah or was it just I cannot be in school just it was just the amount of like anxiety and fear that I had and it’s funny because actually L had she wasn’t living there at the time she wasn’t experiencing this with me my mom was but then we ended up going out to a dinner like two years later with we have an online shop called glitzy glam and we have like 10 employees for it and we ended up taking everyone out for dinner like two years later and our server ended up like being one of the bullies and we we ended up we left because I just like just being in her presence was just scary to me like and I’m not a physical person like I remember when I came home and I was like yeah tomorrow if they come back up to me I’m gonna like go like this and my dad was like well if you do that you’re gonna break your thumbs so I suggest you like don’t try to eat me first of all everybody everybody on the Internet is a target of criticism but do you think there’s something especially about being a beauty vlogger yes and what and what is it specifically that you think brings that extra grace or saying what who do you think you are trying to teach us how we should be doing like our hair and makeup do you think you’re that pretty do you think you’re that cool like all that stuff and I was like no I just like it like you know but I do think that that putting yourself in that marketplace and stuff I think that’s definitely why you can get more hate more lately I believe that and for some reason I think Blair and I are still like some of the biggest hate targets in the beauty community and the only reason I can really think why is because we were one of the first ones and we have been easy to hate on for years we’ve been easy to hide an easy target yeah I mean I would probably hate you do you think there’s a difference in the way you come across that invites it more if you feel like you’re getting more hate is that it is that true I mean in your when talking to if you talk to Michelle or if you talk to the you know the other names that you mentioned can you are you able to gauge know what we could do differently cuz we don’t do anything you know everyone says that they get it and stuff like that like when we judge them about it but I think that just personally looking I just feel like I feel like my bigger targets I get it you know or maybe there’s two of us maybe it’s I don’t I don’t know I think Blair gets it more than me but I think we get it more than anyone else really in the community how do you deal with it nd is it worth it it’s so worth it which is why we’re still doing it six hours later I just had my sixth youtube birthday woo me too yeah she did too I’ve noticed with prank channels they seem to be getting laughs at people’s expense you’ll see that they start to do the type of pranks they say see I’m not that bad of a person see how I help this person do you feel like that you there’s some sort of PR thing that you could do to say I’m you know just kind of put yourself out there more no if you if you cried in a vlog and people felt knew how it hurt you would they lay off is it guns because we’ve kind of done that before where mentioned that it’s it’s hard before and they’re like well then why are you still doing it is it worth it yes absolutely without a doubt their lives that be so different and it’s right that aside I think the question really comes down to that first summer 2009 when we first started getting hate we weren’t being paid yet so we didn’t have like it’s my career and this is my livelihood and all that argument backing it up it was purely a question of do we like this enough to deal with all of this hate and we did we stuck with it what has been the net effect of dealing with that type of criticism it’s just and now you’ve got a perspective that this is just part of the deal if we’re going to do this this is what we’re this is part of it but and you’ve you’re seem to be in a good place with how you deal with that but it obviously has affected you in some way like how do you think you’re different because of the criticism that you’ve received we’ve a really thick scan we’ve grown a thick skin and I think it also we are really good at heping each other up if we see the other one needs it like we might joke about how like you know we don’t live together anymore and like stuff like that well like we joke about how we were bad roommates but living together is what bonded us so much it is yeah and then we can be joking and if she’s like I just don’t feel like filming today stuff like that and you know there are times where I’m like then don’t just go get in the movie go get a tattoo with me let’s get drunk but I can also tell when their time that we do need to push each other and she’s a really good pep talk giver she’ll come over she’ll be like you’re still pretty I could be an inspirational speaker one of the things that that we’ve noticed is that the vast majority of YouTube comments can be just frustrating but then every once in a while there’s something that you read and you’re like I don’t like that but you know what there’s some truth in that mainly ones that obviously the ones that are like you should go kill yourself and you’re so ugly all those sort of things like I’m not obviously gonna listen to those but I get a lot of constructive criticism like you shouldn’t pump your mascara wand like that before you put your mascara on it puts bacteria like back into the tube like things like that a lot of people are like then we’ll jump on them and be like that’s so mean why would you say that but then I look at it and I’m like thank you for telling me that so like constructive criticism I definitely take away like a lot of good things from but it’s just the straight-out mean comments but I’ve also said a lot of times I don’t actually think that we should call them haters there are haters out there but for the most part I feel like a lot of mean comments on YouTube are just people with different opinions that have a rude way of saying yet or they’re just having really bad days yeah or they’re just unhappy people sprinkleofglitter was talking to us recently and she made a really good point she was saying you know when you’re having a great day and you are just like so happy and everything’s going so well in your life you don’t find the need to be hateful yeah you’re just having a really crappy day or if you’re just a very unhappy person and you’re sitting there and you’re watching and you’re like that’s wrong and that’s wrong and that person like is doing this wrong and stuff like you want to expel it hear someone down to build yourself up yeah and as a result it’s almost sad when you read those comments because you have to think like what are they going yeah you never know someone’s family life and you know what six years ago when we got a mean comment it was the end of the world and now we can read 30 of the meanest comments in a row and I yeah glad that our skin has gotten so tough with it because it’s almost like it means we’ve been exposed to so much hate that we’re like numb to it now which is actually kind of sad but it works in our favor because we have to deal with it all the time by virtue of the type of content you create I mean a lot of it is focused on how you present yourself to other people so it’s I mean it’s by definition external in a lot of ways how do you think your content contributes to how girls think about their self-image we’re very open with our viewers I mean we talk about we we have bad days and you know we’re definitely trying to show confidence on the inside and on the outside that we aren’t doing these like makeup videos to show you how you can be pretty or something like that we want to show you how you can enhance your prettier yeah feeling better it’s your natural features and feel better like walk with the Lord understand if that doesn’t give you an extra pep in your step then you don’t because I certainly wouldn’t yeah I feel better when I’m wearing but I yeah like it genuinely makes me like a better day it does yeah yeah and that might be people just say but like I think it’s a personality thing not every girl that exists out there is gonna watch our videos and feel like if I spend an hour doing that every day I feel like my life would be happier but it really does make every aspect of my day I like love getting up in the morning yeah making a cup of coffee and like doing my hair and makeup it’s mine first of all yeah then you feel confident all day yeah I mean if you don’t look that good that day I mean sometimes we do our makeup and we still don’t look that good but it’s not about how you look as much as like you feel like okay and it’s like a routine put my hour in and now I feel I look the best I can I’m like Superman with my little costume on I would imagine that you get criticism on what you’re focusing so much on the external what about what about the inside yeah you know I don’t really get I don’t I don’t really get that either and you know we could do videos where we talk about like the charities that we donate to and stuff like that we don’t because that is something that we feel like if you were to do that like it’s just kind of showing like oh look how good of a person I am I actually don’t really get criticism yeah and I really yeah I don’t really get that having established yourself with the type of content that you do do you ever feel like trapped by the genre do you want to try other things because we and do anything yeah cuz we do do what we want to do like if we want a daily vlog we daily vlog if we want to do a book review we do that if we want to do a video that’s 30 seconds long on my cat running around I put that on the Internet and how do people respond to that because from the very beginning we’ve done that though we’ve never put ourselves just we’ve never pigeon holed ourselves yeah one type of we’ve always been a little bit more like just anything in Ellen Blair’s world that we want to put on there we do so so you do have the freedom to create different types of content or different types of videos that you can connect with your audience in different ways oh you said earlier I could be a motivational speaker you know when you were talking about when when Blair needs that pep talk and you’re there for each other to deal with that has anyone prescribed to you you know what you should also make videos that address the internal I’ve been requested to do advice videos before and the reason that I haven’t done them is because I just feel like Who am I to really give them advice on the inside I don’t know it’s kind of one of those like Who am I to give them advice on the outside either I don’t know but if they want to learn from me how I put on my makeup like I’ll teach them that I just feel like giving advice on how someone should live their life I almost feel like I don’t have the authority to do that unless I knew him in real life and I knew their situation but that’s why I’ve never done it I just feel like Who am I to sit there and be giving it we’ve also been really careful from the very beginning we’ve always said you know we’ve never had any sort of professional training on this or anything like this is how we do it this isn’t maybe how you’re supposed to do it we might do it really wrong yeah and we’re not the best we’ve never been the best we’ve never claimed to be the best we never will be the best no on the internet there’s there’s this value of being transparent and the more you can connect with your audience the more people eat that type of stuff up there’s certainly people of all ages who were just gushing about whatever their opinions are and their perspectives but there may be people who are thinking when you give advice about the external there is an opportunity to be honest about what’s going on on the inside too if your self-image is not tied up totally in how effective your makeup makes you happy I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that but I’m I guess I’m asking the question is there more to the picture of what makes up your personal self-image that there might be potential for you to share that with your audience just as food for thought not okay here’s my advice of how you should view yourself I mean we try to put a little bit of that in our videos but I think as of now we’re not doing like full videos focused on that we could but we just have it yet I guess it would require a number of things not the least of which is a vulnerability that is your right to not not have to go there yeah I guess I was curious if you ever got that feedback people said well you’ve got these girls watching you and they’re eating up all your advice related to make up anything you say they’re gonna they’re gonna take it to heart so give me that motivational speech about what matters is your what matters is what’s on the inside I’ve talked to them before kind of loosely about like the bullying thing and I gave a little bit of advice on that and I did get a good feedback of people saying like I didn’t even realize I was a bully that liked what I was saying could be hurting someone and that way and stuff so I think we do little things like that but I mean yeah I know we haven’t done like full videos yeah and I think you bring up a good point with the privacy thing for me is I’ve never really I’ve never talked about relationships I’ve never really brought friendships into my youtube channel and I’ve I would have never brought my family into it was it not for this one doing it first it’s hard because it’s like if I was just beauty and fashioned and I could say well I’ve always just said I’m only gonna do beauty and fashion but that’s not true because I kind of do anything I want if I want to put up a video of my cat it’s hard I don’t really know where the line is even for myself I’ve always just kind of been in a little bit of an open book yeah except lately I have been putting relationships online cuz after I did that the first time in let’s talk about relationships yes with Sawyer that’s what you’re referring to so in retrospect well what would you have done differently what happened wasn’t a youtuber when they first started dating first of all I mean I didn’t even tell him I was a youtuber I told him I worked in beauty marketing because if I go to if someone’s not in the YouTube space so you started dating him and then you got so you got him you got you’re harming into YouTube oh yeah he hadn’t done it for like the first six months of us dating or something so you’re still friends yeah okay I mean yeah we we just did a collab video together where right he spit a lot of water in my face how was that I was sick for a week afterwards so gross yeah I was yeah it wasn’t from him I mean I don’t know if it was from him that I was sick for a week after ya draw your own conclusion mine was gross he was carrying something that’s what I thought lol told me you know be careful putting like a relationship like that online yes I’ve never openly talked about any relationship I’ve been in in a six years I’ve been on YouTube in fact a lot of my viewers are convinced I’ve never had a boyfriend or a lesbian which is very poor yeah yeah which is very untrue just a little bit of searching I find that okay they say you’ve got a boyfriend I I do have a boyfriend you’re in his videos and she tries to be very private about her okay that’s a weird exception because he’s also public but I will say that we kept things very hush-hush for a very very long time I don’t know anyway um but I’m talking about back when she was with Sawyer at this point I had had three boyfriends in that time period none of which I had breathed a word about on YouTube so when she started dating Sawyer he wasn’t a youtuber he wasn’t in the world well and I did not tell youtuber Twitter about him he did so I’ll just throw that I don’t remember that all I remember you giving her advice to keep it off the internet because that’s how I had done it and that was just my big sister and it was really now you’re trying now but it’s difficult okay but the music video thing was done is a fat one yeah that was just it’s cold that turned into a really long time you make a music video with somebody and next thing you know you’re it’s more serious we have a really long history we’ve been friends for a very very long time I was in his music video as a friend as a maid I thought it was a documentary I’m sorry now but now it’s interesting because we have talked to many people at this table about the about this issue right this whole relationships and YouTube and you had there’s this weird thing because as youtubers we’re all more open with our personal lives than a typical celebrity would be right but at the same time you usually know more about celebrity relationships than you do with youtubers because they tend to be more restrictive about that particular part of their lives do you feel like there is I mean just like link said I mean a little bit of searching and you can find out what everybody is saying about your current relationship yeah and that’s the first time that you’ve ever been able to really do that with L with the exception of like one person because I have always dated people completely out of the public eye so it’s very easy to keep it completely secretive when the other person isn’t a youtuber or a celebrity yes they’re just normal people every single boyfriend I’ve had in the past you can’t find any pictures because I have a personal Facebook that’s private are you concerned about that relationship now that it’s public I mean it’s public but it’s still very private like they don’t really know I’ve never confirmed it yeah I think you just confirmed it I’m sorry okay you haven’t confirmed it that’s fair that’s fair we’ll go with that well and then I think like with Sawyer he kind of claimed himself I remember when he tweeted something that was like yes for those asking I am dating at juicy star double-oh-seven and I remember thinking you have like seven followers and not a single one asked you that so I don’t know I hooked it all of their Twitter pages no one asked you how pretty sure no one had any idea but then he did decide to start a YouTube channel and he’s done very well with it I will say he has worked very hard to get it where it is but since this is because I’ve had that public relationship since trying to date then and I’m single right now painfully and so if you guys like know anyone like I’m I’m single and ready to mingle you know we get it noted you might get a few tweets for that I mean I’m just saying like I would you want to start a family I do yeah immediately yeah I do yesterday but anyways trying to do really do then yeah yeah she’s really weird right now it’s like really odd that I’ve like I honestly believe I was put on this earth to be a mother and you want to get pregnant oh yeah I mean yeah I want to be a higher aid first she wanted to be pregnant for like when iers like when my mom got pregnant I was only nine years old my remember being really jealous I’m not sure I knew where babies came from but like I was really upset that she was pregnant and the stork hadn’t brought her a baby right you’re still getting a lot of tweets at this point but they’re from a different demo yeah okay all I’m saying you might have some volunteers one single that is actually a good person like would be a good father I mean IQ that’s like that’s like my number one thing like when I go on a first date I scare so many guys away because I ask them I’m like do you want kids and she says when you’re like you realize you’re 21 and I’m like let’s say you met you went on a date blind date with someone tomorrow and I’ll give me a time give me your being serious yeah it’s give me the for real first date tomorrow night with Jake Jake okay you know it would probably be a little while until we became boyfriend girlfriend like probably like two months is right right good less for you are you kidding so say it like two months that’s gonna be really creepy and then I want to date for about two years before we get existed is August first so two months will be it’s not August first let’s say it okay October ok October 1st October first so then we could get engaged like fall of 2016 and then I need a year to be engaged but I could I could take it down a couple months if I wanted to get married in science after no no I don’t be I don’t want a honeymoon baby I would I would want to be married for at least a year before I get pregnant and just like travel with my husband and stuff so realistically 30 yeah no realistically I’m not gonna be having my first baby in two like 26 if I met one tomorrow night so that’s why I’m saying like I really need to get on this okay it’s already been it’s like nine years you should just go on married at first sight right so uh how do you feel yeah how do you relate to this what’s your what’s your baby-making plan I don’t really want kids I want like three or four but I am I don’t have a timeline like she does okay you’re going to let it happen yeah I’ve never been that kind of person she’s always been that kind of person that’s always happened like I’ve had my life planned since I was like nine yeah it was not in the cards guys like I should be married by now actually but listen we wish you the best in that and a general request you know it’s been really cool getting to know you and being left behind the curtain of beauty vlogging guru dumb dad having us on you know it’s great we had the double-sided tape pulled back and well and now you need to sign the table thanks for coming in there it was our conversation with the Fowler sisters Elle and Blair got to say I’m not feeling too good about this makeup situation I’m talking about our personal makeup situation oh you still you’re still time there yeah the whole time and we talked to them after they mentioned the bacteria-laden pad that we’ve been applying to each other’s faces not just our faces but we’ve been sharing well I’ve been applying to my own face we don’t like reach across and like apply to each other’s face I’m not your makeup artist and vice versa but I think it’s important to note that we’ve been doing that for years not not with the same make I mean this this particular pad that we’ve been sharing for it’s probably this is probably three or four month pad could have been a year no but I’m saying even back in the early days of high digital 8 cameras when we knew that we weren’t supposed to be shiny and we went to Kirk our drug and ro right aiding and got some makeup we’ve been sharing we’ve been sharing some makeup brother yeah we might need to rethink that and our we’re going there to have to to buy like a replacement it’s like what shade do you get well I got the tan summer shade and then I got the winter paler shade yeah right and but I still cannot make sense and what do you do domestic cuz I’m in your in the wood space you put your face up next to it and guess you do if you match yeah we know so little but we it’s not a man there’s not a men’s makeup section just you know for like hair dye there’s a just for men’s section there needs to be a man’s eye makeup side and it probably works no different than the women’s hair dye but they just market it to men and they put it on a different aisles so that men don’t crap their pants when they have to make a decision if color hair you know it for men it needs to be the makeup section needs to be way smaller and it just needs to be a it needs to be this machine that you walk up to and it takes a picture of your face and then it just tells you what you’re supposed to get that should be in LA I mean with all the guys wearing makeup out here there should be like a like a red box for men’s makeup I don’t think you can justify more than that but it’s like a food needs to be a booth that you can’t see a guy in there cuz it’d be ashamed it’s like going to a strip club or something there’s like a a wall that you have to park behind yes right yeah you park behind a wall and then you get in a booth and get makeup okay well we’ll continue to work on that the Fowler sisters are gonna continue to work on this beauty and fashion empire that they have created yeah let them know what you think of the year biscuit tweet at them Elle Fowler and Blair’s is juicy star double-oh-seven so let them know what you think hashtag ear biscuits also let us know yes and we look forward to you being with us next week we do not wear makeup while we do here biscuits I do want to make that clear because you don’t see us and have not announced a makeup on right now be proud to say it and proud to say I want next week [Music] [Music]