You know, way before these makeup gurus were around in the block, there was Tati Westbrook. Although she only took off on YouTube with makeup tutorials rather than starting any kind of beauty line or brand, she should've been known better. But it wasn't until the online feud with James Charles [net worth: $25 million] that people started getting a glimpse of who she is. Although, according to Newsweek, she was already the mother of the YouTube beauty community".
Born Tatiana Aleksandra Krievins on February 14, 1982 (age 38), in Seattle, Washington, she is of Latvian ancestry and has three sisters, Larisa, Erika and Sabrina from parents Janis and Cindy Krievins. It's been a decade since she's been around in the beauty world (okay, almost a decade, no need to get technical), and she's definitely had her own ups and downs a number of times.
Westbrook was the makeup artist at her sister Erika's wedding (second right).
Photo Source: Tati, YouTube
But after all that drama in 2019, she's ready to move on. And there will always be some things hitting hard at her. Still, with such a long history of her work, the money that comes with fame is not to be underestimated. Her net worth will have you wishing you were she as well.
Tati Westbrook's Net Worth Boomed to $10 Million after That Feud, But It All Boils Down to YouTube and Product Sales
As of April 2020, Tati Westbrook owns a net worth of $10 million, the majority of it from the monetized video views from YouTube. She's posted a lot of time. Her company, Halo Beauty Inc., IS involved in her wealth value, but not as much as you'd think. Because the earnings she gets from the product sales, she mostly uses that amount to reinvest in new products and ordering materials for them. Still, it does keep the company running.
Westbrook's been around for before she was even a Westbrook.
Photo Source: Tati Westbrook, Instagram
Westbrook started her YouTube journey since 2010. She married her husband, James Westbrook, who regularly appears in her videos, in January 2017, and her ambitions grew higher as she launched her own company, Halo Beauty, in February 2018. As you can imagine, it sells vitamin supplements, now among others, the same kind of thing Charles promoted once that she took to her heart, and so the feud began.
Background: She Was Already on TV, But When It Came to YouTube, She Was Very New to the Camera
Believe it or not, Westbrook was a child actor as a teen having featured in an Unsolved Mysteries documentary in 1996. Then a decade later, she had a recurring role in the 2007 series, Greek, as a Zeta Beta Zeta Sorority Girl. And that was it. She was an image consultant before they decided to start her beauty-vlogging YouTube channel in 2010.
On January 12, 2017, during the wedding on Tati Westbrook and her husband James at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea in Hawaii.
Photo Source: Tati Westbrook, Instagram
The channel was initially called GlamLifeGuru as she posted tutorials and reviews of other beauty products while also giving general beauty tips and advice. But the beginning was not as it seems now for her. While she's regularly posting videos edited in a seemingly effortless way, the first days were not so easy. She knew little about editing as it took 12 hours to do what she now does in about three hours.
For now, the YouTube channel is just named Tati. Meanwhile, Westbrook also appeared on Amazon's Style Code Live as an L.A. based beauty correspondent in 2016.
Founding the Company and Launching Products
Tati Westbrook had enough fan following to start her own brand when no one expected her to. Well, except a few keen fans who've been anticipating big news for months before she really gave hints of a new beauty line coming to the beauty stores. The comments confirmed her words in the description box below her February 2018 video.
There was no official announcement, but later that month, Halo Beauty Inc. was established with people not knowing what kind of products they were getting from her company. Many expected skincare line, and she did release vitamin supplements since then.
The Halo Beauty Hair, Skin, & Nails Booster that costs $39.95 in retail.
Photo: Halo Beauty
Then in April/May 2019, the whole James Charles promoting SugarBearHair saga began taking hold of an online battle that had people going two ways about the two at different times. Here are all the intricate details you need to follow the James Charles V Tati Westbrook controversy in which Jeffree Star [net worth: $180 million] got himself involved in.
The saga kind of ended when the three decided to let it all go after Charles' No More Lies video revealing everything. In effect, Westbrook lost the eligibility for YouTube's Diamond Creator Award as she doesn't have 10 million subscribers for now.
Not Making a Dime for Herself from the $15 Million Earnings of the Company Sales & Hitting Back at Blendiful Critics
It would take one and a half months before she actually officially launched her own cosmetic line. Tati Beauty was launched on October 25, 2019. The first of her products was Textured Neutrals eyeshadow palette. The most significant of the brand's products was the second product, the Blendiful, a set of $18 makeup puffs, released in early January. The $48 in retail Textured Neutrals eyeshadow palette was also restocked around the same time.
Many were excited about the product she called a game-changer to be launched when she made the announcement that it would soon, while others felt it was not particularly a new idea in the market. Regardless, she released it but decided she would give time for users and other reviewers to give their general opinion on the product before actually making a tutorial-type video for the Blendiful.
Watch: She Also References Blendiful's Criticisms Before the Next Video Below
However, the responses were not as she expected it. She did release a tutorial video on the Blendiful; she did not start it like she would've wanted to. In the video titled BLENDIFUL DRAMA ... Recall, Gossip & Tutorial on Monday, February 3, she reveals she intended to leave time for other reviews before releasing the tutorial.
"My thought process was, give a little space, people are gonna love this, they're gonna figure it out, there's enough information on the website, there's enough information in that launch video, it's a pretty intuitive product," Tati explains in the video. "In my mind, I genuinely thought that I would launch the Blendiful, explain it, have the website, have the feedback, and I could sit back down and do this video right here, probably not with this intro."
She starts the official video by refuting the claims that Tati Beauty was a "cash grab", implied by YouTuber The Viewers Voice, the clip which she also shares in the video along with a few tweets from people regarding the authenticity of her brand.
I wanna also tell you guys, this isn't a cash grab. I haven't made a dime from Tati Beauty.
She then revealed the sales of the company, "The company has to date earned $15 million in sales, we have paid taxes, and then poured everything back into creating and researching and developing new product and ordering materials, and I am building this to be a dream brand for you guys and for myself." So yeah, her net worth is not all from the beauty brand.
The 38-year-old then references the complaints her brand got about damaged products and blamed the tabloids for exaggerating on the legibility of the Blendiful by only looking at five or eight photos out of the 100,000 pieces that were sold & judging the entire brand based on them. And even when buyers requested customer service, that was less than 1%, they all got the replacement for the damaged goods, specifically her long time follower Caitlyn Rhodes.
Source: From Caitlyn Rhodes
"It's very upsetting to have articles written on it," Westbrook said of the Blendiful. "It damages my brand. It scares future customers away, like potential customers that were watching the Blendiful and going 'Wow that looks so great,' and then they see that there is this overwhelming story that every Blendiful is faulty and it's falling apart, and they're like, 'You know, maybe not.'
"This is just makeup, but news outlets, professional news outlets, journalists, these dot coms that we go to for information, that we feel comfortable is correct, we're leaning on you to do your job, and to do that fact-checking.
"And I think it's irresponsible when you illustrate a narrative of a product that might need to be recalled and create hysteria and fear and 'Oh my god I bought one too and maybe mine's gonna break. Oh my god, what do I do? And it creates this feeling and this anxiety, and we're doing this off of what? Five, eight photos? That's it? Out of 100,000?
"I will happily be transparent and share with you because I do have the data. Out of 100,000, if you are showing that the majority, your eight photos, five photos, whatever, tells the complete story, I'm here to correct you and say it doesn't and that you need to do better fact-checking, that's your job. Step up to the plate and do better because if you are someone that is writing articles and sharing stories, whether it be makeup or world events, it matters."
Watch: Tati Westbrooks Silences the Gossips and Tabloid Accusations
That's some stern talking to... She even shows you how you could avoid the tear by washing the puffs gently.
Social Media Earnings — The Main Sources in the End
Gaining a foothold on social media has been instrumental for people these days. And Tati was there from the start. Although her Instagram following is not as impressive as it should've been. But the YouTube following makes up for that lacking, which is more lucrative for her net worth.
Not to state the obvious, but remember, she uses products from a number of large companies, and when she does that, she is sponsoring them, which can also be a part of an endorsement or partnership deals. Imagine how many brands' PR list has her name on it. In fact, she earns an average of about $1.3 million per year from YouTube and Halo Beauty combined. But a large part of that is obviously YouTube.
YouTube
Almost a decade of content creating has made her bank balance shine with green. Yeah, a corny little sentence, right? Nevertheless, she earns her share of the money through ad revenue for the significant number of views she gets from each video, besides the sponsorship deals she has with the companies she uses the products of. Her videos are obviously monetized, and since YouTubers get paid $2 - $7 for every 1000 views, it's not a surprise her net worth is as it is.
Watch: Tati Westbrook Sees Her First YouTube Video She Kept Private for Years
It's not just the number of views working for her. The number of videos she's uploaded also multiplies her fortune in comparison to other YouTubers. At the time of writing, Westbrook's primary YouTube channel, Tati, has over 1,660 videos since her early days, with 9.6 million people subscribing to her. From each of the videos, she gets about $1,300 from ad revenue with an average of about 700,000 views. But the highest views have reached over 10 million as well. And at one point, the drama in 2019, she even had over 10 million subscribers.
Westbrook's got 2.8 million followers on her official Instagram page, Tati Westbrook (@glamlifeguru), and has posted over 1,300 times. She earns about $7,500 per each of her posts the same way she does on YouTube, sponsorships.
Instagram is also a place she promotes her new products.
Photo Source: Tati Westbrook, Instagram
The posts are a mix of everything, her daily life, updates for her YouTube videos and also those romantic moments she shared with husband James since they were married. Oh, and she also became a step-mom to James' son Tyler when she married him. He also appears on her videos.
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