Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Why this popular Asian beauty YouTuber wants to tell you her salary

Why this popular Asian beauty YouTuber wants to tell you her salary

Singapore-based Tina Yong, one of Asia’s most popular beauty YouTubers, isn’t afraid of talking about sex, relationships, mental health – or how much she earns.

Most YouTubers hold various cards close to their chests. Discussing what plastic surgery they’ve had, past acrimonious relationships and – most taboo of all – how much they earn is usually out of bounds.

But not Singapore-based beauty YouTuber Tina Yong, who’s not afraid to address the kinds of thorny topics most of her peers shy away from.

In between videos about hairstyle tutorials and K-pop-inspired makeovers, Yong coolly talks about the events that led to the breakdown of her previous marriage (a mutual incompatibility with her hard-partying ex), what cosmetic procedures she’s had (her eyelids) and just how much she’s made from YouTube in the past six months (a high of US$15,255 in May and a low of US$11,377 in September, or an average of “around US$10,000 to US$15,000 a month”).

And her 3.17 million subscribers love her for it.


“The older I get, the more comfortable I am in my own skin,” says Yong, who is Vietnamese but grew up in Australia. “I hope that by me being open and honest about these topics, it can help other people who may be going through something similar.”

But isn’t she worried that revealing just how much she earns will make her a target of criticism, no matter how unwarranted? Yong admits she was “a little hesitant” about sharing those details in a recent video, where she revealed the entirety of her YouTube analytics page to her subscribers and explained what each statistic meant.

She says she decided to reveal the page – and all the juicy figures within – so aspiring vloggers could get a better idea of the inscrutable industry.

“This kind of information wasn’t available when I first started my channel, and I kept thinking about how useful it would’ve been for me back then,” she says. “I knew that it would shed some light, and help those who were thinking about creating their own YouTube channel.”


A trained hair and make-up artist by profession, Yong set up her YouTube channel in 2013 without any delusions; she was, in her words, simply creating videos she thought her clients and students would like to see. It turned out that millions of others wanted to watch them, too.

Her uncomplicated beauty tutorials regularly rake in millions of views; in fact, her channel broke 1 million views in less than 10 videos, with her sixth video, “Big Voluminous Hair in under 5mins!” garnering 1.3 million views to date.


Yong is now working on opening her own make-up and nail studio in Singapore.


Yet as her channel began its steady ascent, Yong’s mental health took a nosedive.

In a 2018 video, a teary-eyed Yong confessed to the pressures that life on camera brings.

“And I’ve never told anyone this,” she starts, addressing her then-subscriber base of 2 million followers, “but when I first started YouTube in 2013, I was really depressed with my life at the time. My marriage was going down the drain, my relationship with my family wasn’t there, so when I found my passion in make-up, and being able to share it with you guys on YouTube, that really helped me get over that really bad time.”


Yong says her nascent YouTube channel quickly became an escape for her, something to “fall back on” after her marriage dissolved. But as her subscriber numbers began skyrocketing, her anxiety grew.

She says she struggled with impostor syndrome– the feeling that she couldn’t match up to the bubbly persona she created for the camera – and felt a growing sense of dread each time she uploaded a new video.

“During that time, I was so focused on creating content and chasing numbers that I eventually burnt out,” she says. “I felt like I was at the peak of my career, but I wasn’t feeling happy or fulfilled inside – the more popular my channel became, the more I was afraid that if I didn’t keep that momentum going, then I would lose everything.”


Yong holds a make-up demonstration.


Adding to the pressure was the fact that Yong wasn’t just providing for herself: she wanted to “take care of the people that [she] loves”, including her immigrant mother – who had fled Vietnam to give her three children a better life – and her husband Alfred Tran, who left a high-flying finance job in 2017 to help Yong with the business end of her brand.

Yong says that she’s since managed to get a handle on her anxiety. “Blending my personal life with my online personality has become more common – I think it’s gotten a lot easier over the years to handle, because I’ve learned that I don’t necessarily have to share everything in my life, and I still have control over what I choose to share.”


Yong and her husband Alfred have been based in Singapore for the last 4 years.


Yong is now working on opening her own make-up and nail studio in Singapore because she wants to connect physically with her supportive fan base.

“One of the ironies of being on YouTube is that even though my content is watched by millions of people, I’m not actually physically interacting with anyone,” she laughs, adding that this face-to-face interaction is “one of the things I’ve missed the most” about being a make-up artist.

“When I first started my channel and it was gaining popularity, I was chasing goals like reaching a million subscribers, for example – but that didn’t fulfil me,” she says. “Now, I’m just creating content that makes me happy, and that I enjoy.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×