Industry
Colour behaves differently on every face, so the face has to be real
Beauty is a before and after category by nature. Something changes on a face while somebody watches it happen. That only sells if the face belongs to a person the viewer believes. Here is what shade and wear are asking, why a rendered presenter cannot answer either, how one application take becomes a finished vertical ad, and what covering a whole shade range costs.
- One finished thirty second ad
- 110 CR
- How much runtime b-roll can cover
- 40-52%
- Longest source take accepted
- 3 min
Shade and wear are the only two questions, and a product shot answers neither
Every beauty purchase stalls on the same pair of doubts.
Will this shade work on me. Will it still be there at six.
A lit product shot answers neither. A swatch on a stranger's forearm answers half of the first one, badly.
Undertone is where the match fails. A foundation that looks right in the pan oxidises warmer by lunchtime.
A lipstick that reads neutral on a pale wrist goes pink on a deeper one.
Wear is worse, because it happens off camera. Nobody has ever seen an ad shot at hour nine.
So the sentence that sells is a report. I wore this through a full shift, and here is what moved.
Naming who a shade is wrong for does more for the people it suits than any range chart on the site.
A viewer who has been excluded out loud believes the inclusion.
- Undertone, not depth, is where a shade match goes wrong
- Wear is decided at hour nine, which no product shot can reach
- Ruling a shade out loud is what makes the recommendation credible
A rendered presenter cannot apply anything, and the application is the proof
Cutroom renders presenters from a photo at 320 credits a finished minute. This is the category where we tell you exactly where that belongs.
Beauty creative is a demonstration. A hand, a product, a face, and a change the viewer watches arrive.
A presenter render is one continuous shot of somebody talking. Nothing is applied and nothing changes.
It suits the announcement, the restock, the shade drop and the offer read.
It is the wrong instrument for a wear test, and a buyer in this category spots that inside a second.
The reason is not the rendering. It is that the evidence here is the application itself.
So film the application. It costs a phone, a window and twenty minutes.
Then let the render cover the reads where nothing has to be put on a face.
That split is the whole media plan for a beauty account, and it costs less than one shoot day.
This is the whole editor
Highlight a phrase and a clip lands on those exact words. No timeline, no keyframes, no layers.
Film the application once, then direct the ad on the words
Upload one talking-head take of up to three minutes. Cutroom transcribes the read and drafts the cut.
It places b-roll against the words and hands back a finished 9:16 MP4 with captions burned in.
You direct it on the transcript. Highlight the phrase where you name the shade and your swatch lands over exactly those words.
Delete a line where the light shifted and the cut rebuilds. Change the pace and the whole piece re-cuts.
Your application footage lives in your workspace library. Film the swatch, the blend, the lash close-up and the six hour check in one sitting.
Every ad you make afterwards is one highlighted phrase away from any of them.
There is no colour grading here, and that matters more in beauty than in any other category on this list.
Film the shade under the light you want it judged in, then let the read carry the description.
That is the correct constraint anyway. A graded swatch is how a shade return starts.
One wear test into a finished ad
Apply it on camera
One take, up to 3 minutes
Batch
100 CR, transcript and first cut
Land the swatch
Highlight the shade name
Export
9:16 MP4, 20 CR per output minute
Twelve shades is twelve ads, not one ad with a range chart in it
The standard beauty ad shows a range and names none of it.
Each shade is a different buyer with a different doubt, and none of them find themselves in a grid.
Twelve reads, one per shade or per skin tone, is a different ad account entirely.
Roughly 5 to 8 percent of creatives carry spend, per Motion's analysis of 550,000+ Meta ads.
Twelve entries is where the numbers start to mean something. Two is a guess.
A finished thirty second ad is about 110 credits. That is 100 for the batch and 10 to render.
Twelve is roughly 1,320 credits, inside Basic at $39.99 for 2,500 credits a month.
Premium is $79.99 for 5,000 credits, about 45 finished ads. A $15 top-up adds 1,000 during a launch week.
The trial is 7 days and 300 credits with no card, which is two finished ads before you decide anything.
Finished ads a month, by plan
One read per shade, at roughly 110 credits a finished ad.
- Trial, 300 credits2 ads
- Basic, $39.9922 ads
- Premium, $79.9945 ads
- Each $15 top-up9 more
What your camera films, and what lands in the ad account
The free b-roll search covers bathrooms, mirrors, morning light and people getting ready.
That is the world around the read, and it is most of what an opening needs.
Your product, your swatch and your applicator come off your own phone in one session.
Upload them once and they belong to every ad you make afterwards. Highlight a phrase and the clip lands on it.
Exports are 9:16 MP4 with captions burned in, sized for the vertical placements beauty actually runs on.
Source takes cap at three minutes. One project makes one finished ad.
In practice that holds each piece to one shade and one wear claim, which is what this format wants.
Emphasise the shade name so it pops in the captions. In a muted feed that word is doing the whole job.
Somebody has to be on camera applying it. For a beauty brand that is the cheapest asset you own and the one a competitor cannot copy.
Questions people ask
- Can my swatch and application footage go in the ad?
- Yes. Film it once, upload the clips to your workspace library, then highlight the words where you describe the blend or the finish and the shot lands over them.
- Does the tool colour correct my footage?
- No. There is no colour grading, so what you film is what runs. Light the shade the way you want it judged, which is the honest version anyway.
- Where does a rendered presenter fit in beauty?
- Announcements, restocks and offer reads, at 320 credits a finished minute. Not the wear test, because the proof in that ad is somebody putting the product on a face.
- How many ads does a shade range need?
- One per shade rather than one per product. Twelve at about 110 credits each is roughly 1,320 credits, inside a single month on Basic.
- Who should not buy this?
- Brands whose advertising is entirely macro product cinematography with nobody speaking. For demonstrated wear and shade reads, this makes twelve a month for about 1,320 credits.
One face, one window and twelve shade reads in an afternoon, for about 1,320 credits. A range chart has never told anybody whether it would work on them.