The Financial Diet’s Holly Trantham: 5 Items Influencers Love That You Shouldn’t Buy
Everywhere you look on social media, influencers are promoting brands and products. When you see influencers talking about how much they love specific items, it’s normal to feel like you should spend money on them. That’s what brands pay influencers to do — influence your purchasing decisions.
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If you step back, you may realize you don’t need those products. In a recent YouTube video, Holly Trantham, creative director at The Financial Diet, put together a list of five products influencers love that you shouldn’t buy. She also discussed the deinfluencing trend and how to incorporate it into your life.
Here’s a breakdown of the viral things she thinks you should avoid and her take on deinfluencing.
What Is Deinfluencing?
Influencer marketing has exploded in recent years. The global market for influencer marketing is now worth over $14 billion, and experts forecast it will reach more than $50 billion by 2028.
All that brand investment in influencer marketing adds up to millions of promotional posts. As you scroll on social media, you’re bombarded with influencers saying you should buy all these different products.
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Deinfluencing is a trend that rejects the rampant consumerism encouraged by influencer marketing. Social media users focused on deinfluencing encourage their followers to think critically before buying anything. They discuss the negatives of popular products, share honest reviews and talk about which products they don’t recommend.
Trantham elaborated on deinfluencing, “This isn’t so much about the specific items I’m talking about, but rather the reasons behind wanting them — whether they’re fixing a problem that doesn’t exist or influencing you to buy something to appear like a certain type of person.”
If you can address these root causes, it’s easier to cut back on overbuying the things influencers promote.
5 Influencer Favorites You Don’t Need
Trantham’s video fits right in with the deinfluencing trend. She highlighted the following popular influencer products as not worth the money.
Multiple Stanley Cups
Earlier this year, social media fueled a craze for Stanley water bottles. Exclusive collections of the Stanley cups sold out almost instantly at Target, and there was a significant resale market.
Social media users showed off their collections of these cups, with some owning 10 or more in different colors. As Trantham mentioned, there was even a trend of matching your Stanley cups to your outfits.
The most popular Stanley tumbler retails for $45. It’s easy to spend hundreds of dollars on these bottles if you feel like you need many different colors. No one needs a dozen different water bottles, though. Trantham points out that buying so many may even defeat the purpose of reusable water bottles.
“I’m just not sure that having that many different of the same kind of tumblers is helping us achieve what reusable waters are supposed to do — i.e. cut down our consumption of plastic and other harmful resources.”
It’s better to find one reusable water bottle you like and stick to it instead of buying multiple ones.
Greenwashed Products
Greenwashing is when companies make misleading or false claims about being environmentally friendly to get consumers to buy their products. Unfortunately, there are lots of greenwashed products on social media.
Trantham mentioned Keurig as an example. The Canadian Competition Bureau fined Keurig $2.2 million for suggesting that its single-use coffee pods were recyclable when, in reality, recyclers often don’t accept these pods.
She advised, “Don’t fall into the trap of buying something just because it claims to be green.”
If you already have something in your house that does the job of the “green” product, the most eco-friendly thing you can do is keep using that product and buy less.
Dyson Airwrap and Other Hair Tools
Another product that influencers often promote is the Dyson Airwrap, which retails for $600. They post videos using the tool to style their hair in different ways and talk about how great it is. There are over 250,000 posts with the hashtag #dysonairwrap on Instagram alone.
You can get drawn in by the impressive results and glowing reviews, but does the average person need a $600 hair tool? Trantham said no.
“While I anecdotally know a few people who genuinely love the Airwrap, most of them do admit that it’s not the tool they turn to the most, and I know several more who have purchased one only to be let down.”
There are usually similar, cheaper options for the products influencers promote. A product isn’t the best simply because influencers are talking about it. If you want a new hairstyling tool, compare your options before buying one. After taking a step back, you may even decide you don’t need any additional tools.
Collagen Masks
Collagen masks are popular skin care items you’ve likely seen all over your social media pages. They’re supposedly anti-aging, reduce wrinkles and make your skin firmer. The question is whether these masks actually deliver the advertised results.
Trantham spotlighted a board-certified dermatologist who explained that collagen itself hydrates the skin, but the masks don’t do anything to replace lost collagen. She also emphasized that the masks are “so new that there’s not any research about them.”
Be skeptical of bold claims about a product’s benefits online. Do some research to see whether anything is backing up those claims before buying products like collagen masks that influencers promote.
Organizational Supplies
With the popularity of influencers showcasing their uber-organized homes, it’s easy to think you need lots of organizational supplies. Items like plastic storage bins, glass jars and customized labels all fall into this category.
“In these restocking videos, we see people are buying things that come in individual or single-use sizes that already come in individual packaging only to then put them in a giant bin,” Trantham said.
You can often skip buying the extra organizational supplies and leave items in their original packaging. Your storage may not be as aesthetically pleasing that way, but it’s just as functional and much more cost-effective. If you still want some storage bins or other organizational tools, consider buying them secondhand to save money.
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