Platform-Native Authenticity in Beauty and Wellness Ugc: It's Effects on Consumer Trust, Engagement, and Purchase Intention in Short-Form Video Environments

The rise of short-form video platforms has fundamentally altered how beauty and wellness brands communicate with consumers. User-generated content (UGC) created by independent creators increasingly shapes purchase behavior, yet the specific mechanisms through which platform-native authenticity , the alignment of content style, format, and tone with the norms of a given platform, affects consumer trust, engagement, and purchase intention remain insufficiently studied. This article examines those mechanisms through a systematic review of scholarly literature, supplemented by data from industry analytics and four practitioner case studies drawn from campaigns in the U.S. beauty and wellness sector. The findings show that platform-native UGC consistently outperforms repurposed or polished branded content across engagement metrics, and that perceived authenticity mediates the relationship between platform-nativeness and purchase intention. The study introduces an original Authenticity-Trust-Conversion (ATC) framework that models this relationship and offers actionable recommendations for practitioners and brand managers. Results will be of value to digital marketers, brand strategists, academic researchers in consumer behavior, and UGC creators working in beauty and wellness verticals