Thursday 1 May 2008

#71 Alley Up

There's nothing novel about www.makeupalley.com - but that doesn't alter just how wonderful a site it is. Millions of product reviews, millions of worldwide readers and writers and the biggest cross-section of tried-and-testeds anywhere on the web. I've come to double-check it everytime I write a product review... and the truth always speaks volumes.

Before logging on and reading up, ensure that you always check the number of reviewers against the percentage of people who would buy again. The higher the percentage AND number of reviewers, the closer you'll get to finding a great product.

It's also worth checking MUA's Top Picks from time to time, to get an idea of which products are being consistently praised. Two of my favourites - MAC Fluidline and SK-II Air Touch Foundation - do very well indeed, despite the latter being expensive.

It's reassuring, in a very basic, humanistic way, to read reviews that reiterate your personal opinions and, even more so, to try something that has been proclaimed an 'HG' (that's Holy Grail in Makeup Alley speak) by the press, try it for yourself and hate it and then log on to see it denounced by hundreds of users too.

It's also fascinating for another reason. When something is really good, it's often universally acknowledged to be so. There are of course users on the site who get miffed when a recommendation doesn't work for them - again, proving that there are always exceptions - but on the whole, when a product lives up to its promises, the praise it attracts borders on fervent.

And given the amount of poorly performing products out there, that's just the way it should be.

3 comments:

Ink said...

There are some things I'd like to change about MUA, but the sheer number of reviews really is amazing. Unfortunately, very few products work universally, but MUA is incredible at helping avoid products that don't work for anyone.

Anonymous said...

Its great to see MUA get a mention in your blog, its a truly invaluable website and I'm sure has saved me hundreds in avoiding potentially useless beauty purchases! Another great feature of the product reviews is that you can sort the reviews by the skin type of the reviewer which I find helpful when looking for skincare for my skin type (oily, sensitive and pores that block easily btw, I really must have done something horrible to someone in a former life to get that horrible combintaion!). Also if your after recommendations for a beauty product but don't want the pushy sales talk in a shop, the MUA message boards are full of equally beauty addicted girls who are very helpful. Keep up the great work miss malcontent!

Jessica Teas (née Gearhart) said...

Hey there. Totally agree. It's on my permanent list of good beauty reads. In fact, that's one of the features that will be on the Cult Beauty website when it's. All products can be reivewed! Peer reviewing is paramount for impartial information on products.