Behind the scenes at Beauty Review

Tell us abit about yourself.

I live in Takapuna on Auckland's North Shore with my partner Simon, cheeky 8 year old daughter Stella, and our two Jack Russells, Kramer & Hurley.

What's your background? Have you always been in the Beauty Industry?

Pretty much, I was in the corporate world for many years, I was the General Manager of Beiersdorf NZ for over 10 years, they are the owners of the NIVEA brand and prior to that I worked for a local skin and beauty product manufacturer.

So how did Beauty Review start?

It kind of started with a thought that I couldn't really define, and then snowballed from there until it really developed a form and life of its own.

When it comes to beauty products, both the buying process for consumers and the selling process for manufactuers is far more complex than it used to be. e.g when I had my first marketing job many years ago, Facebook wasn't even invented, and consumers to be fair were a lot more brand loyal.  Now days however, it's more about mico targeting.   Shoppers generally have a "number" of products within each category that they are happy to shop between, and they tend to be a bit more skeptical about Marketing claims.  This means that Brands can no hide behind glossy advertisments using  air brushed models and big product claims, as if a consumer buys a product that doesn't do what it says it would, they're not just going to chunter to a few of their mates, they're going to post it on line and it's up there for the whole world to see. 

Even the opinions of editors in Beauty magazines can be subjective as often products are mentioned because they are being advertised in the magazine and let's face it you don't often see a beauty editor give anything less than a favourable review for a product, if they've tried a product and not liked it, they are just not going to write about it.

So I felt there was a space to build a beauty community in NZ for NZ women that focused on honest product reviews and experiences...and here we are. The key point of Beauty Review is that it is completely independent, the opinions on the site are not ours, they are the collective opions of our community members, and our members tell us that that is 100% important to them.

We can't believe that you send out full size products, not samples for members to review!

Yeah cool huh! And they get to keep them. Thing is it's important that people experience the product like they would if they went and purchased it themselves, and there are many factors that come together that create the final impression. The packaging inside and out, the price, the ingredients, how it works, how easy it is to use, even how it looks on your bathroom shelf, and you simply cannot experience that with a sample.

Burning question, how do you choose your reviewers for each product?

Its important to know that we don't just send out free stuff to anyone that puts their hand up, because anyone can do that.  At BR we endeavor to match the product and the demographic with the reviewer as closely as possible.   When people sign up to Beauty Review they need to populate their beauty profile, so when we come to select reviewers we match the two up.  Therefore if we are reviewing a product that is targeted at women over 30 with dry coloured hair, your name will not come up for selection if you are under 30 and have non coloured oily hair, and vice versa.

Every week though, we run a number of promotional reviews - often nail or lip colours, these are open to all members. We use these trial teams to reward those member who interact with us frequently by commenting on our BR polls, articles, and on FB and twitter so essentially the more you talk with us,  the higher the likelyhood you may be selected for one of these trials.

Big corporate or your own business?

Pro's and con's for both. When I worked for Beiersdorf, I was lucky enough to travel the world and see places i'd never seen before,  I  had the privilege of working for one of the largest skincare brands in the world and had a lot of money to spend on Marketing. When it's your own idea, baby and business it can be a lonely place, and when you are getting started you need to really think carefully about how you do stuff.  That said I love how fast you can move when you have a small busines. We can think of something cool to add to BR today and it can be implemented next week.

Most importanty we have the ability to respond quickly to our members feedback. e.g we've just asked for feedback via a survey on BR from members and we will be responding to each and every point they have raised on how we can make the site more relevant to them. Whereas when you are a NZ branch of a global business and you get consumer feedback about your products, generally you do not have the power to change anything about them, or if you do it can take a long time.

What are some of the highlights of BR so far?

Three spring to mind, firstly how diligent and thorough the majority of reviews that members write, and the quality of them. They take their job really seriously, and not only do the reviews make interesting reading but it is really authentic and honest feedback.  

The second has got to be the success of our recently launched forum. We have a group of original BR members who act as a BR Advisory Crew, and it was actually their suggestion to develop a forum (ladies take a bow!), and here we are, launched just over a week and over  2000 posts! I have just been blown away.. and i've actually learnt stuff from reading what members have posted.  To me, seeing the chat going on in the forum, seeing women who had never met before now becoming friends has really cemented that community feel that we wanted BR to be used for when we launched.. legend!

The 3rd one has to be when we asked members to change their BR profile pic from one of ours to one of theirs and tell us why. The stories people were posting where amazing, inspiring and very heartfelt. It was so difficult to isolate 3 members out of all those who responded to trial the fragrance that we approached our friends at Trilogy and said, check this out, we think every story is worth something, and they agreed, supplying us with 65 Trilogy Everything Balm one for each member, it felt so good to be able to give everyone something.

Tell us seriously...do you really want people to be honest with their reveiws? Or do you just say that and anyone that writes a poor reveiw will not be selected again?

It is so important that members review the products they get sent honestly based on their personal experience. Writing a poor review will not exclude you from being selected again. Also when people are reading reviews on a product, most of them take overridng "themes" from the review strand. They get that if there is one or two bad reviews out of 20 it generally means that it may not have suited a couple of people but overall it is proabably ok. On the other hand, if the entire review strand is bad and similar themes of poor feedback come up from all members that reviewed it, then that particulary product proabably has a problem.

What do you find difficult?

Relaxing! One of the advantages with running a digital business is that you can do it anywhere anyhow, one of the disadvantages is that you never get away from it! I'm always dashing over to the laptop to see what has been reviewed lately or what one of the poll results is, and on a recent family holiday in Samoa I found myself increasingly on edge when we couldn't get a wi fi connection!

Pet peeve?

Lack of personal accountabilty.  If you've stuffed up, fess up. If you're eating too many takeaways don't blame the fast food outlets. If you're not as fit as you would like, don't blame lack of time and lack of money to join a gym, set the alarm an hour early and go for a run or powerwalk. Oh and the current trend for sparkly jumpers...they look great on the first wear, but one fingernail later and it's "snag city", and don't whatever you do let them anywhere near velcro!

Biggest delight?

Our daughter Stella, not a day goes past when I don't look at her and wonder what I did before she was in our lives.

Signature scent?

Happy by Clinique, or Gucci Rush 2

Biggest fashion "opps"?

Hair crime. Carrying the Farah Fawcett flick from the 70's, into the 80's god with possibly even a look at the 90's.

Have you been been personally influenced to buy a product because of a review on BR?

Alsolutely,  I went out and bought a couple of the Revlon Lip Butters and boy did they live up to the reviews! I also suspect given the level of discussion on it that Flowerbomb may be my next fragrance splurge.

Your personal favourite new find on BR?

Hmmmm, i've done a "pre trial" of one of the new Trilogy products that will be reviewed by the members soon (so i'm not going to tell what it is), but OMG it's a face lift in a bottle!

So what's next for BR?

We've got a number of really cool things and new features launching in the next couple of weeks which I know members will love!  We are always striving to be unique and be close to our members and to come up with ideas to keep people coming back to BR.

Question or feedabck for Merilyn?  Ask it below