Blogging.  Do you know what it is?  Its slang for WebLog – ie, an online diary.  We all had them as kids, a lockable diary that your brother always found and tortured you with when he came across hearts and kisses around a certain boy’s name….

In the modern millenium though, diaries don’t seem to be private anymore, they’re now online and for all the world to see.  Yes, I know that blogs can be anonymous, and yes, you can set privacy levels to heights where only a certain privileged few can see in, but they’re now no longer people’s personal musings, but are now becoming some sort of media in their own right.

I was recently at the IMATS in London, and because MAF is a recognised online magazine, myself and one of the regular contributers were granted press passes as members of The Media. 

Online magazines are relatively new, one of the more famous ones is Handbag.com, but then of course there are the online sites that sit next to hardcopy magazines – think Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire etc, but because of the content of MAF, we qualify to sit as a magazine!

So imagine my surprise when I met a couple of girls with yellow press passes who then, when I asked which Media company they were with, answered with ‘oh, we’re not media, we’re bloggers’!

I’ve since investigated their blog.  It’s long, they seem to churn out great long reviews every day, but don’t actually say very much.  By their own admission to me, neither of them are makeup artists, or beauty professionals, in fact their ‘day jobs’ are so far removed from the cosmetics industry that it made me wonder what qualified them to be counted as beauty journalists – after all, that’s what members of the Press and Media are.

I will hasten to add that I’ve never been to journalism school and don’t have qualifications in writing, however, I write with a journalistic approach.  When I review a product, I talk about it from both a professional point of view, and from a personal point of view.  I talk about the good and bad points of a product and my articles have a start, a discussion, and a conclusion. 

I read one particular blog post from this same pair of girls, where they were talking about counterstaff hygiene.  This is something very close to my heart – I’ve been going on about hygiene standards at work for years and years, long before I became a makeup artist, and will more than happily challenge counterstaff if I see their hygiene levels are less than perfect.

This post however very loosely hid that they were trashing Benefit cosmetics and the poster actually allowed a sales assistant to put an eyeliner on her, knowing it wasn’t clean or sanitised, went to another counter afterwards and removed the makeup (clearly she would have given a reason to them, I’m sure most counters won’t just let women randomly ask to remove their makeup using their products), and then proceeded to talk about whether she should or shouldn’t complain or not, saying that she didn’t want the counter staff member to lose her job.

What’s the point of that blog?  Should she have allowed someone to put an eyeliner on her knowing it wasn’t clean?  Of course not. 

Should she have gone to another counter and complained about the first company?  No.  It would certainly have put the 2nd company in an awkward position. 

Should she have complained to anyone?  Of course, and she should have done it then and there to the manager, and certainly not to worry about the member of staff’s job.  This is clearly a training issue where hygiene hasn’t been drummed into them enough, and Benefit are extremely tight on hygiene (I know, I’ve spoken with them about it in the past, and have observed head office staff working to the highest level with disposables etc.)  Put it this way, I’m sure the counter manager would have rather known then and there about a possible issue, so that she could deal with it straight away, rather than having them badmouthed across the internet.

I’m going to go out on a limb here now, and say that in my opinion, Benefit counter staff are pretty hot on their hygiene.  I have a number of stores that I can access easily, and haven’t yet seen an issue there.  That isn’t to say that there aren’t ocassional blips on counter, but that would be the same for every company, and not exclusive to Benefit.

So what was the point of the blog though, other than to talk for the sake of talking?

This was just the tip of the iceberg though, so I decided to delve deeper into the world of beauty blogging.

I’m going to add a further disclaimer here, I am going to generalise and talk about beauty bloggers in the main, though I do know that there are exceptions to the rule, however, most non professional (non makeup artist/beauty professionals) bloggers are relatively fickle.

I struggled to find blogs about core products that brands offer.  Very few talk about foundations and powders and base makeup, and even less talk about staple eye products, like neutral eye colours and shades.

What they all talk about is the ‘latest thing’ that’s on the market, new ‘cult’ lip products or wacky eye colours.

In fact, while at the IMATS, I was talking to another blogger/youtuber who mentioned a new brand just on the market.  Now I have a selection of these products here, kindly sent to me for my review and professional opinion.  I actually really like them and the packaging, have found the products to be pretty flipping great, and have tried them on a variety of people.  I think the packaging is great and so far (6 weeks of testing in) faultless.

This particular blogger hadn’t tried them herself, but told me that they were rubbish and that they weren’t very good.  She said she’d heard that the dispensing mechanism was poor, and that people were saying they were too heavy.

I asked her if she’d used them or even seen them herself.  She said no, but that she’d read blogs on them.  I urged her to try them, but she said she didn’t want to, because she’d read what other people have said.

Again, I’ve done my investigation since this conversation, and are you kidding me?  These are NON professionals who’ve tried them out 2 or 3 times and trashed them straight off.  I’m a professional makeup artist and have been using them for about 6 weeks on dozens of different faces and am now prepared to give them an appropriate review, based on experience and a test over time.

So is there too much being read into what bloggers are saying?  Are they being taken too seriously?  Can a handful of bloggers make or break a brand?

I spoke to Illamasqua, who’ve had great success in the last 14 months, and put a lot of that down to bloggers.  Illamasqua have a blog of their own, and have done events for their favoured bloggers, so it seems to be successful for them, and their feeling is that blogging will be the new media in a few years time.

On the other side though, OCC (obsessive compulsive cosmetics) have had great success with their Lip Tar based on blog reviews, but their other mineral products have had less than favourable blog reviews, and as a result aren’t selling anywhere near as much.

But what about brands like MAC and Bobbi Brown who don’t go in for modern day ‘media’?  Do they need to worry about the lack of blogs of their own?  I don’t think so.  Yes, it’s a shame that there aren’t more blogs that talk about good quality base products and its a shame that some move on from one product very quickly, to the new ‘latest thing’ and that some brands can’t even get off the starting block because of a handful of biased reviews.

So is blogging the new media?  Well it would appear that we’re going that way, but perhaps its time to take more seriously, the blogger who has a professional background to what she’s saying, rather than the one that talks the most and the loudest, often with not a lot of content.

February 19 2010 – The bloggers who were referenced above regarding counter hygiene, have stated that they were not discussing the Benefit counter when they were discussing hygiene.