Enter Makeup Alley. The site, abbreviated as MUA, started in 1999 with the intention of being a hub for user-generated product reviews. A new Maybelline foundation made you spotty? Shout it from the rooftops. Found an eyeliner that stays put as long as needed? Share your lucky find. And before you pick a new concealer, see which is getting the highest ratings online. Because makeup is not always pocket-change stuff. For many women, it’s an essential part of their daily routine and a lot of money ends up being invested in the right products for the right face.
The Daily Mail published a survey in 2010 claiming the average woman spends £9,000 on various cosmetics in her lifetime. You would be mad, or richer in cash than in sense, not to research a little and shop around before you start throwing down €40 for a bottle of foundation. And why would you listen to a shop assistant, who in these parts is generally associated with a single brand, for advice when you have thousands of contributors giving ratings out of 5.0 for any given product out there? This was people power at its finest, and it was going to pose a serious challenge for both brands and publications who were used to making sales on the basis of glossy and careful marketing.
Beauty and fragrance are huge earners for fashion houses, too: you can imagine that Chanel and Armani make more off huge numbers of airport perfume sales than on their handful of couture dresses per year. But another thing that the hiveminds of MUA, Temptalia and later, the millions of beauty blogs and YouTube channels who were born in their wake, heralded was the dupe: exactly as it sounds, the dupe is a product that may as well be a duplicate for another, more expensive product. Why buy the BeneFit highlighter when No. 7 do a near-match for half the price? Suddenly high-end beauty companies were shaking in their boots, and, eager not to miss out on the rapidly-growing internet dollar, began to court the bloggers.
