Women’s Wear Daily attended the Total Beauty blogging conference in Manhattan Beach last month and writer Rachel Brown’s piece on beauty bloggers’ evolving influence appears today. Special thanks to Anne Fritz from Jet Set Girls for alerting me to the article! (I should really get a WWD subscription, huh? But, but…$99 per year? In this day and age?? Eh.)
From left: Kirsten Lamberton from Beauty Riot, Jolie, Anne Fritz of Jet Set Girls, Tia Williams of Shake Your Beauty and Annie Tomlin of Bella Sugar. I have girl crushes on all of them
MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — Beauty bloggers, once snubbed and now coveted by many of the beauty companies they adore, are on a bumpy evolutionary trek from detached commentators to industry insiders.
“They are like the QVC of this time,” said Don Ressler, co-chief executive officer of Intelligent Beauty, owner of Redpoint Cosmetics and iQ Derma. “They have been really involved in the [beauty] space. They have really shown they have a voice.”
At the Total Beauty Blogging Summit held partially at Intelligent Beauty’s headquarters here from May 16 to 18, the advantages and disadvantages of bloggers’ rising power were etched out. On the plus side for bloggers, much of the beauty apparatus is taking them seriously as formidable links to consumers, and a support system of bloggers and online networks has blossomed to foster their success.
On the downside, increasing competition has made it difficult for individual beauty bloggers to stand out. Bloggers complain about pesky publicists expecting coverage, and burgeoning media awareness has led to a perception that they’re swag addicts with trigger fingers for positive reviews.
Dangling on the precipice between fringe and mainstream is certainly a tricky place to be. Many beauty bloggers are making an effort to keep beauty companies at a distance since traditional media, they said, often gets too chummy with beauty firms. (more…)
