You just read a glowing review of a new beauty product from an emerging company in Cosmopolitan. If it came from Maybelline or Cover Girl, you wouldn’t bat an eyelash before buying it, but can you trust the consumer reviews you read of beauty products?
Consumer Product Testing and Reviews
Allure asked the same question and delved into the world of incentivized beauty reviews. It turns out, these products go through a process known as consumer perception testing. The cosmetics firms themselves do not test the products. Instead, they provide them to a beauty and personal care consumer research firm like The Benchmarking Company.
How Surveys with Products Work
This research firm sets up consumer tests and uses companies like Survey Savvy to find participants that fit the target audience of the cosmetic firm. Sending a sample of the product or a full-size product for free, the testers provide an honest review of the product. The marketing intelligence derived from these survey studies doesn’t only provide those first essential reviews. It can help the cosmetic company find issues with the product that did not come out in the initial testing.
Benefits of Cosmetic Testing
These nation-wide surveys draw from a larger pool of candidates. By doing this, the product undergoes use by a more diverse audience. Through this process, a company can discover problems with a product that only evidence themselves when a certain group uses it, such as a person with rosacea or eczema. Sometimes, it uncovers dual uses for the product, which consumer testers report in their reviews. For example, a moisturizing body oil might turn out to work ideally for taming the frizziness of certain hair types.
Trustworthy Reviews
So, can you trust the product reviews? In a nutshell – yes. The product testers only get a free sample or product for their review. Sometimes, the cosmetic company throws in a coupon. When they say the review was incentivized, they don’t mean that the person got paid a lot of money to make it. They mean they tested the product and wrote the review from first-hand experience with that particular product.
A quick look at the reviews of the products mentioned in Cosmopolitan article turns up a few fails and a few successes among each product. That rings true because few products work well on every skin type or hair type. That’s why ethnic beauty products exist – different skin types need different skincare.
How to Find the Top Products for You
Pick a type of product, such as mascara. Look for reviews by individuals who share your beauty traits, such as age, gender, and ethnicity. Read the full review and note any people who had problems with the new product. They may offer a reason behind the issue that can help you determine if you will experience the same issue. For example, if the reviewer had eczema, but you don’t, you may not have the same reaction. Reviews still provide a good gauge of whether you can trust a product, even a new product.
