manifesto

Here’s what you’ll find on this website, why we’re writing it, and what our philosophy is.

1. We only write about products on our site that are actually available.  While we know that there are bloggers out there who want to be first with beauty news (so helping to create hype), we also know from feedback from website fans and readers of our Beauty Bible books that most women find it frustrating to read about things they’ll have to wait to get their hands on.  So we prefer to write about beauty products that are actually available to our readers, principally in the UK (where we’re based), or – in exceptional cases – foreign ‘finds’ that we really and truly think it’s worth going to the trouble and expense of tracking down.  (Our website does have many American readers, however, so we also list US stockists where we can.)

2. We only write about products that we genuinely love, or truly appreciate.  We are from the school of journalism that says:  ‘If you haven’t got something nice to say, don’t say anything.’  There are enough fantastic beauty ‘finds’ out there to fill this blog – and more – without having to embark on personal vendettas because we’ve been left off a press list, or haven’t been invited to a sample sale.  If we don’t like something, it will be omitted.  But everything here has the seal of approval of Jo (Fairley) or Sarah (Stacey) – and, most likely, both of us, since we tend to agree on these things.  We also believe it is a short-sighted strategy to diss brands and innovations in such a public forum, as it tends to cut off vital sources of information – and who knows, the next launch from that panned brand might be fah-bu-lous?

3. Nobody can twist our arm or pay us in product/trips/kindness/lunches/brown envelopes of cash to get on this site.  End.  Of.  (Not that we’ve ever been offered a brown envelope, but they’d be wasting their dosh.)

4. We like to cover every end of the price spectrum.  We know there are fantastic beauty ‘steals’ out there (we’ve written an entire book and an iPhone App about them), but we also know that there are pricy products which – if you have a luxe lifestyle – perform amazingly well.  From feedback (again) we know women are interested in reading about product at all price-points, even if it’s just out of curiosity.  And if you’re going to spend £300 on a moisturiser (if you must!), we’d rather that you went by what a couple of super-experienced beauty editors (or our 10-women Beauty Bible panels) have to say, than made your decision based on the spiel from a sales consultant.

5. Between us, we’ve been writing about beauty for 45 years.  We started our bestselling series of beauty books, The Beauty Bible, in 1996;  we launched our website, www.beautybible.com, in 2003.  Every time we open a jar/bottle/palette, we bring that wealth of experience to our critiques.