Tip Tuesday: a review of…reviews.
Lately I’ve been thinking a fair amount about reviews. I feel like, especially in the world of beauty, they are a HUGE factor in me being interested in or trying a new product.
I also feel like they can be misleading and confusing at times…which can really muddy the waters.
I’ve tried my best to work through the upsides and downfalls of reviews so I thought I’d share some of my insights. I’d also love to hear what you guys do to make reviews work for you best.
1. Take note of the source you are seeing reviews on.
I usually find that reviews are most accurate when they are posted on a site other than the actual brand. For instance, if I was looking at say..Becca (just throwing them out there) product I would look at the reviews on Sephora before I would look at the reviews on Becca’s actual site.
For two reasons:
One because I just find that it’s more likely that if someone is actually at the brands website they already love their products so you are fishing from a smaller pool of thought &
Two: If you own a website you also have the ability to delete any review you want. I like to think most companies would never censor their negative reviews (unless they were inappropriate & offensive) but you really never know.
So if you have the option to see them elsewhere as well, I’d take it.
2. Don’t just look at the stars, look at the comments.
I get a lot more out of reading the actual comments than I do just taking stock of the star rating. For instance I was looking at a boyfriend Tee the other day and it had a 3 star rating so I scrolled down to see why, there was only one reviewer. She said the shirt wasn’t tight enough. That’s a good thing to me cause I want my boyfriend tee’s loose. I wear them with my muffin top pants and I need the extra room. So the 3 star rating looked more like a 5 star to me.
Basically, we all have different needs and expect different things out of our products, pay attention to what the writers expectations and needs are before making your decision.
3. Drop the tip top and the bitter bottom.
Some people are PASSIONATE on hating and/or loving things and I think many times they are right on the money…but also sometimes they were just having a great/crappy day and this product is the beneficiary of their mood. I try to take those with a grain of salt and focus on the median responses to things rather than get too swayed by one very compelling review.
4. Keep an open mind
A great example of my doing this would be the book some of you recommended “Girl on a Train”, when I first saw this book a few weeks ago I saw a few bad reviews so I didn’t read it, I was getting weirdly picky and would only try a book if I saw over 4 stars. After a few of you said to give it a shot, of course I did and I DEVOURED it in like 36 hours it was fantastic. There are just some things that are going to have a wide range of opinions so I have decided not to get too narrow in my review snobbery:)
