Learning about beauty products feels overwhelming at times – like you need a degree, internship, professional experience, and three references to work out what to use. Here’s what could be making you feel this way.
Information overload
Finding helpful information is difficult because there’s an endless amount of it (and so much is crap). Brands focus a lot of their marketing resources on educational content because they know consumers spend time researching, fact-checking and verifying information before making a purchase decision.
Market oversaturation
There’s an excessive amount of beauty products, brands, and options available. While it’s fantastic that consumers have more to choose from, particularly for traditionally underrepresented consumers, it contributes to a feeling of ‘over choice’ and decision paralysis.
Trust issues
Beauty brands are focused on building loyalty and community. They use trust-building marketing messages to appeal to you. But sometimes it’s at the expense of creating an ‘other’ – something they want you to think is less desirable. It sounds like ‘we do this, we’d never do that.’ The problem with these phrases is that they don’t clearly explain why. It creates mixed messages which are confusing for consumers to figure out.
What now?
- Engage with beauty news and communities, but remember most of it is made for marketing or entertainment.
- Unfollow or ignore platforms that overwhelm you or fuel concerns about your experience with beauty.
- Don’t feel pressured by hype or hysteria to buy more products, toss stuff out, or overhaul what you’re doing – especially if it already works for you.
Hadley Co.’s approach to beauty
We take our role as contributors to the beauty industry seriously. We want to help beauty brands and businesses create copy they’re proud to share with their consumers. This means being clear and careful with words while using creativity and ingenuity to stand out for all the right reasons.