How Influenced are You by Online Swatches and Reviews in 2025?

I wrote the article below on Monday, April 14, 2014, and at that time the beauty blogging world looked quite different. Most of the bloggers with whom I was friends back then no longer have beauty blogs, and at that time we spent a lot of time studying swatches, running to department stores to see the swatched products in person, and often we would succumb to unreasonably large hauls. I am wondering how your ideas have changed in the 11 years since I published this. I, for one, no longer run to the department stores to swatch whole collections, or return home with piles of purchased products. I also seldom study swatches online, and I don't find myself obsessively plotting my next purchases of lipsticks, lip glosses, blushes, eyeshadows and foundations. 

Here is what I wrote over 11 years ago:

The amount of time that beauty bloggers and beauty enthusiasts spend looking at, or "studying," swatches and reviews in order to select or reject upcoming purchases can become a rather time-consuming activity that can be a very costly undertaking (both in terms of the time spent "conducting research" and money spent in chasing down the next best thing).

Obviously my intention is not to undercut the value of beauty blogs and the various beauty forums for their ability to help each of us weed-out what might end up being frivolous purchases (or to introduce us to fantastic finds that we might have otherwise missed), but I do think that there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration before falling too far down this particular rabbit hole.

Swatches online do not faithfully indicate how this particular color will look on your skin. Nowhere is this more evident (and less forgiving) than with foundation swatches. This issue goes far beyond any disparity in the skin tone of the swatcher compared to the skin tone of the reader-- though the raw canvas of the swatcher's skin does indeed modify the appearance of the foundation. Of course the difference in the resolution and color of individual monitors also serves to distort these colors. Even if one establishes that they have a similar skin tone to the swatcher because they are both in the NC/NW blah blah range this doesn't take into account that many foundations have a tendency to oxidize, and even those that do not can suffer oxidation when commingled with the particularities of each person's unique body chemistry. I, myself, have tried to narrow down my color selections by studying swatches only to learn that the differences between what I saw online, and what I saw in-store were canyons apart. I realize that access, or lack thereof, to physical retailers make seeing for yourself an impossibility much of the time-- particularly when what is sought are hard-to-find niche products that can only be purchased online, or ordered from a store that is cities, states or even countries away. However, there is no beauty product that can make one look worse than wearing the wrong color of foundation.

Lipsticks, blushes and eyeshadows that are less than ideal can be tempered by blending them with other colors to make them work, but the wrong foundation shade can create the most artificial mask, or my face but worse, that sticks out like a sore thumb. I'm not saying that there is no value to seeing our swatches, but caveat emptor, because what you see isn't necessarily what you get. I always try my best to acquire foundation samples before making the purchase because history has proven time and again that it will help me be able to weed out the duds from the potential holy grails.

Shopping your own stash will reacquaint you with many of the wonderful products that you already have. I started Project Make-A-Dent for this very reason. I found myself so far down the rabbit hole of the latest releases, and realized that I had plenty of brand new products that were very similar to those that I didn't have and found myself coveting (in many cases my products were untouched and still in their boxes-- a particular problem that beauty bloggers often face as we generally leave new things unmarred in order to photograph them for our posts to show you the pristine product before it becomes ravaged by the brush). The potential for wastefulness when you have forgotten about so many products already in your possession should give each of us pause to at least take a good inventory before going and buying yet another nude lipstick or taupe eyeshadow that looks just like the many already collecting dust.

This is not intended as an indictment of our makeup & skincare purchases, or an anti-buy message to myself or others, but instead the call for a reasoned approach to acquiring more products, and perhaps a note to myself to try to avoid the many pitfalls of what can ultimately be very expensive purchases of ill-suited or duplicative products.

Chasing limited edition releases because of their perceived scarcity, and their limited time to be acquired can end up looking like a crazed addiction for those of us who get caught up in the mob mentality of needing to get that new thing that promises to be the one that you simply can't live without. Certainly the endless You Tube videos and blog posts that extol the virtues of these "must-haves" should be tempered by one's own common sense, discretionary funds available, and the objective interest in, or need for that particular product. The frequency of reading about these new releases, since everyone is talking about and swatching them at the same time, begins to feel like an effusive endorsement since so many bloggers are talking about them, but that doesn't necessitate buying all of these things. They will be discussed until the next release, and then will be forgotten about. The cycle continues in perpetuity because the collections just keep coming, and we keep talking about them.

I wish that I personally had the willpower to never find myself caught up in the hype of "needing" something that is over-hyped or hard to find, but I do find myself succumbing to these powerful impulses, albeit with less and less frequency.

Studying swatches is fine until it crosses that line from an interest to an irrational fetishistic desire to possess everything that your favorite bloggers adore, or that look just too pretty to pass up (not because you really want them per se, but because seeing them has become needing to possess them). Even though it may be the most perfected coral lipstick ever produced in the history of mankind, that changes absolutely nothing if coral lipsticks categorically look ghastly with your complexion.

I have contemplated these issues with sustained regularity, and even wrote a think-piece entitled Makeup Hoarding or Collecting: How Quickly the Edges Can Blur, and what I have come to believe is that what should be a fun and artistic endeavor (playing with makeup) can quickly devolve into a compulsive need to over-engage in conspicuous consumption (and to spend an inordinate amount of time reading about those very products). Neither buying, nor playing with makeup should be tainted by the uncomfortable compulsion to acquire in a frenzied state for fear of losing out on something that one will forever regret not having purchased (as though that special lipstick actually has within it the power to change our lives in any sort of appreciable way).

Truth be told, I (and I suspect many of you as well) tend to gravitate toward the same colors repeatedly (pinky nude lipsticks and lip glosses, pink blushes, taupe eyeshadows), and with each new compelling permutation of these shades I find myself seeking out what may be the best and most idealized version of each. Save for the disparity in finish, texture and overall quality-- what I am most often confronted with is the fact that I tend to repeatedly come home with shades that are close enough dupes to those already found in my stash.

I think that part of the problem becomes the fact that the purchase of coveted raved about products becomes aligned with the misperception that purchasing these products can become something that is needed in order to be granted access to the blogs and bloggers-- as though it is more than a product, but instead a membership card to a particular community to which one wants to belong. As though being without it one is hopelessly relegated to the sidelines and rendered mute on the particulars of this or that lipstick. It leaves one feeling as though they showed up to a lecture without having done their assignments, and then they need to sink down in their seat to avoid engaging because they have shown up unprepared.

Additionally, subjectivity must always be factored in since each of us has our own inherent likes and dislikes. For instance, if one has a particular aversion to matte lipsticks, or a particular penchant for shimmering eyeshadows, then one may be dismissive of the former and overly enthusiastic about the latter. In truth, it may be a fabulous matte lipstick formula worthy of consideration, and a mediocre shimmery eyeshadow in a lovely shade that may not be worthy of consideration.

Bottom line, the most important thing that each of us can do is let our common sense prevail, and try to remember to enjoy oneself rather than allowing something that should be lots of fun become a stressful enterprise predicated on excessive, and often unnecessary, acquisition. It is also important to remember that we as bloggers tend to test far more products than the average consumer, and that our experiences should help you avoid making purchases that ultimately won't work for you as much as our experiences introduce you to products that will be a good fit.

What are your thoughts on the subject?
How do you keep your purchases in check?
How influenced are you by pretty swatches and positive reviews?
Has your beauty cup runneth over, or have you maintained a levelheaded perspective?

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