Recently, beauty review site TotalBeauty blogged about the worst face moisturizers Unfortunately, they 
based their list strictly on member ratings & comments. They don’t even consider ingredients, objective performance, and price/value.
Here are 6 reasons why ratings based on personal product reviews are practically worthless.
6 Reasons to Remain Skeptical of Reviews
1. Is it Real?
The Internet is an excellent information source. However, anyone can write anything. How do you know that review you read was written by a real person who really tried the product? It easily could have been written by a corporate shill or a competitor. You have no way to know. Beauty product sales on the Internet generate big money. Some marketers will do anything (like writing fake reviews) to get you to buy.
Don’t trust any single source on the Internet
2. Easily Fooled
Even if people writing reviews are sincere, they can be easily fooled. Science has shown that when people pay higher prices for products, they tend to rate them higher (even when they are exactly the same product). Factors like price, packaging, color, etc. all have an effect on your subconscious mind. You may believe a product worked better than your usual product, even if it didn’t.
People are easily fooled
3. Polarized Opinions
Mostly when you use a product, it will work fine. Not awful, not great. It will be average and rarely will it inspire you to write a passionate review. When someone has a great or terrible product experience they will be more inclined to write. So, you get extreme reviews that do not represent most people’s experiences.
4. People are different
Everyone is different and while a product works great for one person, it might be lousy for you. Product effectiveness depends on things like skin type, hair type, personal preference, external environment. What one person says about a product probably will not apply to you.
5. Scores are relative
In the TotalBeauty face moisturizer list, they score products on a 10 point scale. Unfortunately, averaging numbers like this is not useful for subjective data. One person’s 5 may not be the same as another person’s 5. Unless the scale is calibrated (as cosmetic research testing facilities do) the rating numbers can not be reliably averaged.
6. Fallacy of cause and effect
One reviewer said this about Reclaim Day Cream. “I have broken out with pimples. I want my money back.” Now, she may have had a reaction to the product or not. Just because she used it then noticed pimples the next day does not mean the product caused the problem. How would she know that she would not have gotten pimples whether she used the product or not? We frequently attribute effects to products when it is not true.
Beauty Brains Bottom Line
While product reviews can be interesting to read, they should not be solely relied on when making purchasing decisions. Looking at ingredients, reviewing claims, seeking unbiased sources (like the Beauty Brains) and remaining skeptical are much better ways to make product purchasing decisions.
What do you think? Do you believe beauty product reviews? Leave a comment a let the rest of the Beauty Brains community know.
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Something else to consider – TotalBeauty uses reviews as contest entries whenever they run a contest. So, the more reviews you submit, the more chances you have at winning the particular contest.
That’s why I prefer personal blogs to read reviews than sites like MakeupAlley or TotalBeauty. In personal blogs, you get to know the authors’ voice after a while. You get to know what sort of products they like, what price range of products they normally purchase, and what sort of products they are looking for. In some, you also know their skin tone, color, etc.
I agree that Total Beauty’s reviews are not to be trusted. MakeupAlley, on the other hand, offers a wider spectrum of reviewers and opinions. Some reviews are awful, but people there generally try to make a good effort to provide information. Also, many of the reviewers have tried similar products, and know what to expect or not to expect. The numbers, however, are somewhat misleading.
I prefer to just listen to what people say and see if it makes sense, and try to figure it out for myself. Even personal blog entries can be made by people who are fooling themselves or have an agenda, even if it’s not one motivated by money. I use henna because it’s been used for millennia enough to be pretty safe, doesn’t stink, doesn’t require the opening of the cuticle to work (and is hence less damaging), and is entirely permanent. But even if I read blogs by people who use it, you’d think the damned stuff cured cancer the way some of them talk.
I also think there’s a social aspect to it — if enough people get a good conversation going about how “Product X cured my problem/made my hair turn into flaming cheese/whatever,” some people will want to join in on the fun and bitching just to be part of the conversation. I’ve seen that happen, too. There’s a certain satisfaction in joining in with a group of people and going, “OMG, me too!” and being accepted in the interaction. Coming in and saying, “Um, I don’t really see the logic of this claim,” isn’t something that many people will want to do, especialyl if it’s an online chat about something that’s not r4eally worth taking an unpopular stand over.
Being a product reviewer, I have to agree with you on all of your points. I created a review site mainly because of my frustration finding reviews that I could trust, many reviews are “planted” by paid employees of the company, or will lead into an ad of their particular product.
I have also wondered about the 10 start rating issue, the 10 point scale is probably better than a smaller ranged one, but still, I might base my score on a school grade percentage ideology, and anything under 6 stars (or 60%) would be considered a FAIL. Others, might abuse the use of the 10, which I would probably never use, just because product perfection is almost impossible to come by, imho.
My rule of thumb when judging beauty reviews is one, get to know the reviewer (by reading through several of their reviews) and see if their preferences are similar to yours. Feel free to email them if you have any questions, and realize that their review is their best attempt to share their experience with a particular product. My other point is to trust a site like “Makeup Alley” or one that has a large number of reviewers. I believe the truth comes out with the numbers, and if a product has 200+ reviews, they will probably make some valid points.
Now that I have submitted a novel length comment, I will close with the statement “buyer beware,” and encourage you to be skeptical when it comes to beauty reviews that seem too good to be true, or cost over $20 (and I’m not kidding)! I love The Beauty Brains, you all rock!
I look at reviews, but I take them with a grain of salt. I read through several of them on a product, and try to determine if what they say reflects what I’m looking for in the product. Recently I was looking at creme eye shadows and some of the reviews were good and some were bad, one of the bad ones convinced me that this was the product I was looking for, because what they complained about the product doing was what I hoped it would do.
I do admit that I have purchased certain beauty products after reading reviews but it is down to each individual if it works or not. When certain reviews are raving on about a miracle product it is usually too good to be true.
I totally agree with your points on this article, I thought that TotalBeauty survey seemed a little bogus – like every critcism was that they got pimples, how is it possible for ALL these moisturizers to have the same problem?? MUA I find though does tend to have enough reviewers out there that you can get a better impression. When it comes to the internet, you’ve got to comparison shop your opinions and use some common sense! As for the “unbiased” opinions, you don’t make a reliable endorsement for yourselves since anyone who claims they’re “unbiased” only displays their bias towards themselves.
I read reviews, of course, but with a large grain of salt. I try to get an idea of the reviewer – what they were expecting from the product, their age, skin type, coloring. I pay more attention to the more moderate reviews that give specific reasons for their opinion. But in the end, you are on your own out there. Get your stuff from a company that will accept returns!
It’s very difficult to be truly subjective about a product even if you review for a living: I’m constantly in a condundrum about whether the results of the cream I am using right now were influenced by the cream I used before..ie. did I get my skin in great condition before using the current one? I try really hard to do reliable tests but I can only ever know if it suits my skin – whether it will suit anyone else’s is down to trial and error. I feel I have to say, however, if something brought me out in a rash or I had an allergic reaction to. BBBX