perfectprep's Full Review: Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me: A Un...
Almost the moment I heard about this I rushed out and bought it – silly me, I didn’t bother to consult Epinions first! – probably because I’m a beauty junkie and felt I needed something like this. I probably do, considering the amount of time I spend reading and writing beauty reviews on many sites. And in theory, this is an awesome product. Imagine a 1600-page volume – the telephone book of the cosmetics industry – stuffed full of info on practically every brand there is. How could it go wrong? I figured I would lap it up like a novel.
That I didn’t, because after reading just a few of Paula Begoun’s catty reviews, I was turned off. (Not to mention that whenever I think of her name, I think of “be gone”.) The first brands I flipped to were my tried and true loyal favorites, brands that I knew were of excellent quality and effectiveness, and of all price ranges. What do you know, she wrote off every last one of them. Even if she lets on the impression of liking a brand, she won’t let it go without a snide remark or two—and her snide remarks really are snide. I remember just wanting to slap her when I read her reviews of the brands Neways and Lush.
Plus, she inflicts her snappy cruelty on almost every brand in the whole darn book, excepting, of course, her own brand. She actually addresses her own brand rather well, and pretty objectively, in comparison. However I can only imagine what she’d say about her own stuff had she not invented it. It’s almost amusing to picture the caustic comments, cold sentence-long reviews, and maudlin little sad faces she’d administer.
Although the whole book is supposed to be dedicated to product reviews, her product reviews really are bad. She starts by running off a lot of useless brand history, for which there is no room in the packed volume; then she gets to some sarcastic remarks about the brand; and finally she starts addressing the actual products. Each product gets maybe one sentence, or, if she’s feeling really indulgent, two. Ms. Begoun tends to skip right over certain (particularly drugstore) brands, while talking the ear off of higher-profile lines. In a great number of her reviews, she addresses nothing but the ingredient content of the product, an issue her readers could undoubtedly investigate themselves. One gets the impression that, while for some products she actually conducted research, for others she simply skimmed the ingredient list for ‘triggers’ or maybe gave the product a single cursory try. She provides some type of breakdown of “bad” ingredients at the beginning, and one would think that that would be sufficient, given that customers can readily investigate product ingredient lists themselves before purchasing. But no. In fact, Ms. Begoun rarely mentions product effectiveness, cost, appearance or results. Instead she plays dermatologist and throws the “offensive” ingredients right at you, as if you had put them there yourself. Firstly, I continue to assert that readers don’t need to be told about offensive ingredients – this is something that, thanks to the Internet, it is uncomplicated to find out about oneself. Secondly, she is under the preposterous assumption that ALL inflammatory ingredients are inflammatory for EVERYONE, which is most likely the opposite of the case. Thirdly, the presence of just one “bad” ingredient in even minute quantities instantly condemns the product to one of her hideous sad faces. A review goes something like this. “Beware of this cleanser – contains menthol, among other things.” – and it stops there – onto the next product. She expects us to pay $30 for these?
Very soon you get sick of Paula Begoun’s over-opinionated and rather self-righteous reviews, and her sheer meanness at times. Although she makes some effort to list her credentials at the beginning, they really are not much to speak of and, IMHO, cannot compare to those of the very beauty geniuses she tirades with insults. (Among others, NV Perricone.)
BUT it doesn’t stop there. She has many other annoying habits. For starters, she is obsessed about SPF. By now I suppose we all understand the importance of proper sun protection, and few of us really need to be mothered about that. Regardless, Ms. Begoun takes the issue into her own hands, slandering a brand up-front if it fails to exactly meet her SPF expectations. She also has an aversion to blue eyeshadow, which she quickly makes known. Firstly, this is supposed to be an objective guide for serious beauty consumers, not an onslaught of single-mindedly useless advice. No one cares to hear about her particular aversions, especially when they are completely unfounded, as is the case with the blue eyeshadow. She also insists that all makeup for everyone should have yellow undertones, because supposedly everyone’s skin is mostly yellow, which somehow I doubt. But most noticeably, self-proclaimed beauty cop Paula hates everything shiny. She detests the slightest hint of glimmer in makeup, addressing sparkle as she addresses everything else—with relentless single-mindedness and absurd inflexibility.
The idea behind the book is to dismember the facades of the beauty and cosmetic industry. Although I’ll agree with her that not everything we hear from them is true, I disagree with the idea that they’re innately ‘evil’ or “out to get us”. She supports this idea throughout most of her book, except when addressing a few brands of products (her own included), but then mocks the same idea in her review of Neways. Ultimately, though, all she dismembered for me was the $30 this book cost.
Additionally, the author often contradicts herself. She’ll claim, in a review of Brand Y, that Brand X (say, Neutrogena) is far superior. Then you’ll turn to her Brand X review and see that she assaults it, too. In her terrible “the best” lists at the end of the text, Ms. Begoun includes many products that she libeled in other parts of the text. Talk about a disparity. It makes you wonder just how grounded and realistic these opinions are, if they keep vacillating like that. Also, it seems that her opinions on certain brands change from edition to edition (I do not know this as a fact, but from reading other Epinions, this is how it comes across.)
Since this is supposed to be a book of reviews, why can’t she tighten it? Firstly, cut away all of the extraneous material at the beginning. Then, get rid of lengthy brand descriptions. Finally, chip away at every single review that has to do with ingredient content, unless it is extremely pertinent. Presto! A lot more space for good reviews, which were sorely lacking in this book.
“Don’t go to the cosmetics counter without me” is a misnomer, because her book really is not useful. It’s certainly not something you’d ever want to be caught dead with while standing in front of Lancome or Chanel. If she’s trying to be funny, she should try a little harder. Though the book is fairly well-organized, the “best of” lists at the end really are worthless because they contain so many products. I don’t see how such voluminous lists could be at all helpful. It seems to me to be slapdash, unthought filler, which the book needs less of.
Ms. Begoun doesn’t have a good command of the dermatological industry, and professes to know things that she clearly doesn’t. Every skincare trend, from antioxidants to Retinol, is dismissed as “hype”. If an ingredient is trendy, Paula will immediately deep six it. I very much doubt she has done any scientific research. It seems she bases her opinions of new trends wholly on the vagueries in her mind. And then she blatantly accuses people who really do know something about skincare of marketing, at best, overrated mediocrity!
The most egregious flaw in the book is Ms. Begoun’s opinions in themselves. I know from experience that, at least in the cases of every line of cosmetics I have ever tried, she is wrong. Of course it varies from person to person, so I wouldn’t be at all offended if she wrote a humbler review regarding her negative experience with the product. But the fact is, she shamelessly beats down a product or a brand, as if it is untouchable just because she is not particularly fond of the ingredients or the results. In those cases, she is wrong because I know for a fact that it is not that way for everybody. There is simply no way to trust her opinions.
Then, of course, her book is simply annoying. No other word for it. As for me, I’m sticking with Epinions. It has certainly served me better. Let me just hope that someday this book does something good for me, because it took the place of $30 that could have been spent on chocolates instead.
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