What’s the difference?

Keeping up with the deluge of beauty brands that have launched over the past few years is one thing, but the ever-expanding sub-lines within brands is another challenge. For example (albeit a maximal one), seven-year-old science-y skincare The Ordinary boasts 32 serums in its brood. 32! If I think that’s a lot, surely consumers must too.

Inevitably, as a beauty journalist it’s impossible to try everything – much as we’d love to devote our days to it in the name of thoroughness and fun. So your input here, as brand authorities, is invaluable. And it’s smart to help us (so we can help our readers) understand the differences between products that sit within the same category but do different things.

I recently received two press releases doing exactly this. One featured a ‘Which SkinCeuticals Vitamin C are you’ flowchart linked to Vitamin C Day, while the other titled ‘Which Dr. Barbara Sturm Cleanser are you?’ supported a new launch, indicating how it differs to its counterparts. Both felt timeless as much as timely, being useful assets to file and reference when relevant.

Of course, it helps for us to get our hands on the products under discussion too – even if they’re not all suitable for personal reviews – like when NYX Professional Makeup sent press a fun ‘School of Brows’-themed creative mailer. Introducing recipients to the brand’s ‘2023 class of overachievers’, the best-selling Micro Brow was awarded ‘Most Popular’, The Brow Glue ‘Most Stuck Up’ and the Lift and Snatch Brow Pen ‘Most Uplifting’. The accompanying press release read like a masterclass in the brand’s brow offerings, with some stats about the category and explanations of each product’s USPs.

All three of these communications help define the options within a brand’s cohort while also reinforcing that they are leaders in specific categories (vitamin C; cleansing; brow make-up) making them a win-win for press and the brands’ alike. Please keep them coming.