Monica Selby
Okay. I have to admit when I got the pitch for makeoverly.com, I was pretty skeptical of the idea. Online makeup consultations? The best thing about Sephora is the personal touch of chatting with a new friend about pretty makeup AND trying it on right then.
Then I dug in. Makeoverly.com is run by Hannah Wright, a former staff member at Beauty.com. According to the website, their distributed makeup artists have already counseled 4,000 people, impressive traction since the August launch.
Here’s how it works:
Customers get on the website–which is gorgeous–and chat with a beauty consultant free for 15 minutes. You don’t even have to register. After that session, you can choose to add time for a small fee, or schedule a Skype session to talk face-to-face with a consultant. The company makes money from affiliate links when consumers buy recommended products.
I hopped on the site and asked the consultant a question I’ve known the answer to since I was 16: what’s the best color for green eyes? (Blues and purples, by the way.)
But, she surprised me with a long explanation of different shades of brown I could use, including a link to one of the products she liked.
Now, without the ability to try the products right away, I can’t confirm if her advice was good or not. Still, the novelty of a different answer is intriguing. She also recommended an eyeliner and offered a discount on a Skype session to end our chat.
Makeoverly.com is very new to the beauty startup scene, and they have a long road ahead of them. Chatting with a makeup artist is nice, but trying products (via Birchbox, for example) is pretty good, too. And, of course, any department store makeup counter can offer a similar service, with the added benefit of products right there.
“When you walk into a department store, the makeup artists are contracted out by specific beauty brands,” Hannah says, “whereas on makeoverly.com, our makeup artists can freely recommend any products and brands that they love. They aren’t limited to specific brands and are able to provide helpful links to products by any cosmetic lines.
In addition, there have been many articles lately regarding the germ concerns behind physical makeup counters. We give people the opportunity to instead receive their makeovers from the comfort of their own homes.”
The company has definitely done a lot in a short time, and it will be interesting to see how/if they scale. The Alaska location is a far cry–literally–from New York and Los Angeles, where these companies typically launch from.
I’d also like to see makeoverly.com branch out in the monetization strategy. Product links are a great start, but this market also presents a great opportunity for content. The expertise of so many beauty consultants would be great to leverage in building a loyal following. (Hannah did hint at such a strategy when she mentioned a quick start beauty guide that could be downloaded for a small fee.)
I’ll say it one more time: makeoverly.com is very, very young. They face all the same obstacles as early stage startups in every industry in every city do.
Still, in a couple of short hours, they convinced me they’re a company worth watching.
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