This story originally appeared in La Fronde’s Aug. 11 issue.
At Condé Nast, I sat next to the commerce editors whose PR mailer-jungle practically required a machete whenever I needed to get to their desks. The clothing samples they got were stacked so high that I sometimes didn’t even realize a person was sitting behind them. But that situation doesn’t even compare to the number of pitches Kara McGrath would get in a single hour when she was Allure’s content director.
It wasn’t unusual for her to leave a meeting and come back to 200 messages in her inbox filled with offers to try out someone’s shiny new product launch. Even though she turned down most of those pitches, the mailers were endless — and once she left the city for a quieter life in New Hampshire, her home started turning into a glorified Sephora warehouse.
Rather than let all those products disappear into the abyss, she came up with a genius idea to free herself of the clutter while raising money for some important causes. I talked to Kara about her charitable project, how the rules and stakes of beauty freebies have changed in the influencer era, and how she decides what products are worth her time to test.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
To start, tell me more about your past role at Allure. What’s life like in the day of a content director?
I started in 2019 as deputy digital editor and got promoted to content director. By that point, Allure had folded print, except for the one special edition print magazine that they still put out every year for Best of Beauty. I was working closely with the executive beauty director to oversee all of the dot com content — managing the edit calendar, making sure stories were hitting deadlines, coordinating with social on promotion, and working with the audience development team on content strategy.
Walk me through what happens behind the scenes when it comes to getting products to test, and gifting in general?
I do want to make a distinction, although some outlets wouldn’t consider this a distinction: At Allure, and at other beauty publications I've worked at, we'd never call samples from publicists "gifting." That's more like reporting material. Once upon a time, when magazines had big enough budgets, they could pay for those products. But now, because magazines don’t have those big budgets and there are literally thousands of new products that come up every single year, there's just no way that we could keep up with the market if we were having to pay to test everything. Gifting is another thing. Condé had very clear rules about that. Before, when I worked at other publications, we could accept gift cards. Brands honestly don’t really do this anymore because they don’t have the money like they used to, but they used to send designer bags and Christmas gifts. That is like the extra stuff beyond the product sampling that is a different category, in my opinion.
Since beauty editors go to a lot of events and are expected to keep up on trends, did you feel pressure to keep up a certain look, or rely on gifted products and services to do that?
There's less pressure than people might assume, at least on the beauty side. I never felt like my job was at risk because I hadn't had time to get my nails done. That said, there's a soft pressure to look put-together — not necessarily designer, more like your hair looks good, your skin looks good. Anybody who's well established in the industry is not going out and buying any of the makeup, hair or skincare products, or paying for treatments like massages or facials or Botox. People do generally have to pay for at least part of their plastic surgery costs, but there are discounts there too. I used to get Botox for free when I lived in New York, but that's not something I've done in years. Instead of going to drinks with a publicist, you maybe go get your nails done or you go get a facial and chat about their clients.
How many pitches were you getting while you were there?
I once tracked it — I was getting three to five pitch emails per minute on the beauty side. If I went into an hour-long meeting, I'd come out to 200 emails. There is no shortage of brands trying to get you to try their product. Not all of those pitches were like, ‘we have a new product launching, and opt in here to try it.’ But a lot of them were.
Per minute?! That’s wild. With that many pitches, how do you know what's worth your time?
I tried to only call in products that I think I would actually use. It's very easy, especially for more junior beauty editors, to call in every single thing because you're like, ‘oh my god, all these amazing brands are like offering to send me free stuff,’ but there's no way you'll test it all, and then it just becomes massive amounts of garbage that you have to get rid of because you can't recycle most beauty products because they're too small. For our reviews, probably 75% is brands reaching out and saying, "Hey, will you please test this?” And 20%-25% is me actively reaching out and being like, "I'm looking for this type of dry shampoo, do you have any, and will you send it to me to test?”
Fifteen years in, I can tell in about three seconds whether something's going to be good. Anything “clean,” anything where that's your marketing point, I'm not really interested. I'm not saying that we don't need more safety regulations. The FDA does not regulate beauty products. There's no such thing as an FDA approved lipstick or an FDA approved skincare. Like the FDA is not bothering itself with topical products. These clean beauty brands come in and say my stuff's safer when really, in general, their ingredients just haven't been tested as much as the other ingredients.
Packaging definitely matters. Nine times out of 10, the outer packaging matches the quality of the inner packaging. Price-point-wise, I'm not really reporting on luxury brands outside of fragrance, so I'm not calling in the $500 creams just so that I can test the $500 cream, because I'm not going to write about that in most cases. Nowadays, I do a little bit more of that for other outlets, but it’s not my priority when I want to promote a product.
I remember Teen Vogue had a beauty closet where we could grab all these skincare products like ‘Supermarket Sweep’ when a brand finished a big beauty awards tentpole. Was that the case for you guys at Allure too? What happens to all the products you don't end up using?
I wasn't in the office at Allure long enough to know exactly what the process was like, but I'm guessing it's similar — there's a beauty closet, and the samples editors aren't going to take home and test go in there. Then usually once or twice a year, either the individual outlet or multiple outlets — a Condé, a Hearst, a BDG situation — will get together and do a beauty sale and donate the proceeds to charity. And so when I moved to New Hampshire, I found myself with way more product than I could possibly use. I just want to say it for the record again, even though millions of editors have said this: brands, if you're launching foundation, I do not need all 54 shades. I have one face, and it is one skin tone. Send me like three or four that you think work on my face.
A lot of brands do that, and not just for foundation. They send the entire range. I don't have any children, so I have a spare bedroom where I keep my foster animals and all my products. Once a year, I also host a beauty sale and sell all the products for $1 apiece and then donate to local charities. Last year was my biggest year and I was able to donate about $1,500 to each charity.
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What charities did you end up donating to?
The Monadnock Humane Society and the Monadnock Center for Violence Prevention. I foster for the Humane Society, and then for the MCVP, I'm a volunteer on our 24/7 hotline. So those are two local charities that are very close to my heart. And if anybody else wants to donate to them, they are always looking for money.
Have brands gotten better about not sending so much product?
A lot of brands have gotten better about not sending mailers that are essentially trash with a side of product. I think enough of us beauty editors were loud enough about not needing all 54 shades of foundation that they’ll split them into five different shade types and you can pick which five you want. Still a lot of product, but better. I also don't have garbage pickup where I live, so I have to bring all my trash to the recycling center every few weeks. So that’s the other reason why I’m mindful about how much I call in because I know it’s going to create more work to take apart mailers. A lot of the mailers are custom cut boxes that are dyed — it’s not even cardboard that you can really recycle.
How has the gifting side of things changed over the years?
It used to be that we would get all the products throughout the year, and then maybe once a year, like on your birthday or for the holidays, you would get a separate, like really lavish gift. It's more often now that brands when they send a mailer will send a sweatshirt with it, or they'll send bag charms or wine glasses that are not from their brand, but from a partner. It just goes back to wanting to get those unboxing videos. In the case of a sweatshirt or a hat, this editor or this influencer has merch for your brand, and hopefully they'll wear it. It's mostly that kind of gifting. The days of Chanel Beauty sending a Chanel bag every Christmas, that's not really happening anymore. I forget the name, but one of the really viral brands sent influencers Cartier LOVE bracelets. That sort of stuff is still happening, but I do think it's happening more in the influencer world, which is fine by me.
Does getting all this free product create any obligation to cover it?
A lot of younger editors new to the beauty side of things think of the sampling as gifting, and then can feel an obligation to then cover the thing, which obviously is questionable journalistic ethics. You could argue that my J school professors would not be impressed by me getting all this free product. But people should remember that, no, this is a reporting tool. It is your job, and I try to emphasize this to publicists as well. It is my job to try everything and cover the 3% of things that actually impress me or actually are relevant for coverage.
Is there tension between traditional beauty editors and the influencer/content creator world?
There’s not as much separation now. When influencing and content creation first became a job, there would be separate press trips for editors and influencers, but that started to get blended together. And now, there’s this expectation on the publishing side that the editors will try to become content creators, because beauty is happening on social. There is certainly this overlap right now, and I don’t feel any way about it because I don’t want to be a full-time content creator. I like writing and reporting, and I’ll post about it on Instagram. But I’m not trying to make three videos a day and become a makeup influencer. That’s a whole different, extremely impressive skill set to have.