India Knight is very persuasive - what's in it for her?

[Gales]

She's started doing a beauty column in the Sunday Times' Style mag.

For three weeks running she's left me seriously contemplating spending large sums of money on beauty gadgets, make-up or potions.

This is me who usually spends about £20pm max on toiletries and cosmetics and about 5 mins per day using them!

Am I being naïve to think she's genuinely recommending things she loves, or will the manufacturers be rewarding her in some way?

What's in it for her? Well, she gets paid to write the column. I'm not sure if companies pay to get a product mentioned/reviewed though.. I know this is the case with free health magazines etc but really shouldn't be with a paper you've paid for.

Oh, and I expect she's getting lots of freebies
Personally I think it's harder to be objective when you get something for free..

To be honest I would be fucking mortified if I woke up one morning looking like India Knight. As such I am not so attracted to dust dhdxraces about. Now if Kate Miss did a column......

Fucking iPhone. So hard to type lying down.

The Sunday Times Style section is, in my considered opinion, a load of patronisingly sycophantic rubbish obsessing over the same celebrities and socialites, rehashed week after week, world without end.

Therefore, I don't think it's worth trying to reason over it, IYSWIM :) Although usually, I quite like India Knight.

On a more relevant-to-your-OP note, papers and mags want to keep on the best possible terms with as many manufactures and retailers as possible, as they therefore get sent even more free products to try out, which gives them even more absolute bobbins to print. I'm aware as I write this that I'm finding myself being slightly hypocritical, as I read the Guardian Style and Beauty section, and a few beauty blogs such as Intothegloss.com, so I must have convinced myself that those particular ones are doing something right!

Isn't she the one who is about two stone overweight and had a row with LJ?

I'm glad I missed her column, I had the times yesterday and didn't see it.

She should be taking advice from me. :-p

Here's a recommendation from somebody who never buys anything expensive. The clinique facial scrub. That's the ONLY expensive product I buy. rimmel for me! Or constance Carroll, lol. Still have some constance carroll stuff in a drawer I think. why throw it out?

You are right about India Knight. I spend diddly-squat on make up and I tore out her lipstick recommendation the other week.

("Its a red that everyone can wear") OK I want it too!

LOL blue, I'd forgotten that one! I rarely wear lipstick at all and now all of a sudden I want aredone

I got a recommendation for a red that anybody can wear

"roasted red" from n17's 'mirror shine' range.

It cost me about 6 euro. in fact, less, cos it was two for three and I got a mascara and something else as well.

I don't never ever buy expensive stuff though, I will if I can't get what I need cheaper. Bobby Brown and Clinique do some eyeshadow pencils which are hard to get cheaper equivalents.

so, what was india knight's 'red that everyone can wear' then??? I'll road test it agains my n17 'roasted red'.

She may never have used the product, but just be quoting from the text sent to her along with the free sample she was given.

Does that make it easier to ignore?

You know how in adverts they make everything so glossy and shiny? They also don't even have to be using the product they are selling. So ther could be a picture of the red lipstick, and she has never even used it. It's a clever form of advertising, nothing more.

The reviewers generally get sent things for free, to try for their column. This means they may really go overboard about how good something is, so they get more!

But then, they wouldn't really want more unless it was actually good, so I don't know!

yes, because if nigella weren't so stylish with such good taste, with confidence,she would look a bit like rowan atkinson. i don't mean that nastily but i think they could be brother and sister

The India Knight recommended red was Medieval by Poppy King (from Space NK). Having had it in the past I can recommend it.

I loathe India Knight though. Overweening superiority complex.

I haven't read India's article so I can't really comment on that but she has been declared bankrupt several times so you might not want to emulate her spending habits. However, if you are thinking of spending insane money on make-up I would run it past the style and beauty section here first as you will get an honest appraisal and might prevent you making some expensive mistakes.

I really love her writing but (sorry!) she doesn't look all that for all the money she spends.

I get "Aerobics teacher syndrome" regarding her . . . if I am going to go to an aerobics class the teacher bloody well ought to have a significantly better body than mine, otherwise what's the point in doing what they tell you?

I am sure she does look better than me, but not a squillion quids worth of better.

totally hear you balloonslayer. re food and exercise advice, and [hhm] i can't take beauty tips shabbier than I am, despite having 20 times as much wonga. must test that lipstick..... just test it though. i remember trying on a red lipstick in a shop with and my male friend who I was with (who IS a nice man honestly) burst out laughing..... I might be the exception to the rule about everybody being able to wear red

OP, I know what you mean about the India Knight articles - last week I was seriously considering getting a Clarisonic after she raved about it. Then I saw the price and reconsidered.

Nigella Lawson used to write a beauty column for the Saturday Times, she was also very persuasive.

I'm not convinced about IK being a beacon for Style and Beauty but I do generally enjoy reading her columns (although I preferred the bit in the main Sunday Times this week that she wrote about a French professor who has supposedly proven women don't need bras to be pert).

I'll be more prepared to take the beauty stuff at face value when she writes about something that doesn't work.