Beauty once you've braved the advertising beast (women.com/fashion)

Member Name: Marland

Product:	women.com/fashion
Date:	02/05/01 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of offers if you’re signed up and in USA Canada

Disadvantages: Lots of advertising not very in depth articles

women.com/fashion is as you can imagine from it’s name the fashion section of a web site aimed towards women.

I found the navigation a bit tricky because you are constantly taken from the main site and therefore could fancy visiting two articles but not be able to find the second after being dragged off somewhere on the first. OK I’m back buttonly challenged, sue me!

The site has a banner at the top, and for good measure one at the bottom as well. In case any banner crazed fools was disappointed by this there is an extra sidebar on the right of the page filled with ads. They think of eveything, if you are a pop up freak you’re not left out, as that is the first thing you get when you go to the site.

What’s left of the content in the middle of the page is often littered with offers to ‘sign up’ for this and that, depending on what page you get to.

It is definitely not aimed towards the type of woman that wears dungarees and sensible shoes. I signed up. I had to, otherwise I wouldn’t be sent my free sample of hair product. But oops, it turns out I wasn’t eligible for the free offer anyway. Rather disappointingly this was not the only sample I was ineligible for as all the freebies and competitions were for residents of USA and Canada only.

This was not my only disappointment, there are hints and articles on everything. I clicked quick as a flash on the link to ask an expert ‘What can I do to get rid of broken capillaries on my face? ‘ because you guessed it, I have broken capillaries on my face. The answer in a 93 word article was electro surgery or pulsed-dye laser, with a very short description of what each was. My Mum if she was alive could give me more help and advise than the ‘expert’!

On the left-hand menu bar was a fun looking thing called ‘my makeover’, a virtual make over shouldn’t be too painful I thought and cl
icked. Not active at the moment, being upgraded, well up grade your link then so the punters don’t waste valuable surf time!
I thought I’d try out some of the forums, what did the other members think, what were their personal recommendations and advise? I kicked off with the dental forum. Jaws were firmly locked. This was not up at the time of visiting either!

The actual articles I found very blah, blah, blah. There was no mention of anything such as debate over the use of child labour by brand fashion companies. There was a fashion article about fashion models as role models, but the link took me to an article on bottoms the ‘all-purpose body part.’ I have to admit that I didn’t click on ‘continue’ for any of the articles I went to. Readers polls were littered all over the place, but the results to these polls were only available if you took them, they are not available independently.

This site is not going to be in my book marked list.

Summary: