Beauty Futures Network Evening 2016: Bethany Bolt

London – The future of beauty e-commerce is about mixing human and algorithmic curation, according to Bethany Bolt, editorial director at Powder.

• Powder is an editorially driven product recommendation platform that offers women bespoke beauty advice
• As well as suggesting products, the site provides tailored content linked to users’ specific beauty goals and skin types

Powder’s beauty editors start by selecting what they feel are the best products now on the market. When users join the site they answer a series of questions that let Powder build a nuanced profile of their skin types and goals. These cover subjects such as age, skin tone and price. Powder uses this data to suggest products as well as to deliver editorial content linked to the user’s skin concerns. This enables Powder to ‘get to the heart of the consumer need’, Bolt told the audience at our Beauty Futures Network Evening, held at The Future Laboratory HQ last week.

What makes Powder unique is its mix of human and algorithmic curation, although Bolt stresses that the former takes precedent, especially when it comes to achieving the right tone of voice. ‘It isn’t a content aggregator. We’re editorially selecting the products that are best for you.’