Maham Memon

Rachel Feldman

Writing 2

21 March 2020

Cosmetic Empowerment: Which One Did it Best?

I was twelve years old when I saw my first makeup tutorial on Youtube by Michelle

Phan. I was immediately mesmerized by how cosmetic makeup can enhance one’s beauty, allow

the artist to express themselves, bring their best selves forward, and act as a confidence booster.

Watching that video sparked my passion for makeup due to how beautiful it can make a woman

feel. Since that moment, makeup has been a huge part of my life. The beauty community is

tremendously massive, resulting in the topic spanning numerous platforms across many different

types of genres. My essay focuses on the genre of blog posts. These three blog posts are

compared with some being more effective representations of the genre than others: ​Project

Vanity’s ​“Eleven Women on How Makeup Empowers Them,” by Katkat Baluyot, ​Bustle’s ​“Why

Do Women Wear Makeup?” by Michelel King, and ​Get The Gloss’ “​ The Makeup Maniac:

Empowering Makeup” by Anna Hunter. According to ​Navigating Genres​, “genres often have

formulaic features” (Dirk 253). All three blog posts have very similar features classifying them

as “blog posts,” but the ​Project Vanity ​post on cosmetic empowerment does the best job at

following those formulaic stylistic features of a blog post like an eye-catching format or sparking

conversation within an intended audience, making it the most effective at being a blog post

An eye-catching format is one of the most essential things a blog post must have to fulfill

its purpose. An eye-catching format ranges from using relevant photos to the text layout, and
each blog post did it differently. The​ Project Vanity ​blog post took quotes from many important

women communicating how they feel makeup empowers them and adds two photos on top of

each quote. A common characteristic of a blog post is to split up the big chunks of texts with

pictures or videos and format them to make the text easier to read. This allows the chunks of text

to be spaced-out, making it easier to read and more appealing to the eye. The font is also very

soft and feminine relating to the theme of the content. The ​Bustle ​blog post talking about why

women wear makeup also splits up the text by paragraph and makes it more appealing but does

not use pictures to split it up. This emphasizes that visual rhetoric that is extremely important in

an effective blog post. It does have some ads on the side allowing the text to lay to the left,

making it nicer to look at; however, it does not have a font that pops post as the ​Project Vanity

does. The visual rhetoric only adds to the overall look and format of the blog. The ​Get the Gloss

blog post does have photos that split up the chunks of text as well as a soft font adding to the

visuals, but what makes the first blog post more appealing to the eye is the width of the text is

shorter. This blog post has wider-looking paragraphs making it look like more of an article. All

the visual elements combined make the ​Project Vanity ​blog post the most effective as it follows

the skeletal stylistic features of a blog post.

Every blog post has some sort of purpose,audience, and is meant to spark some sort of

​ erry Dirk mentions how stylistic elements like tone and

conversation In ​Navigating Genres, K

communicating a purpose in some way are two huge elements that make your genre what it is

(Dirk 253). While all three blogs do a good job of making the tone more conversational and not

using intense jargon, thus allowing them to talk to their readers easily and personally, the ​Project

Vanity c​ ommunicates its message most effectively. The reason for this is that ​Project Vanity​ uses
“you” questions like, “Do you feel like you ‘need’ it to correct and cover up imperfections?” in

the introduction four times to connect to the reader (Esmerna). This tactic allows the reader to

think about the purpose of the content before even reading it as well as be more direct and

personalBoth the ​Project Vanity ​and ​Get the Gloss ​posts are published on more feminine sites,

allowing it to target their intended audience, women. The ​Bustle​ website has more of a broad

audience, and is really meant for anyone as it adds males into the conversation when it states,

“​Even fashion is becoming a more prominent way for men to express themselves” (King). This

immediately adds them to the content and the site is perfect for targeting a broader audience as it

reaches a broader range of readers due to the content including both men and women and title of

the blog being more general rather than feminine. The content in the ​Project Vanity

communicates its purpose clearly, “Project Vanity has always been and will always be about

helping women to be more confident about who they are and how they look” (Esmerna). The

other posts mention their purpose as well, just not as clearly. Another thing that sets ​Project

Vanity’s ​post apart is the discussion portion at the bottom of the text. The blog did a good job at

sparking conversation and the comments section is an integral feature in a blog. Carla

commented in the comments section, “When I put on makeup, I don't think about what other

people will say about how I look. I don't even put it on for my husband.” The blog’s main

argument is women put makeup on for themselves, and her comment supports that argument for

anyone reading the blog as well as numerous other women that mentioned the same. All three

blogs fulfilled their duty with communicating their purpose to their audience, but the ​Project

Vanity p​ ost was able to spark discussion on the opinion it argues with the discussion portion as

well as integrating thought provoking, more personal questions.

 Three other foundational elements that create an effective blog post are the publish date,

“About Me” section, and some sort of “Connect With Us.” The publish date at the top is

important as blogs are meant to be relevant and current so it allows readers to see how updated

the content is. All three blog posts include a publish date, but the ​Project Vanity ​one is the most

recent, maybe being a reason the content is more relatable than the other two. The “About Me”

section is also very common and only the ​Project Vanity​ post includes this section at the end of

the content. This allows the reader to connect with ​Baluyot, the author,​and get to know them a

little more. All three blog posts also have their social media on the post as a way to connect with

them as a way for the reader to stay in touch with the blog and read more articles. A blog’s

revenue comes from readers, so this allows them to keep them coming back. ​Project Vanity’s

“subscribe” button is the easiest to find as it is right underneath the blog post. The ​Bustle​ post

has it underneath multiple articles as a faint link and the ​Get The Gloss p​ ost has it with a bunch

of other links, making it harder to find. This is another small detail that puts the first blog post

above the other two with effectiveness. The ​Project Vanity ​blog’s format as well as the “About

Me” section make it easier to navigate and connect with the author and the blog as a whole

whereas the other blog posts do not have an easy to navigate connect section and nothing about

the author, making it the more effective blog.

The blog posts have some of the essential formulaic features of a generic blog post with

the header, format, photos, broken up chunks of text, “About Me” section, and the way they

communicate their purpose and audience that classify these genres as a blog posts, but ​Project

​ as the only one that had a persuasive sample text and included all of these stylistic,
Vanity w

skeletal elements of a blog post. These work with each other to make this genre effective and
fulfill its overall purpose, making it the best of the three. It includes numerous aspects a blog

post should have and molds them all very well from format to content to relevance. The visual

rhetoric adds to the genre as a whole and is done appropriately as it pertains to the article well

with the photos above each quote. Every component in the post is done to a tea and makes the

whole genre interesting to read and look at as well as the content being relevant in my life over

the other two, making it arguably the best for the topic. This blog only redefined my beliefs of

the power of cosmetics on myself as a woman and how it lifts my confidence and judging by the

discussion at the bottom of the ​Project Vanity ​blog, many other women felt the same.
 Works Cited

Bennett, Elizabeth. “The Makeup Maniac: Empowering Makeup.” ​Get The Gloss,​ 16 Mar. 2020,

www.getthegloss.com/article/the-makeup-maniac-empowering-makeup​.

Bickmore, Lisa. “Contingency: How We Situate Writing to Create Meaning.” ​Genre in the Wild:

Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems​, Pressbooks, 2019, pp. 1–10.

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” ​Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing​, edited by Charles

Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, vol. 1, Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data, 2010, pp. 249–261.

Esmerna, Charlie. “Eleven Women on How Makeup Empowers Them.” ​Project Vanity,​ Project

Vanity, 14 Aug. 2016, ​www.projectvanity.com/projectvanity/women-on-empowerment​.

King, Michelle. “Why Do Women Wear Makeup?” ​Bustle,​ Bustle, 7 Aug. 2013,​www.bustle.com

/articles/3243-why-do-women-wear-makeup.