How This Story Got Made: "Professional Brands Are Taking Back The Industry" for Fashionista
Sharing the pitch, the price, and the process.
"How This Story Got Made" offers a behind-the-scenes look at the process of pitching, writing, and publishing stories as a (mostly) freelance writer. In this series, I’ll share real examples of pitches that editors accepted, explain why they worked, and describe the process of bringing those stories to life. I’ll also break down how long each story took to produce, what challenges came up along the way, and how much I got paid.
I’m such a nosy bitch when it comes to how other writers get things published and make money. Not because I’m jealous, but because it’s something I had to figure out on my own when I started my freelance career, and I wish I had someone to tell me what editors are looking for from a pitch, especially if it’s coming from a freelancer. It could’ve saved me A LOT of time. I wrote probably hundreds of pitches that never got a response because the angle wasn’t clever or unique enough.
As a freelancer, your job is to make your editor want to say yes. It’s a helluva lot easier for editors to stick to their staff writers and trusted freelancers who are more than happy to take on assignments and write whatever their editor tells them to. Editors handle product roundups and smaller trend stories in-house, but what they’re really looking for from freelance writers are fresh, new ideas that they haven’t even thought of yet. That’s how to get an editor to say yes to your pitch.
As an editor at BeautyMatter, I do a lot less formal pitching nowadays, but back in 2022, that was my bread and butter. I got really good at pitching, if I do say so myself. In this series, I hope to pull back the curtain on the pitching process and share the pitches that won over editors, why I think they worked, and how I took that idea from pitch to publication.
How This Story Got Made: "Professional Brands Are Taking Back The Industry" for Fashionista
Fashionista has always been a dream publication of mine to write for, back when writing about beauty was also just a dream. Here’s proof:
In 2022, I wrote my first story for Fashionista on upcycled ingredients in beauty and skincare. My editor, Stephanie Saltzman, must have liked it, because not long after, she commissioned me to write a story investigating why so many Gen Z influencers and celebrities are getting into fragrance for Fashionista’s “Hey, Quick Question" column, which was so fun. I love writing for Fashionista because it allows me to dive deep into trends while still poking fun at the absurdity of the beauty industry. Here’s a quick excerpt because I simply cannot help myself:
“If fame is the ultimate long con, celebrity perfumes are my personal favorite famous-person grift. Bottling and selling an implied psychological closeness is a bonkers concept that many celebs have come to accept as just another merch opportunity, akin to selling locks of their hair. On the flip side, buying celebrity perfumes in order to "smell like a celebrity" is the first step in becoming a bonafide stalker, so perhaps this trend towards individualized scents is healthier approach. Plus, $50-$100 seems like a fair tax to pay for all the shit we let Deux Moi say about famous people.”
Later that year, I noticed a shift in the industry away from celebrity brands towards artist-founded lines. Jones Road by iconic makeup artist Bobbi Brown was hot, hot, hot, and Makeup by Mario was gaining traction. These lines felt like a breath of fresh air compared to celebrity brands, which was especially impressive at a time when beauty consumers were feeling fatigued.
I was doing some copywriting work for a green commodities manufacturer that worked exclusively with professional hair and makeup artists to develop brands and products – not celebrities. I remember talking to the CEO about the company’s deliberate decision to work with real beauty industry professionals over celebrities (even though they could’ve been making a lot more money if they did). They thought celebrity beauty was a fading shooting star and chose, instead, to invest in brands and products that were thoughtfully developed by beauty experts.
I could see the shift happening right before my eyes, and I knew there was a story there. I crafted a pitch and sent it off to Stephanie. Here’s the pitch in its entirety:
I sent the pitch on October 4, 2022, and Stephanie replied a few days later, on October 7: “Thank you for this thoughtful and thorough pitch; I think it’s great, and Fashionista would be a perfect home for it.”
Here’s why I think the pitch worked: I opened it by linking to a relevant article that was recently published that shared a similar sentiment around how beauty experts and consumers are fed up with celebrity brands. Could it have worked if I had asserted that I’m sick of celebrity brands and want to see more professional brands? Maybe, but it’s stronger because someone else said it first. That’s what made my pitch relevant, topical, and timely.
My pitch differed from Mandell’s article in that I’m arguing that celebrity beauty brand fatigue has led to a renaissance of professional beauty brands. I’m always careful about referencing another article, whether in a pitch or a published piece, because I never want to be accused of “stealing” an idea. I read Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon when I was in college, and some of the lessons really stuck with me, especially when I took the leap to becoming a freelance writer. Kleon writes that “every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas,” which couldn’t be more accurate. In this case, my pitch was a remix of a previous idea. I’m not ripping off Mandell’s article, but rather riffing on it.
It’s really hard to come up with new ideas, especially as a new writer. It’s easier to remix an old idea, which is what I did with this pitch and why I think my editor was so quick to accept it.
Once the pitch was accepted, we talked about rates and deadlines. I initially told her my rate would be $450, and I could have a first draft submitted by November 4, less than a month later. She replied saying that the most they could budget towards this is $350, and asked what we’d need to do to make that doable. She suggested we set a lower word count around 1,000-1,500 and added that she would love to try to make it happen if possible.
She also added this very important feedback:
“I also wanted to flag one thing about making sure we're coming at this with a nuanced approach that's not just simply saying the answer is to put more brands/products out there. But rather, the focus could be more about a plea to re-focus our attention on experts and stop valorizing celebrity for celebrity's sake, and remember the pro brands we have loved in the past (and why they are great), instead of turning to flashy celeb lines that are trendy and basically fast-makeup.”
I accepted the lower rate with the 1,000-1,500 word count and completely agreed on adding that nuance into the piece. I thought it was a great note and definitely helped me find the right angle for this piece.
And with that, I was off! I interviewed Dulma Altan, a TikTok creator, consultant, and founder of the business podcast Due Diligence; celebrity makeup artist Christine Cherbonnier; makeup artist Bobbi Brown; hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai; celebrity hairstylist Andrew Fitzsimons; and Helen Reavey, a certified trichologist, celebrity hairstylist, and founder of the hair-care brand Act + Acre.
I submitted the article in early November, and the piece was published as the homepage feature story on December 8 with the title “Professional Brands Are Taking Back the Beauty Industry.”
I submitted my invoice on December 11 and got paid for it on January 13. Between the multiple interviews and the actual writing of the thing, it probably took me about 10-12 hours of work.
While I don’t have access to Fashionista’s analytics, I know the piece did really well based on the feedback I received from both my editor and the industry at large. The article was included in Beauty Independent’s newsletter and discussed on Fat Mascara, one of my favorite beauty podcasts.
I wish I had a camera recording me at the exact moment I was listening to Fat Mascara (as I do every week) and heard my very own name next to “really good story,” followed by “She wrote this amazing piece…” Like????? Pinch me. Punch me. I was (and still am!) screaming, crying, throwing up. It was a career highlight for me, and it all happened because I was reading, listening, and observing the world around me. I knew the pitch had legs because of the way that Janna Mandell’s piece resonated with the beauty industry, and I knew there was more to the story.
And that’s how this story was created! Although it’s now two years old, it’s still one of my favorite stories simply because of how it came to be and how readers and beauty industry insiders received it. If you like this series and have any questions about pitching or freelance writing, let me know. I’ll do my best to answer them in a subsequent post here or on my Instagram.
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