OK! Beauty Awards 2017 Shortlisted JustBe Botanicals

The Uncomfortable Truth About Beauty Awards

Being Shortlisted for Three OK! Beauty Awards

In 2017, having received awards from The Beauty Bible, Beauty Shortlist and Free From Skincare Awards, I entered three JustBe Botanicals skincare into three categories of the OK! Magazine Beauty Awards and to my delight, all three were shortlisted.

The three products shortlisted were the Happy Hand and Body Wash for Best New Bath & Shower Product, the Hydrating Serum and Treatment Oil for Best New Facial Skincare Treatment, and the Eye Makeup Remover for Best New Facial Cleansing Product.

It was genuinely thrilling. And then I read the terms and conditions properly.

The Real Cost of Entering and Winning

As most brands know, there's a cost to entering awards, which is completely understandable and accepted to cover administration costs etc. I do however think that this will be a surprise to many who are not involved or who have never entered.

I'm sharing the actual figures here because I've never seen another brand do it and I think the small business community deserves this information before they enter. 

These were the costs for the OK! Beauty Awards 2017:

OK! Magazine Beauty Awards JustBe Botanicals Happy Hand Wash

Entry fee: £150 plus VAT per product entered. I entered three products = £540 total.

Shortlist fee: If your product makes the shortlist, you are invoiced a further £1,295 plus VAT per product. This covers your brand being featured in Beauty Magazine and OK! online and in print, plus two all-inclusive tickets to the awards ceremony and gala dinner. I had three products shortlisted - a further £4,662.

Winner fee: If your product wins a category, you are invoiced a further £775 plus VAT. This covers your brand's appearance in the special Beauty Awards Products of the Year brochure, with a minimum print distribution of 315,000 copies.

Highly Commended fee: If your product is Highly Commended, you are invoiced a further £625 plus VAT per product.

In total, had both Highly Commended products been charged at the standard rate, the bill for those two results alone would have been £1,500 on top of everything already paid.

For context: this was 2017 and JustBe Botanicals was a very small, independent business. The shortlist fees alone were a significant financial stretch. Winning, which would have meant further fees would have come close to bankrupting the business. And the reason that I mention the VAT element is that are a lot of small businesses, including JustBe, are not registered for VAT so pay the full amount.

The Uncomfortable Conversation

Understanding the implications of the costs, I made the decision that I think more founders should feel empowered to make: I had an honest conversation with the awards organisers.

I explained that I could not afford to win or to be Highly Commended and asked whether I could attend the ceremony with the understanding that neither outcome would result in an invoice. They were professional and understanding and we reached an agreement.

And then, a week before the ceremony, I received a phone call. I was told not to be shocked if any of my entries received a Highly Commended. And crucially, that I would not be charged for these.

My honest belief is that the judges loved the products: the Eye Makeup Remover and the Happy Hand and Body Wash, and that the volume of public votes both received made it impossible to overlook them. Whatever the reason, I'm genuinely proud of those results. They were earned on merit, by products that real people had tried, loved and voted for.

Awards are an important element in building trust and exposure, especially for skincare and for small independent business who don't have advertising budgets. But I'll always wonder how many other small brands withdrew from consideration or never entered at all, because of costs like these.

What I've Learned About Awards Since Then

This experience taught me to consider a very different set of questions before entering any award:

What are the entry fees? What are the shortlist fees? Does the award align with the values and scale of my business? And perhaps most importantly who the judges are: independent experts or is the process primarily commercial?

Not all awards are created equal. Some are genuinely merit-based and designed to celebrate excellence at every scale. Others are primarily revenue models dressed up as recognition. The difference matters enormously to a small, independent business with limited resources. And whilst the OK! Awards held in the Tower of London were great fun: hosted by Amanda Holden with Strictly Come Dancing, The Great British Bake Off and the cast of The Only Way is Essex were there, it came at a cost. I passed on the 'opportunity' to pay to have products in the Goodie Bags - but that's perhaps another post for another time.

Since 2017, JustBe Botanicals has gone on to receive more industry awards. I entered these are awards because the process felt honest, the judging felt independent and the recognition felt meaningful, not because we could afford to win them.

For Every Small Brand Founder Reading This

If you're considering entering a high-profile beauty award, please read the full terms and conditions before you submit. Understand every fee at every stage: entry, shortlist, winner, Highly Commended and make sure you could afford the best case scenario, not just the entry.

Your products may be extraordinary. Your community may vote in their thousands. And yet you may still find yourself in a position where winning would cost more than you can afford.

That's not a reflection of your products. It's a reflection of how some award programmes are structured. And you deserve to know that before you enter.

With honesty, hard-won experience and a genuine love of the industry, Gail

The JustBe Botanicals products that earned their place:

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