The reader experience is very important to the Modern Woman’s Survival Guide, as is integrity. Always has been. Always will be. Which is why there are some things you’ll never see on here:

- Ad sense advertisements: besides looking ghastly, they interrupt what you are trying to read

- Pop up ads: they really give me the shits and I will often blacklist a site if they use them, so I’m certainly not going to subject you to them (no matter how much an advertiser wanted to pay me to display one)

- Advertising banners for products I wouldn’t buy myself

- Churning out content I don’t believe in. Just. Can’t. Do. It.

- Writing a positive review about a service or experience I did not like just because I may have gotten it for free – that would just make me a prostitute wouldn’t it? Yes, I get things for free sometimes, but that’s one of the perks of being a writer and you could say part of the job description of working for a magazine. Some people get a car allowance, I get to review products and services for free, so that I can write about them – but it doesn’t sway the authenticity of my writing. Yes, I love that part of my job. Holy, hell – who wouldn’t?

- Promoting a beauty product I did not like or wasn’t effective. As the Beauty Editor for Onya Magazine and the Editor of this blog, it is a policy I endorse with all my Beauty Writers. Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote in Onya Magazine in March about this very topic:

Like myself, Olivia (okay, now that you’ve gotten to know her a bit better, you can call her Liv) is dedicated to showcasing the finest Australian made and owned beauty products this country has to offer. But, there’s something about Liv’s reviews you should know. Like my columns, they are honest.

Sure, we get sent a lot of beauty product to try, but just because they get sent to us for free, doesn’t necessarily mean we write good things about them. Because we don’t want our readers rushing out to buy products that simply don’t work. There’s a word for this, and it’s integrity – and I don’t think there’s a lot of that going in mainstream media.

But I’ve never seen you write a bad word about any product in the magazine yet? That’s because there are many products that simply don’t make the cut.  I’m not one to slam a product, but I certainly won’t endorse it if it isn’t good.

I concede I’m a tough crowd. It’s hard for me to look past bad packaging or use something that I think smells offensive, but I am objective. Sure, there have been some products that have made me want to dry reach and have gone straight into the bin, never to be subjected to another human being again, but most products that I don’t like are sent on for a second opinion (who doesn’t love a surprise parcel in the post?)

So you, our dear readers, can trust that when you read about a beauty product or brand in Onya, it must be truly fabulous – because we accept nothing less.

There, I got that off my chest. I feel better now.