Welcome to Bellatory! The central place for beauty and fashion lovers. Whether you are a makeup guru, a fashion blogger, or a passionate reader, Bellatory offers a robust community and a beautiful platform for you to share and enjoy topics like makeup, skincare, fashion, hair care, and all things beauty related.

We strive for the highest standard in content and visual appeal, therefore, articles should comply with HubPages’s Editorial Policy. In addition to the aforementioned policy, Bellatory places the utmost importance on demonstrating credibility. Some of the content on Bellatory, particularly skincare and cosmetic surgery articles, are held to an even higher standard than our general editorial policy because they are considered YMYL (Your Money or Your Life articles; in other words, the advice could have an impact on the reader’s health and well-being. YMYL content on any of the HubPages network sites must be trustworthy and accurate.

What Does It Mean to Demonstrate Credibility?

When we evaluate your article, we are looking for you to demonstrate credibility in one (or more) of these three ways:

1. Professional experience. Are you a medical or health professional (surgeon, dermatologist, endocrinologist, pharmacist, aesthetician etc.)? We would love to have you educate us about some aspect of your practice or professional experience.
2. Personal experience. Do you have personal experience with a specific condition and/or underwent treatment or surgery? It will be helpful and sometimes even comforting to learn your story and see how you dealt with a particular problem that other people might also have.
3. Citing your sources. If you do not have direct personal or professional experience with your topic, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t write for Bellatory—it just means our criteria might be a bit different for you. Clearly, you’ve done your homework to write your article, and we’d like you to share where you found your information. (See “Citing Your Sources,” below.)

Building Reader Trust

Because your content can potentially impact your reader’s health, it is important to establish trust right from the start. Here are three easy features that appear at the very beginning of your article that will help you do just that:

1. Author bio. Nothing builds trust like an author bio. Say something about who you are, what you do—and most importantly—whether you have any personal or professional experience with your topic. (Note: The author bio is different from the author profile you might already have created on HubPages.)
2. Author photo. We think your dog is cute, but for the author photo it’d be great to see a picture of you. Your reader is more likely to trust your content when you’ve included a real photo of yourself.
3. Use your real name. Using your real name (or a pen name), rather than a cute/clever/random moniker, can also help build reader trust. An author named “coolbeans” doesn’t sound quite as credible as an author with a name that sounds real.

Citing Your Sources: Establishing Credibility

• Tell us more about your research process. Which websites, books, etc., did you consult?
• Create a "sources" section at the end of the article. This will significantly boost your article's credibility.
• A “sources” section also gives readers a great place to start if they’re interested in learning more.
• Are you writing a personal account of a medical condition or health issue? You may wish to provide context with background facts and figures about the condition. Create a “sources” section so the reader knows where you got your information.
• Every coin has two sides, and most research topics have at least that many angles. If you can also cite counter research, and perhaps explain the limitations of that work, you may increase your article’s credibility.

A Few Additional Tips: In addition to these requirements, we have listed below some recommendations and tips on how to get selected for publication.

What We Like to See:

• Demonstrated Interest and/or Expertise: You don’t have to be an expert on beauty or fashion, but you do need to be a passionate enthusiast. We would like to see your personal advice or original research on topics that you love. We find that the most successful authors have one trait in common: a purpose to help others by providing unique and useful information.
• Original and Beautiful Photos: Beauty and fashion content heavily depends on the aid of beautiful images. Therefore, it is very important that articles contain high-quality photos, preferably taken by the author. If not taken by the author, it helps if photos are at least accurately sourced. We recommend avoiding stock photos, celebrity photos, and images taken from catalogs or advertisements. We find that readers are more likely to click on your article and even share your article if it contains photos that are attractive and original.
• Organized Content: It is a wonderful reading experience when you can instantly find the information you’re searching for just by scanning the article. You can help readers locate your main points of discussion by numbering, using bullet points, or having clearly defined subheadings. Photos should also be placed underneath the subheadings and next to the corresponding text in order to minimize confusion.
• Videos Are Encouraged: If you are writing a tutorial, we encourage you to provide a video at the end of your article. We suggest that you keep it to just one video per article. Topics that are not instructional will not need a video.

What to Avoid:

• Personal Anecdotes: Injecting a short personal anecdote could add humor or a sense of endearment, however, it is best if personal stories do not distract from the main point of your article. Always remember that the goal is to provide your readers with useful tips, insights, or instructions, so try to keep anecdotes short and sparse unless they add depth and value to the main topic of discussion.
• No Photos or Only Photos: Articles that do well are those that contain both informative text and beautiful images. Readers will most likely click away from your article if it contains a wall of photos with very little to no helpful content, or if you did not provide photos where needed. For example, a wall of photos of celebrity dresses is not helpful because anyone can flip through these photos on Google images. The same reasoning applies to a list of the best hair colors without the accompanying photos.
• Excessive Product Placement: Placing too many product capsules will give your readers an impression that you are spamming, and makes for a cluttered and distracting article. For product review articles, we recommend placing the product capsule at the very end. For makeup or hair tutorials, we recommend using in-text links when the name of the product is mentioned.

FAQ

Q: Why was I asked to replace or add a photo?

A: Your photo may be low quality or irrelevant. We ask that you provide high-quality, beautiful photos that are germane to the topic of your article. If they are not original photos, please source them.

Q: Why did you remove my product capsules and links?

: Readers prefer an uncluttered experience because too many links and products are distracting and may appear spammy. This is why we ask that you use in-text links whenever the product is mentioned and that you only recommend directly related products.