If you found yourself typing makeupalley.com sometime after September 2025 and getting nothing but a blank screen, you weren't alone. I did the same thing—muscle memory from years of checking reviews before splurging on another serum that promised to fix everything.
MakeupAlley (or MUA, as we called it) shut down on September 27, 2025, after 26 years online. And honestly? It felt like losing a friend.
What MakeupAlley Actually Was
For those who never experienced it, MakeupAlley launched in 1999—created by beauty editor Hara Glick and web developer Elky Mart in New York. This was before Amazon had review sections. Before Sephora let you rate products. Before influencers existed.
The premise was simple: real people reviewing real products with a rating system of one to five lipsticks, plus the crucial question—"Would you repurchase?"
By its peak, MUA had nearly 2.8 million reviews covering almost 400,000 products. The New York Times called it "the standard bearer for the unvarnished truth about beauty products online." And they weren't wrong.
The reviews were brutally honest. No affiliate links. No sponsored content. Just someone telling you that yes, that £45 foundation does oxidise orange by lunchtime, or that the drugstore mascara actually outperforms the designer one.
The Features We Loved
The Café Board
This wasn't just about makeup. The Café was MakeupAlley's watercooler—over 16,000 posts every single day about everything from wedding planning to career advice to what everyone was watching on telly. Friendships formed. Drama happened. It was chaotic and wonderful.
FOTD (Face of the Day)
Brave souls posted selfies of their makeup looks, asking for "CC" (constructive criticism). It sounds terrifying, but the community was genuinely supportive. Where else could you get honest feedback on whether your contour was too heavy without someone trying to sell you a course?
The Swap (RIP 2015)
Before the site killed it in 2015, MUA's swap function let members trade products globally. You'd earn tokens by writing reviews, then use them to exchange that lipstick shade that looked nothing like the photo for something you'd actually use. Members still mourn this one.
One longtime user summed it up: "I've been here 19 years. Found Holy Grail products, friends through swapping, felt like I travelled the world internationally swapping with girls all around the globe."
What Went Wrong
MakeupAlley's death wasn't sudden—it was a slow fade.
The ownership changed hands constantly. Beauty.com bought it in 2000, then it went independent in 2001, then Japanese company istyle acquired it for around $10 million in 2017. Each transition meant uncertainty, and the site rarely evolved.
Meanwhile, the world moved on. TikTok and Instagram became where people discovered products. YouTube tutorials replaced text-based tips. Even Reddit's beauty communities grew larger than MUA ever was.
Traffic dropped from 704,000 monthly visitors in 2015 to just 220,000 by mid-2025.
As one beauty industry observer put it: "Now that social media has exploded and everyone is an influencer, many who are often paid to say a product is amazing when it may not be, MakeupAlley will be missed."
Why This Matters
Here's the thing about MakeupAlley's closure that stings: it wasn't replaced by something better. It was replaced by chaos.
Social media "reviews" are often paid promotions dressed up as opinions. Amazon reviews are a minefield of fakes. Retailer reviews on Sephora or Boots often lack the detail that MUA users provided.
What MUA understood—and what we try to carry forward at GlamGeek—is that real value comes from honest, unsponsored opinions combined with useful tools. When I'm deciding whether to buy a product, I want to know what people actually think AND whether there's a better price somewhere. That combination of honest reviews and price tracking is what we've been building since 2010.
MakeupAlley never figured out the price piece. They'd tell you a serum was brilliant, but not that it was £15 cheaper at another retailer. They never added wishlist alerts to tell you when your "maybe one day" products went on sale.
Where Do We Go From Here?
If you're reading this and feeling a bit lost without MUA, you're not starting from scratch. There are still places that value honest reviews over sponsorships.
I'd obviously point you toward GlamGeek—we've been quietly doing this since 2010, and we've built the features I wished MUA had. Price comparisons across retailers. Wishlists that actually alert you to drops. Reviews from real users who aren't getting paid to love everything.
But more than any single website, what I hope survives from MakeupAlley is the spirit of it: regular people sharing genuine opinions about the products they've actually used. No affiliate links required. No sponsorship disclaimers. Just honest answers to "does this actually work?"
That's the internet we lost a little bit of when MUA went dark. And it's what I hope we're building back, one honest review at a time.
Got a MakeupAlley memory? Found your Holy Grail product through the site? I'd love to hear about it—find me at @glamgeekclaire.
