About

Welcome to Beauty Swatch! I’m Yishan, the founder of BeautySwatch.com since June 2009.

I’m based in Melbourne, Australia.  I work in a corporate by day and blog about lipsticks by night.   You may also know me as “Akisa” – my pen name that I originally intended for the blogsphere, until I  gave up my anonymity due to the growing media interest in BeautySwatch.com

The Beauty Swatch Story

Ever since I started following beauty blogs, I found myself being more daring in purchasing beauty products online that one would typically prefer to buy in-store.  To decide on lip colours, I would google for other bloggers’ “swatches” of the product to get an indication of whether it might suit me.

Sometimes the search results would produce useful photos.  Other times I would get utterly useless search results with unrelated shades or brands.

One night after fruitless hours of searching for a lip colour swatch, I decided I was going to build an online colour library of lip colours. I have strict criteria to ensure the photos on BeautySwatch are of high quality and useful to readers.

How do you find the women to contribute to BeautySwatch?

Every person’s skin tone, lip pigment & texture is different, so I aim to provide as many swatches across different ethnicities and age groups as possible.

I knew I couldn’t do it alone and called upon the help of fellow beauty bloggers who believe in & support the Beauty Swatch concept.  Some of the team members were bloggers I already followed.  Others have contacted me from around the world to either contribute or join the team!  Meet the Contributors here.

Beauty Swatch relies on the team’s goodwill for contributing their images with no commercial benefits.  I try to direct traffic to their blogs as much as possible, as their swatches often come with reviews that I don’t bring across to Beauty Swatch. I also share our successes in the media and feature lip interviews with each team member to help build their profile.

Blogging Highlights

My first foray into the spotlight was being featured on Springwise.com, followed by a special mentions in In Style Magazine (USA) and  Forbes.com.   I also had the privilege of meeting Michelle Phan on her visit to Melbourne.  But the best highlight of all was publishing my very own eBook Pout Perfect and winning the 2012 Beauty Directory Star Beauty Blog Award.

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I can be reached at editor@beautyswatch.com

Last updated 16 November 2012.