besidesguide.com

What It Is

Besides is a research aggregation tool for beauty purchase decisions. After a user enters a product, the site condenses public discussions scattered across Reddit, YouTube comments, and editorial mentions into a scannable page. Its goal is to help users see, in about 30 seconds, “what people generally agree on, where opinions differ, and what alternatives exist at a similar price.” Based on the content it surfaces, it covers categories such as fragrance, serums, shampoo, masks, cleansers, sunscreen, makeup, and other beauty, skincare, and personal-care products.

Core Capabilities and Experience

Its core function is not to generate editorial recommendations, but to organize public word of mouth: filtering out sponsored and brand-affiliated content, linking back to original sources, and showing comparable alternatives in the same price range. The site explicitly states that it has no staff editors, no “our picks,” no Top 10 lists, and does not conduct original product testing. In that sense, it is more of a pre-purchase evidence summarizer than an authoritative review publication. The page does not disclose specific AI models, algorithms, training methods, or human review processes, so we can only confirm that it provides review aggregation, compression, and structured presentation.

Pricing and Business Model

At present, there is no visible paywall, subscription pricing, or trial limitation. The page states that it “does not make money through ads, affiliate links, or paid placements,” and says it does not currently have a monetization model. This makes it good value for users, but it also means there is some uncertainty around long-term maintenance, coverage expansion, and service stability.

Pros and Cons

Its strengths are its restrained positioning and reduced interference from ads and affiliate shopping guides. It can consolidate discussions from multiple platforms into one page and provide similarly priced alternatives, making it useful for reducing the research cost of repeatedly switching between tabs. The downsides are that it does not perform hands-on testing and does not provide definitive conclusions; its results depend on the quality and quantity of public discussion. If a product has limited information, inflated or low-quality reviews, or sources skewed toward English-speaking communities, the value of its conclusions will decrease. Privacy, API access, and Chinese-language support are also not disclosed.

Who It’s For and Access from China

It is suitable for users who want to quickly understand genuine feedback from English-language communities before buying overseas beauty, skincare, fragrance, or personal-care products. It is also a good fit for people who do not trust affiliate ranking lists. Access from China cannot be determined from the available text, and there is currently no payment-related information. For Chinese-language alternatives, users may refer to Xiaohongshu or 什么值得买; for editorial reviews, Wirecutter and Allure are relevant references.