Beautiful People is a dating site that was founded in 2002. It originally launched in Denmark; it expanded to the US and the UK in 2005, and in 2009, it expanded globally. The dating site (beautifulpeople.com) was created by Robert Hintze, Kasper Hjorth and Kasper Lausen; and is owned and operated by Beautiful Networks LLC.
As the name of the dating service suggests, Beautiful People is an “exclusively beautiful community”, which means that it is a place to go if you want to date pretty people. Since its founding, Beautiful People has grown in popularity; if for nothing, for unapologetically encouraging people to seek physical attractiveness in relationships. As you’ll expect it has courted controversy for this.
Yes, Beautiful People is legit dating site because they will never steal your money or credit card details. And also the paid subscriptions are offered without a problem.
While its exclusive model may be unpopular, the online dating service is by every means very popular as evidenced by its membership and “aspiring member” statistics. Beautiful People currently has over 750,000 members, but it could easily have trumped this if everyone that registers is admitted. It is reported that over 10 million persons have registered; meaning that less than one in every ten members that register is admitted into the platform.
As we go through this in-depth Beautiful People review, you will find out a lot of things about the dating site that you need to know before deciding to join.
In the movies, the princesses kiss the ugly toads; but how often do we see that happen in real life? No matter what has been said about looking beyond the physical appearance, and looking at the inner person when seeking a relationship, physical appearances cannot be discounted. The mere fact that there is the talk about “looking beyond the physical appearance” means that people already rate physical attraction highly.
If physical attributes are already influencing your relationship decisions, why shouldn’t there be a niche dating site that caters to that – having only attractive people. That is where Beautiful People comes in. It advertises as an “exclusively beautiful community”; a dating site where all its members are attractive.
The big question is whether that is just a claim, or whether Beautiful People is really an exclusively beautiful community. Another question will be how Beautiful People manage to maintain a community of only attractive people. More importantly, does the site have the functionality of the ideal dating (such as connecting singles, and providing interaction and communication tools)? In the first place, is Beautiful People legit? This review will examine Beautiful People in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions and more.
Background – Overview
One important thing is that Beautiful People does not define beauty. The platform itself does not rate the “beauty” of potential members.
Beautiful People says that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder; and since it is the members in the platform that will be beholding any profile in the platform, it’s only fair that it is these members that get to determine whether someone is attractive enough to be admitted or not. Thus, it advertises as “a dating site where existing members hold the key to the door”. This means that it is the existing members that rate the physical attributes of potential members and determine whether these potential ones are beautiful enough to get admitted into the platform as members.
Every person that registers in Beautiful People is required to be voted for. For the 48 hours following registration, his/ her profile will be made available to members who come online to vote whether they find the applicant “beautiful”. It is only if the applicant secures enough positive votes that he/ she will be admitted as a member. Applicants are voted as Beautiful, Hmmm OK, No, or Absolutely Not. At the end of the voting session, the votes are averaged. Applicant securing average “Beautiful” or “Hmm OK” votes are admitted as members; while applicants getting an average “No” or “Absolutely Not” votes are rejected.
Finally, Beautiful People has given us an insight as to why many applicants are voted out as “not beautiful enough” by its members. Conducting a poll of members; the dating service revealed that some of the “ugly traits” that get applicant voted out of the site are obesity, and unsightly nose, small mouth, bad teeth, unkempt grooming (such as dirty or long nails), bad posture, bad skin, balding scalp (for women).
The managing director of Beautiful People (Greg Hodge) was quick to see that many of these “ugly traits” causing people to be turned away are fixable, and he quickly identified a market. Thus, while Beautiful People have always simply turned away applicants that are rejected; the company has now partnered with relevant experts (plastic surgeons and beauty experts) to now provide feedback and expert advice on fixing any fixable ugly trait that may have caused an applicant to be voted out. Of course, such feedback and advice come at a small cost.
How it works – overview
The general consensus is that Beautiful People is a site for singles wanting to get into a relationship with another aesthetically attractive person.
However, when using Beautiful People, we found that your relationship status can be any of the following: single, married, in a relationship, divorced, it’s complicated. All the dating sites that cater exclusively to singles admit only singletons (never married, divorced, separated or widowed). That one can be married or already in a relationship and still be admitted into Beautiful People means that it is definitely not for only singles. Third party relationships? Maybe.
Also, Beautiful People is definitely not for only love seekers. The site list the following as what people registering can look for in the platform: love, social networking, invitations to parties, fun and flirts, business networking, and others. This will mean that Beautiful People is not only for people seeking love and long term commitment; the seeker of the casual relationship, or the occasional fun seeker can also be found in the platform.
Lastly, as a male member of Beautiful People, you can search for men or women; and as a female member, you can also search for men and women. This will mean that Beautiful People is LGBT friendly.
Who is it for – Overview
Like all dating services in the business, you’ll have to register to use Beautiful People. Registration is a relatively simple process; you start by navigating to and hitting the “Create free Membership here” bar on the landing page of the website.
On the page that opens up, you can supply your date of birth, gender, email, and also nominate a username and password, then hit “get started”. You’re then moved to a page where you have to supply your country, city, and a “little more about your lovely self” such as your net worth, sexual orientation (straight, gay, or bisexual), and what you are looking for (love, social networking, invitations to parties, fun and flirts, business networking, and others). After that, you’ll be moved to profile creation.
The first thing in profile creation is to submit a passport; after that, you’ll have to verify your email address by clicking on the activation link sent to the email you supplied. After verifying your email, your profile is sent straight to be voted for. That is, you become an applicant. You can see a dashboard showing a timer (the remaining time for voting on your application), and the status of the votes that have been cast already. As an applicant, you can view a list of “Newest members”, as well as “Latest online members”. You can also view the “activity stream” to see what members are doing, such as being voted in, adding new photos to profiles, or updating profiles. You can also use the search tool to search for members. Interestingly, not only can you view members’ profiles, but you can also send messages. Yes, albeit you can only mail up to 5 members.
However, you can proceed to complete your profile, as it will increase your chances of being accepted. While Beautiful People puts looks first, and unapologetically maintains this, it also says that there are many members (especially women members voting on men) who look beyond the looks and check out tidbits in the profile. To complete your profile, you’ll need to submit more personal information, such as height, weight, eye colour, hair colour, body type, filed of work, whether you own a car, whether you own a home, education level, and relationship status.
48 hours after your profile is sent in to be voted for, you’ll learn your fate; that is, whether the “acclaimed aesthetically gifted members” of Beautiful People deem you beautiful enough to be admitted as a member, or whether they think you’re not attractive enough to come into their beautiful community. You can watch your voting status in real time as the votes fly in; so you may even learn your fate before the voting window closes.
Signing Up – Overview
The profiles in a dating platform are what you’ll be looking at to decide whether you’ll want to get on with a member or not. Thus, you’ll want a dating service with profiles that are capable of giving quality insight into the profile owners. Granted, it ultimately comes down to the information that the user provides, but it is better that it is the user that chooses not to provide some important information than that it is the profile that does not allow for such information to be provided.
The profiles of Beautiful People do relatively well in this regard. The different sections of the profile are:
Unlike many dating services in the market that will not even let you view profile photos until you are a paid user; Beautiful people allow you to see profiles with a profile photo. Not only is it the profile photo that you can see, but you can see other photos that the user adds to his/ her gallery (albeit only the public photos). To view private photos, you’ll need to ask the user to grant you access to them.
The “I’m looking for” section is very helpful in contact decisions. It tells you right away whether what you want is what the user you are checking wants, and this can save you a lot of time or disappointment. For example, if you want to find love, you wouldn’t want to waste time on someone who wants “fun and flirts”
Also, the Info section of the profile will give you a good deal of details about the person; while the “About Me” and Interest sections can be very insightful as these are the sections that allow you to see the inner person, and help you know if there is any level of compatibility between you and the particular person. Thus, the profiles of Beautiful People are capable of being detailed enough and providing quality insight to help you make your “contact” decision.
Profile Quality – Overview
Unlike many online dating services, Beautiful People does not do any algorithm-based matching. In fact, the service does not do any matching at all. You’ll have to “go fishing” yourself. However, Beautiful People does help.
First, you can find a list of members in your area; and a list of members currently online. Secondly, in the member’s tab, you’ll find that Beautiful People places members into certain categories. These include:
Placing members into these categories helps can help in breaking the ice and starting a conversation. For example, you can check members in “Latest Updated Galleries”, and get the ball rolling by commenting on the added photo; also, you can check members in “Today’s Birthdays” and break the ice by wishing the person a simple “happy birthday”.
You can also meet people by using the “search tool” to discover members. Like every online dating service in the market, Beautiful People has two search levels – basic search and advanced search. Basic Search allows you to filter profiles using three criteria – location from you, gender, and age range. The “Advanced Search” allows you to filter profiles using more criteria, such as height range, weight range, body type, eye colour, hair colour, education level, sexual orientation, and smoking preference.
Beautiful People advertises that you will have a better experience using their search tool than with the search tool of the other dating services. According to the site, its peer selection model removes the first hurdle in using search tools of dating services, which is finding tons of unattractive people.
Meeting People – Overview
After finding a profile that you like, you’ll not be short of resources to interact. Beautiful People provides a good range of interaction and communication tools such as sending a message, instant chat and sending a wink.
If you want to show someone that you are interested, but do not feel up to sending a message, you can simply send a wink. You can dive straight in and send a well-crafted message; and if the person is online, you can instead use the instant chat. All messages are anonymous, and the user will not be getting personal contact details like your email address.
Making a connection – overview
Beautiful People is relatively easy to use. First, the signing up process is relatively easy; and creating a profile is short. Since the dating service does not do algorithm-based matching, there is no long form to fill. The only bump on the road is having to wait 48 hours to have other members declare you “beautiful” to be admitted, or to declare you as not meeting the grade and be booted out.
But even while “waiting for the judgement”, you can still use the site (browse members, view profiles and send messages), and you’ll find that using the site is also easy-breezy. It helps that Beautiful People places their members into certain categories in the “Members Tab”. That helps you in meeting people, and can serve as an icebreaker. Discovering persons yourself from the membership base of Beautiful People is also relatively easy. Simply click the search/ discover tool, activate your filters (input your search criteria), and hit search. The tool will bring out a list of profiles that meet your search criteria.
Upon clicking a profile, you’ll find everything you need for communication (winks, messaging etc), as well as everything you need to censor the profile (block the user, report user, grant access to private photos). You can also add the user to your favourite list so that you can quickly access the profile at a later time.
As a member, you can also check the “like” tab to see other members who have shown an interest in you. There’s an “Events” tab that can show you upcoming events that Beautiful People have for its members; and there’s also a forum tab, where you can check out what’s being discussed in the online dating spheres.
Everyone will agree that mobile apps give a richer user experience than accessing a service using mobile browsers. One is faster access; as you can have the dating service on your homepage for one-click access. Another benefit of apps is notifications. Beautiful People has mobile apps for Android and iOS platforms. The apps are free, and getting any onto your device is a breeze. It’s also lightweight, so you won’t have to worry too much of the app needing too much of your devices resource. You’ll find that whatever you get when accessing Beautiful People using a web browser can be gotten when using the app. The only thing is that the Advanced search has fewer search criteria when using the app.
Using Beautiful People
Many followers of the online dating world believe that you have a better chance of getting a serious relationship with fee-based services (that is, a dating service that requires you to pay to have any meaningful use of it).
In this regards, Beautiful People is a fee-based service. This is because, like many of the online dating services in the market, you’ll have to purchase a subscription before you can send and receive messages in the platform. Sure there is a free plan, but it is severely limited.
As a free user: you can register and create a profile; you can browse members in the members section, and through using the search tool; you can view all public photos in profiles; you can vote on new applicants; you can add members to your favourite list, and you can send winks to other members that you are interested in. You can also browse and check Beautiful People events listed in the “Events” tab.
The main dating activity is communication, and that is not possible as a free user. The only time you can send messages as a free user is: when you are an applicant (then you can send at least 5 messages to canvass for vote), and when you have verified your account (then you are allowed some messages as benefits for verifying your account).
When you buy a subscription and become a premium member, you can enjoy the following: send and receive unlimited messages; have live chat with other members who are online; see who is interested in you and who adds you to his/ her favourite list; ask to be granted access to the private photos of any member that you are interested in; join the forums and participate in discussions; get your final applicant rating score, and see the members that voted you as beautiful.
Free Users versus Paid users – overview
People believe fee-charging dating services tend to do better than the free dating services because almost data shows that the fees charge scare off some fakes/ scam artists. However, almost everyone also agrees that prices (where charged) must be set at reasonable low levels. Thus, the ideal service will be competitively priced.
Beautiful People does relatively well in this regards. The dating service has one service plan, which has three subscription packs based on billing periods. This means that all premium members of Beautiful People have access to the same features, and the difference in any two premium member will be the length of time that the service can be accessed. It’s a good one that there is not more than one service plan where some special features will be reserved for higher priced plans. This is because it is not a good user experience for one to be a premium user but still miss out on some features.
The three subscription packs are 1 month, three months and 6 months. The one month pack cost $24.99; the 3 months pack cost $50.97, which breaks down to $16.99 per month to give a 30% cost saving; while the 6 months pack cost $74.94, which breaks down to $12.49 per month to give a 50% cost saving. Like almost every subscription-based service in the market, you’re better off financially with the long term; such that the longer your subscription pack, the more cost-saving you’ll have.
The big question is whether Beautiful People is expensive. A comparative analysis (with other fee-based dating services) shows that it is not expensive, but a little on the high side. For example, there are many services whose monthly packs are $30+; also, the best price of Beautiful People is $12.49, which is only a little removed from the circa $15 charged by some of the expensive dating services.
Pricing – Overview
You also do not want to have a headache just to pay for your subscription, so you want a hassle-free payment process. Beautiful People gives that. You can pay for your subscription using PayPal or the popular credit/debit cards such as Visa, Visa Electron, America Express, Mastercard, and Maestro.
Admittedly, Beautiful People does not wow with a wide range of payment methods; but with the PayPal and the cards supported, you should not have any problem with conveniently paying for a subscription.
It should also be said that at the expiration of any subscription, it will be renewed to the tone of the expired plan. That is; if you’d bought a 3 months pack when it expires, your access will be extended by a further 3 months, and you’ll be charged accordingly.
Payment Methods – Overview
Given that scam artist parade the internet and that they use different fonts to rip off netizens, it’s important to check whether an online platform is legit before joining. In this regard, there is no doubt that Beautiful People is legit.
Our first of legitimacy is legality. This is because companies with correct legal certificates are always legit. Thankfully, Beautiful People ticks that box. The website is owned and operated by Beautiful Networks LLC, which is a dully registered company.
Another check of legitimacy is visibility and industry recognition. This is because, most often than not, the scam platforms hide in the shadows. Thankfully, Beautiful People ticks this box. The Directors of Beautiful People have appeared on CNN, BBC, The View, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, and more. The beauty-focus and exclusion model of Beautiful People have put the platform on the forefronts of the news almost since its founding till date. Suffice it to say that no scam site can gain such exposure.
Another check of legitimacy is the test of time. This is because scam platforms die out naturally with time as their scamming activity is discovered and exposed. In this regard, Beautiful People was one of the pioneers of online dating. It was established in 2002 when online dating was still talked about in hushed tone but has continued for about 17 years and still stand today as a top dating service.
Ultimately, the most important test of legitimacy is “fitness for purpose”. This is because it does not matter whether a dating site is 100% legal, or widely known, or has been operating from time immemorial if it currently cannot connect singles and help these singles find the kind of relationship they are looking for in the dating site. Thankfully, Beautiful People also ticks this “fitness for purpose” box. The dating service says that it over 700 couples have been married through unions formed in Beautiful People, while many more are in a committed relationship. If you do not trust these self-published claims, you are not alone; but you should know that we were able to find success stories of Beautiful People in some independent review platforms.
Legitimacy – Overview
When using online platforms, legitimacy is not enough. It is also important that the platform be safe. The first aspect of safety is that the site should protect the information that users share with it. It’s not news that if personal information or credit card details fall into the wrong hands, the user could be defrauded or worse. In this regards, Beautiful People says that it takes appropriate security measures which include physical, electronic and procedural measures to help safeguard users’ data. One such measure is the use of SSL to create a private channel for transmission of data between a user’s device and its servers. The data is also encrypted before being relayed through the channel, to ensure that it cannot be read by any hacker that succeeds in intercepting it. That said; you can have confidence that Beautiful People will effectively protect users’ data. However, it must be said that the dating site had once inadvertently caused the user’s date (personal information and messages) to be exposed when it made such data available on a test server.
The second aspect of safety is that the site should be relatively free of fakes and scammers. It’s not news that some unsuspecting members of dating service are defrauded by scammers pretending to be members of the platform. Thus, the safe site should be able to identify and remove such fakes and scammers. Beautiful People does very well in this regard with its profile authentication. The authentication can easily identify fake profiles and bots. To have your account authenticated, you’ll have to take a picture of yourself holding a paper that clearly has your username and the date. Every authenticated profile will be furnished with a “verified” badge; so when using the site, you can contact only verified profiles to be extra sure that you’re not wasting time on fakes or bots. Admittedly, the profile authentication will not weed off the scammers. However, Beautiful People have tools for easily blocking or reporting a profile; and these are easily accessible right on any profile.
Safety – Overview
The biggest complaint against Beautiful People is its operating model. That is; excluding some persons from the dating service for being ugly (or not being “beautiful” enough). Full articles in blogs and newspaper columns have been written criticizing the model for obvious reasons – it hurts to be rejected for any reason; and worst if it’s for your looks.
But Beautiful People has unapologetically maintained that their exclusion concept is founded on a basic principle of human nature; that being “romantically, people want to be with someone they are attracted to”.
True, the idea of inviting others to judge your physical attributes may sound harsh. True, a dating service that unapologetically emphasizes physical attributes may be disconcerting. But is it really different from how many of us are already interacting?
The following are revealing. There is a reason why many people will not even consider a dating profile that does not have a profile photo; there is a reason why many people frown at dating services that blur out profile photos until one upgrades to a paid plan; also, there is a reason the “plenty of fatties” line once followed the dating service Plenty of Fish. The simple truth is, people want to see the face behind the profile; and, most often than not, it is the physical attributes that get them interested in making contact before going on to find out the inner person.
When users are swiping left or right in many of the dating apps in the market, what they are shown are photos. Thus, the user is deciding to accept or reject another user solely by looking at his/ her physical attributes. That said; if we strip the diplomacy away, we’ll find that Beautiful People is not bringing something entirely alien to how we already behave. It’s just that it is a dating service that has come out to unashamedly admit it and build a policy around it.
Another complaint about Beautiful People that dominate the independent online review platforms is that Beautiful People is really not different from the other dating services out there in terms of the attractiveness of its members. That is, the claim by Beautiful People that everyone in the platform is “attractive” is only a claim; but that in reality, it has as many unattractive people as other dating services.
When we knew of the Beautiful People concept, we excitedly registered (more curious than interested), but all the same, hoping to meet super-hot members. As an applicant (when the supposedly super-hot members were still judging the beauty of the person we had in our trial profile), we checked out some members, and our excitement quickly died. We saw some members and were like: if this and this were voted in as beautiful, then there’s no way on earth our “profile person” will not be voted in. That is, there are really some persons in Beautiful People that are at least only average.
Beautiful People admits this, even trying to explain it. The dating service has come out to say that some aggrieved persons who got rejected have launched coordinated attacks on the system by using fake pictures to gain admission into the platform and then proceeding to vote in ugly people and vote out good-looking potential members. So don’t be surprised to see a bunch of people in the platform who in your eyes are not up to par.
However, even without using an explanation of such coordinated attacks, the presence in the platform of persons who in your eyes are unattractive can be explained. You should not that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. In this case; beauty is in the eyes of the beholding majority. For every profile that is voted in, there will definitely be some “No” and “Absolutely Not” votes. Thus, for every “beautiful” person in the platform, there are some members even within the platform that do not see him/ her as attractive.
Another complaint that we’ve found in the online spheres is that voting is a sham. One reason for this position is that applicants always find that they have voted the moment their profile goes out to be voted for.
It was the same for us. As soon as the trial profile we created (for the purpose of this review) was sent in to be voted for and we were directed to our dashboard; we saw that we were already being voted in, with votes given so far being about 30% on the “Beautiful” bar, 40% on the “Hmmm OK” bar, 20% on the “No” bar, and 10% on the “Absolutely Not” bar. It got us thinking how the profile could have gotten a good mix of all vote types less than 10 seconds after the profile dropped in as an applicant.
The saying that came to the mind, when we frequently saw this complaint is one oft-quoted by some of our preacher friends, which is: “once saved is not always saved”. That is, if the “acclaimed aesthetically gifted beautiful members” of Beautiful People judge you “beautiful” and vote you in, you’ll get admitted as a member of the dating service; but that does not mean you will always remain a member.
There are many reasons that can cause a member to be put back on the stands to be judged again as “beautiful” or not; and the statistics show that of those put back on the stands to be rated, more are booted out than are retained. Thus, there is a continuous threat of being kicked out of the dating site. Beautiful People is also unmoved about this. The dating service rather says that former who are kicked out “allow themselves to be removed”. That’s like saying, you allow yourself to become unattractive.
Reasons for being moved back for the rating include: uploading a photo that another member think is not attractive enough and reports or having a date with a member who thinks you are not as attractive as your picture portrays.
The threat of being kicked out of Beautiful People is not only in the virtual spaces of the internet. The dating service organizes events where its members can get to meet each other in person. You can even attend one of these events and the “beauty police” (the door attendants) will turn you back for not being attractive enough. Even when admitted into the event centre; another member can report you as not being attractive enough. Though, you may not be kicked out of the event after being admitted; it can lead to your profile in the site being moved back into the rating system for your “beauty” to be judged again by the “acclaimed aesthetically gifted beauties” who are members.
Another complaint that you’ll find against Beautiful People is that of unwanted charges. This is always from persons who wanted out and have stopped using the service; but who’ll find that they are still being charged for subscriptions.
It should be said that this complaint is not particular to Beautiful People but is something that affects almost all the fee-charging dating services in the market. The problem stems from the fact that subscriptions are automatically renewed.
If you’ll rather that your subscription is a one-off, you must contact Beautiful People and follow the necessary steps to cancel your subscription on time; so that, when it expires, it will not be renewed, and your account charged.
Beautiful People is a controversial dating service because of its very operating model. It advertises as an exclusively beautiful community, so anyone that is “not attractive enough” is not allowed to join the dating service. However, it doesn’t define beauty; the members of the site do. When you register, you become an applicant; and for the next 48 hours, other members of the will vote whether you are beautiful or not. After the voting, Beautiful People will only admit you as a member if you secure enough positive votes.
As a result, while over 10 million have registered to be members, just over 750,000 have successfully become members. The focus on beauty has attracted a lot of criticisms. Apart from the fact it is radical for one’s attractiveness to be rated by others, ratings are largely subjective.
However, if one is able to go beyond the focus on beauty and the exclusions, you’ll find that Beautiful People is a “well put together dating” site. There is an advanced tool that helps you filter profiles using a wide range of criteria, members are placed in certain categories to facilitate connection and starting a conversation, profiles are detailed enough to give quality insight; a good range of interaction and communication tools, rates are competitive; and more.
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