Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2010

Last week I was excited to receive an invitation to the launch of the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2010. I was unsure whether the person compiling the invite list has stumbled across Rarely Wears Lipstick or whether they’d read my posts over at BitchBuzz, but either way I was curious to find out more so I checked with my boss that I could come in a bit late on the day and then RSVP’d. What was it all about and why were they doing it? Well, I found out this morning at The Future Gallery.

I arrived before 9am to find a collection of effortlessly stylish, immaculately dressed fashionistas gathered outside and instantly felt out of place in my retro dress, with my 35-year-old eyes hidden behind a rather old pair of sunglasses. I needn’t have worried though as, once I got chatting to people inside, I discovered that there was a real mix of bloggers there, including lovely folk from great sites like Mr Paparazzi, Uplift, Sticky Lips, Domestic Sluttery and My Fashion Life. Once we’d had some breakfast and mingled a little, Justine Southall, the Publishing Director for Cosmo, introduced herself and gave us a little background. Cosmopolitan is the largest women’s magazine brand with 62 editions worldwide and has been running for 38 years in the UK. Famous for talking to women about intimate subjects, Cosmo have always had a strong readership community which became even more important with the expansion of the brand onto the internet. Now that their website is such a core part of their brand, Pat McNulty, the acting editor at cosmopolitan.co.uk, explained to us why they have decided to start the blog awards.

They know their readers love blogs and that they have their must-read sites which they read daily, but Cosmo want to find more for them. They want to find blogs their readers will love and also discover new writing talent, so are asking bloggers to spread the word and get their readers to nominate their favourites. The categories are: sex & relationships, beauty, fashion & style, e-tailer, lifestyle, gadget tech, news & current affairs, celebrity, plus a special award for a new fashion blogger. Shortlists of five will be drawn up by the Cosmopolitan team in each of the categories and the winners will be announced at the end of August. All sounds great but in the rush to collect my wonderful goodie bag (see photo) I forgot to ask when the nominations form would be online! Seems odd to launch something and not have it ready straight away, but no amount of Googling has returned the results I wanted. As soon as I find the form I shall let you know but, in the meantime, get thinking on who you’ll nominate. I already have a rather long list.

UPDATE: The nomination form is now live. Looks like you can only nominate once though (per IP address at least) so think carefully!