Brands over time

Cult Beauty
over time

Every year keeps its colour across every chart.│ ChatGPT, 30 Nov 2022

134 of Cult Beauty's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, 2015 to 2026, measured sentence by sentence. How the writing has moved over the years, how it compares with 8 other beauty brands, and what it sounds like in its own words.

Pages measured
134
Years covered
2015–26
Archived before ChatGPT
0
Blog · press
130 · 4

01 · Homepage

One capture a year

Cult Beauty's homepage from 2008 to 2026, closest to 1 July, from the Internet Archive. Pick a year or press play. Each headline is quoted from its capture and links to the archived copy.

2026cultbeauty.co.uk27 Jun 2026
Cult Beauty homepage, 27 Jun 2026

Screenshot of Cult Beauty’s homepage (cultbeauty.co.uk) as archived by the Internet Archive on 27 Jun 2026. © Cult Beauty or its licensors. Shown for comparison and review; not endorsed by Cult Beauty.

Homepage

2026

“SHOP BY CATEGORY”

Page title

CULT BEAUTY | The Home of Beauty Discovery

Open on the Internet Archive
  1. 2010Click to unmute Cosmetics & Make-up News
  2. 2013More ways to shop
  3. 2022NEW FROM TOO FACED
  4. 2023AS CHOSEN BY CAROLINE HIRONS
  5. 2025WHAT'S NEW AT CULT BEAUTY
  6. 2026SHOP BY CATEGORY

16 captures. Screenshots are rendered from the archive and can pull in images archived later than the page itself; dates come from the capture. Years without a capture are greyed out in the strip.

02 · Measures by year

How the writing moved

Every year’s pages, averaged. Pick a measure. Hatched bars rest on fewer than 10 pages: context, not a finding. The page count sits under each year.

Sentence lengthAverage words per sentence.
5
10
15
Beauty avg 11.5
12.9
12.9
11.8
12.6
13.4
13.8
12.1
10.9
11.6
11.2
10.6
11.2
ChatGPT · Nov 2022
20153 pp
20165 pp
20178 pp
20184 pp
20197 pp
20206 pp
202111 pp
202216 pp
202317 pp
202422 pp
202521 pp
202611 pp
10 or more pagesFewer than 10 pages: context, not a findingSector averageChatGPT released
Show as a table
YearSentence lengthPages
201512.93
201612.95
201711.88
201812.64
201913.47
202013.86
202112.111
202210.916
202311.617
202411.222
202510.621
202611.211

Years with pages: 2015 (3), 2016 (5), 2017 (8), 2018 (4), 2019 (7), 2020 (6), 2021 (11), 2022 (16), 2023 (17), 2024 (22), 2025 (21), 2026 (11). Dates come from page metadata, structured data, the URL, or the month a page was first archived (a latest possible date).

03 · Before and after

2019 to Nov 2022 against 2024 to 2026

The same measures on 39 pages from before ChatGPT launched and 54 pages from 2024 on. A change here is a change in style. It does not show how any page was written: people used every one of these words and shapes long before 2022, and SGR-011 found most of the shift across brands was a trend already under way.

Measure2019 to Nov 2022 · 39 pp2024 to 2026 · 54 ppChange
Sentence length
12.111.0−10%
Sentence rhythm
0.900.92+2%
Contractions
19.217.0−12%
"You"
63%67%+4 pts
"We"
21%17%−3 pts
Questions
5.13.7−26%
Exclamations
3.611.23−66%
Long words
23%24%+1 pts
Em dashes
4.344.37+1%
AI-associated words
2.162.23+3%
AI-era marketing words
1.801.86+4%
Quieter LLM-favoured words
0.580.57−0%
AI-associated sentence shapes
0.260.10−60%
Page length
1,1021,724+56%

Each row is scaled to its own larger value, so rows compare within themselves, not with each other. Before = 2019 to Nov 2022 (39 pages); after = 2024 to 2026 (54 pages). Method: SGR-011.

04 · Against its sector

Cult Beauty among beauty brands

Each dot is one brand’s mean across all its measured pages; the tick is the sector average. Only brands with 10 or more measured pages are shown or counted. Select a dot to open that brand.

  1. Em dashes

    69% more than its sector

    4.04 against a sector average of 2.40; 2nd highest of 9.

  2. "We"

    44% less than its sector

    18% against a sector average of 31%; lowest of 9.

  3. Questions

    43% more than its sector

    4.2 against a sector average of 2.9; highest of 9.

Sentence lengthMid-table, 5th of 9
Cult Beauty 11.6
8.315.6
ContractionsHighest of 9
Cult Beauty 18.6
4.918.6
"You"3rd highest of 9
Cult Beauty 66%
33%75%
"We"Lowest of 9
Cult Beauty 18%
18%60%
QuestionsHighest of 9
Cult Beauty 4.2
1.24.2
Long words2nd lowest of 9
Cult Beauty 23%
22%29%
Em dashes2nd highest of 9
Cult Beauty 4.04
0.765.55
AI-associated words3rd highest of 9
Cult Beauty 2.17
0.402.51
Exclamations2nd highest of 9
Cult Beauty 2.32
0.053.82
Page length3rd highest of 9
Cult Beauty 1,391
5225,303

Pages measured: Boots 46 · The Body Shop 75 · Cult Beauty 134 · LOOKFANTASTIC 132 · Space NK 132 · Neal's Yard Remedies 121 · Molton Brown 37 · The INKEY List 100 · Bulldog Skincare 99. Measures and method: SGR-010; this sector and its brands were added by Brands over time, measured exactly as the studies measured theirs. Sector averages and ranks cover every brand in the sector on this site.

05 · Vocabulary

Words Cult Beauty uses more than its peers

The words this brand reaches for more often than the rest of its sector. This is subject matter more than voice.

shades50.0 vs 4.4
care49.7 vs 8.4
blush17.6 vs 1.2
tan16.6 vs 1.5
palette14.7 vs 1.4
edit13.1 vs 0.6
conscious14.8 vs 0.3
hair59.3 vs 24.2
expert15.1 vs 2.4
tanning11.2 vs 0.3
eyeshadow11.9 vs 1.3
Cult BeautySector peers

Uses per 10,000 words, ranked by weighted log-odds (Monroe et al. 2008) across 134 pages. Checked for product names and page furniture.

06 · In its own words

What it sounded like

Openings of real pages, quoted word for word, oldest first. Each links to the page, or to the Internet Archive’s copy when it has gone.

20172 Jun · Blog
“New to the ' sheet mask' phenomenon? We recommend you rectify the situation STAT. Here's a list of the best quick-fix treatments for every skin crisis.”
5 sheet masks we're loving right now
202212 May · Blog
“It’s out with the old and in with the new, and summer 2022 couldn’t be much more optimistic if it tried! The beauty world has seen a flurry of colour, sparkle and 90s obsession this season, and quite frankly we couldn’t be happier.”
THESE ARE THE MOST SEARCHED BEAUTY TRENDS FOR SUMMER 2022
20249 Apr · Blog
“Not a fan of fake tan? No problem! Nowadays, the possibilities to create a ‘faux glow’ are endless, so you don’t need to rely on fake tans or sun-worshipping to rendezvous with radiance.”
Fake Tan Alternatives For Those Who Don't Do Tan
20263 Jun · Blog
“To save you scrolling endlessly through TikTok and Pinterest in search of what’s hot, we caught up with Cult Beauty’s expert buyers to reveal the Summer 26 makeup, skin care, hair and fragrance trends that are defining the season. Consider this your summer beauty briefing of the very best trends to follow.”
The Summer’26 Beauty Trends You Need to Know

07 · Every page

All 134 pages, by year

The full list behind every number above, with links to the live page or the archived copy. 134 count towards the measures. Pages with no reliable date count in the overall numbers but in no year.

202611 pages
202521 pages
202422 pages
202317 pages
202216 pages
202111 pages
20206 pages
20197 pages
20184 pages
20178 pages
20165 pages
20153 pages
In the overall numbers, no year3 pages
  • How To: Brighten Dark Spots12 Aug 2014 · blog · 663 wordsDated before 2015: in the overall numbers; the year charts start at 2015
  • Beauty Trendsundated · blog · 195 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
  • Ask the expertsundated · blog · 211 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year

08 · Method

How this was measured

The pages

Cult Beauty's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, fetched from the live site in 2026 and from the Internet Archive for 2015 to November 2022. Homepages are shown as captures; product and help pages are not measured.

The measures

Code counts from ScriptGrain’s writing instruments: sentence length and rhythm, contractions, pronouns, punctuation, long words, and three published lists of AI-associated words. No AI model reads or judges any page.

What it cannot say

These measures describe style. They cannot tell who or what wrote a page, and nothing here says or implies that any brand used AI to write.

Sample sizes

Every number carries its page count. Years under 10 pages, and before-and-after comparisons with under 10 pages on a side, are shown as context only.

Sentence length
Average words per sentence.
Sentence rhythm
How much sentence length varies (standard deviation over mean). Higher reads less even.
Contractions
Contractions (we're, you'll, it's) per 1,000 words. A rough gauge of how conversational the writing is.
"You"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "you": how much the writing addresses the reader.
"We"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "we": how much the writing talks about the organisation.
Questions
Question marks per 1,000 words.
Exclamations
Exclamation marks per 1,000 words.
Long words
Share of words with seven or more letters.
Em dashes
Em dashes per 1,000 words.
AI-associated words
Words from SGR-007's three AI-associated lists, per 1,000 words. These are style markers that people used long before ChatGPT; a higher rate says nothing about who or what wrote the page.
AI-era marketing words
Marketing words that became more common in AI-era copy (seamless, elevate, unlock...), per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Quieter LLM-favoured words
Everyday words language models are known to over-use, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
AI-associated sentence shapes
Sentence patterns such as "not just X, but Y", found by ScriptGrain's cliche checker, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Page length
Average words per page.

Studies: SGR-009: Do brands in the same sector sound the same? · SGR-010: How UK brands write · SGR-011: Did brand writing change after ChatGPT?.