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Blog Review: The Chic Site



This summer I began reading Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by Rachel Hollis. Released in 2018, this book found its way into the hands of hundreds of thousands of women since, and for good reason. (Full transparency, I only got to chapter 11, but what I read was candid and motivational.) Hollis talks to her readers as if she were their childhood best friend, giving them the inspiring messages they need to shatter the lies society has told them to become the best versions of themselves. In addition to a best-selling, self-published author, Hollis is a mother, entrepreneur, motivational speaker and blogger.

Her blog, The Chic Site, covers topics ranging from recipes, fashion and business to social media, travel and motherhood. She is a perfect example of a person who leveraged digital media to build her brand from the ground up. The range of topics covered on her blog is summed up by Hollis herself when she said in her post titled What Women Never TalkAbout, "I mean, who fills a blog with DIY chore charts for their kids and my favorite historical romance novels and also writes an entire post dedicated to periods? Well, me I guess."

The homepage of the blog is full of color-saturated images balanced by black and white text. At first glance, it's easy to see a picture-perfect life. Hollis is adamant in her book though, that her life is NOT perfect. She is a regular human with stretch marks and relationship problems, just like all of us. So once you look past the model shots and healthy smoothies and salads to explore the work tab, you'll find posts titled Kick Your Social Media Up, 7 Secrets of Confident Women and 4 Things That Doubled My Business. Her humorous and relatable voice comes through in her blog posts just like her book. She uses italics, bold words, and all caps for emphasis and to show she's joking. This is a professional blog, as it is her business, but she is being her authentic self. Small blue social media tabs are on the side of the blog for easy access to all of her platforms.

Hollis gets personal with her readers, talking about her struggles with anxiety and feeling like a bad mom for yelling at her children, using a nanny and not taking a part in her family's personal finances in a post titled Things I am Afraid to Tell You.

Even though Rachel Hollis is an influencer, her blog is not filled with #sponsored and #ad posts, well at least not on the surface. For example, in her What to Pack in Your Toiletry Bag post, she only linked one item - the bag itself. She teamed up with ECCO for a Day to Night Spring Shoes post and with Victoria's Secret for a What to Pack for a Girls Weekend post, but all of her sponsorships are not blaring in your face. They are integrated into her blog in a genuine manner.

The Chic Site is so varied in its topics and motivational in its content that any woman can find a handful of helpful posts, and anyone looking to build their personal brand using digital media can look at Rachel Hollis and The Chic Site as a success story.

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