PURPLE BLAB

Monday, I jetted to Tampa, which Amber of beautybloggingjunkie.com calls “Glampa” (wish I could take credit for that moniker) for a two day of nonstop HSN prep, which began with a cattle casting call for our before and after shoots.  (Amber and me, in front of the building with all the studios – it’s a massive operation there with more buildings than the Upper East Side).

 

100 women showed up for our “go-see.” I can’t lie. I felt a little bit like Tyra on America’s Next Top Model.

The goal: Find one woman in her 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, each with different skin tones and complexions. I wanted them to projected real beauty and aspiration at once.

 

This was the line out the door! It felt kind of uncomfortable to be in the position of choosing a model because that meant rejecting someone (don’t even ask how we’ll decide who will win the recent online HSN model search - I’m tortured).

There were two sets of girls to pick – one for before and after shots, which we were doing the next day, and one for the live show. One by one, the models approached the table, where they showed us (by us, I mean Amber, who was there to support; Lori, who works with Purple Lab and used to work at HSN so she knows what she’s doing; Bisi, the model manager at HSN; and Lisa, who oversees before and afters (known as B&As) for the network) their cards and chatted.

 

The rules of the model search – if someone has worked with a beauty brand in the past six months, you can’t have them. In case you’re wondering.  The other thing I had to think about – how someone would look in a before and after shot. There needs to be a difference.

 

For showing mascara, it’s good to find a blond because they have light lashes – you’ll really be able to tell when our Lashionista Modelista dolls up her look. The blond I found – LOVE! She looked so much like my friend Sarah that it was almost scarey, so I had to choose her!

 

It took over two hours, but we found our Purple Lab women for both the photo shoot the next day and the live show (live show, we’re planning on having a bare faced model there to do her own makeup as the show goes on – I want everyone to see how easy it is to use; you don’t HAVE to be a makeup artist).

 

The bare-faced girl in question reminded me of Isabella Rossellini – short, short hair, strong, strong face. She is a breast cancer survivor, which made me love her even more. And another of the models, Vonda, who is in her 50s, is a three time survivor.

 

They both projected such a sense of strength and beauty, I couldn’t resist them.

 

But more on the shoot and next steps later.

 

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix

Tags: Beauty, HSN, Makeup, mascara, Purple Lab

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 7:08 am and is filed under HSN, Karen Robinovitz, Lashionista Modelista, Launch, Purple Lab Behind the Scenes, Purple Lab Products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.