A few months ago, HSN asked us if we would design a holiday ornament to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

A. I would never say no to helping children
B. I will do anything HSN ever asks of me
C. As a Jew who never had the joy of her own tree, I was ecstatic!

This was our creation, thanks to Todd, who gets all the credit for the design.

Our original idea included scaffolding and crystals that streamed to the floor but Todd, being that he has experience with Christmas and building things, assured me that it would not work.

So we went with an ombre metallic purple, oversized Mwah lips in our signature hot pink and Swarovski white crystal lightning bolts.

I am in love with it – and a Channukah bush is now in order!

There was a recent event in New York to launch the collection and so many of the HSN experts were on hand – it was like walking into a room to see everyone you think you know but don’t really know. Kind of amazing, the power houses in that room. To be in the space with them was an honor unto itself. Thank you, HSN, for including us!

Please support the cause! You can find all 70 ornaments here.

In case you’re wondering, a few of my faves include:

This stunner by Naeem Khan is like jewelry. I can totally envision a white tree with nothing but these ornaments embelishing it (Christmas Couture, espesh at $300).

This white one by Sean John is so chic, it hurts. Love its subtlty and luxury.

The leopard number by furrier Adrienne Landau is sexy (Marlo Thomas, who hosted the event, actually said “I never saw so many sexy ornaments. They match my panties!” I kid you not!)

Can’t you just see it on a black tree?

The Japanime style of the Harajuku girl-enhanced ball by Gwen Stefani killed me, too!

Give back and have a beautiful holiday!

Mwah!
Karen
Purple Lab Creatrix

Attention Fashionistas!

As you know, Purple Lab is extremely inspired by fashion, hence our creme blush, Cheek Implants in Six Inch Heels and our Huge Lips Skinny Hips lip gloss in Red Sole!

To celebrate the launch of our new foundation, Silk Sheets, we partnered with Chictopia, the ultimate destination for style-obsessed clothes horses (me being one of them) to launch the “Foundation of Style” contest.

We know that every girl has those key items that make up their Foundation of Style, be it your go to shoes that are impossible to walk in (walking is so overrated!) or a fedora, made chic by adding a broach, feather, or a crystal necklace around the base.

Between now and Oct.27, enter the Foundation of Style Contest for a chance to win the latest beauty must-haves from Purple Lab and a chic Balenciaga clutch makeup bag. Plus, we will be featuring our winners on Purple Blab as the guest beauty blogger for the month of November!

For details on how to enter, check out the contest on Chictopia and a few of our favorite looks!

Slicari

Maryvannotes

Red Lipstick

To celebrate our contest you can receive 20% on Purple Lab products using the code “chictopia” at checkout, now through Oct 27!

Cant wait to see your looks!

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix

If you are not yet familiar with @MsAmandaGreene or @LALupus Lady you must get to know her. now. She is the sweetest, kindest and spunkiest gal in Los Angeles, not to mention a huge advocate for raising awareness of Lupus (and Purple Lab)! Amanda has been a loyal Purple Lab customer and friend of our brand since our launch.

Here is Amanda’s entry to one of our Brickfish contests.

She hosted a Purple Lab on HSN Screening Party!

Amanda recently traveled to New York City and wanted to make it memorable – including an experience with Purple Lab. So, here is what happened. As told to me…

On a recent trip to New York City, I was asked by my friends at Purple Lab NYC if I was going to see a Broadway show while I was in Manhattan. I was in fact, I had just purchased tickets for “Promises, Promises” starring Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth. That is when I sent an email to Karen. I came up with a self-imposed “Ultimate Broadway Challenge.” The challenge: would I be able to get Kristin Chenoweth, star of stage, screen and Twitter, a Purple Lab lip gloss? E-mails flew and soon it was arranged that I was going to meet a Purple Lab intern to get the lip gloss that I was going to (attempt to) give to Kristin Chenoweth.

I was as nervous as someone who would be going on the Broadway stage that night during my pre-theater dinner. I was hoping that the timing would be perfect. I did not want to fall flat on my face for Purple Lab NYC, especially when I was the one who came up with this idea in the first place). I am a Multi-tasking Maven and I wanted to complete my mission.

My husband said I had a look of determination in my eyes, but also hoped the night wasn’t going to end with us at explaining Hoodia- infused lip gloss to an NYPD officer.

After the show, The excited crowd waited about 20 minutes before the cast started exiting one by one. Then there she was: the uber-petite Kristin Chenoweth! She was smiling and signing autographs. She was coming down the barricade–making her way along the very rail where I was. I started snapping pictures of her and I got one of the lip glosses in the foreground.

Then it was time to accomplish my Ultimate Broadway Challenge. I gave Kristin Chenoweth a Purple Lab NYC “Huge Lips, Skinny Hips” lip gloss. As she looked at the curvy box, I told her that it is lip gloss that is a plumper and had Hoodia inside to curb your appetite–that’s why it is called “Huge Lips, Skinny Hips”! Kristin’s reaction was priceless–I caught her smile in a classic “open-mouthed gasp” with my digicam. As Kristin walked away, she held a tight grip on her new Purple Lab NYC lip gloss.

Ultimate Broadway Challenge: Mission Accomplished!

Thanks Amanda! You rocked it!

MWAH!
Karen
Purple Lab Creatrix

I’ve been chomping at the bit, impatiently waiting for the release of Mockingjay, the third of the Suzanne Collinis fantasy sci-fi Hunger Games series.

And it’s out! I just ordered it, mandatory office reading, today!

If you haven’t read the series, you’re missing what may just be the best books ever written. It’s like Lost meets Gladiator – gripping, dangerous, violent, sweet at times, romantic at others, and completely addicting.

I poured through the first two books of the series in two days and I am not a fast reader. I just couldn’t put it down. And I need to share the love.

Run, don’t walk, to a book store near you. Trust me!

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix

What I’ll wear on HSN is always the most stressful part of going on air for me. I can deal with the pressure of being on TV in front of what could be 10 million people. But the outfit, that’s another story. TV clothes are tricky. I can’t be as over the top as I am in real life (i.e. no million layers of accessories… no major hats… no feathers). I have to think colors, what will pop. And remember, the camera really does add 10 lbs.

Panic! Help! This time, I’m not leaving my outfits to whim. I have partnered with AOL Stylelist to ask for your assistance in choosing my final outfit for my broadcast. Check out the contest to vote for your favorite outfit and leave a comment to enter to win a Purple Lab Huge Lips Skinny Hips Lip Gloss.

Don’t forget to watch me on HSN at 8pm on August 19th to see the winning outfit!

Here are my outfit choices. All photos taken by the amazing and fabulous Vinnie Merlot.

Look 1: Green Lanvin dress and purple and gold YSL wedgies.
What I love: the color. Emerald is amazing on the little screen – and what better way to wear it than with purple shoes! My fear… are the ruffles too much for HSN?

Look 2: Thakoon graphic print dress, vintage Gucci gold belt, Lanvin shoes.
What I love: It’s fun and flirty. The colors are beautiful and while the graphic is busy, it won’t overwhelm on television. The little puckered sleeve is heaven.

Look 3: Marc Jacobs satin pants, red Celine blouse, Nicholas Kirkwood lace booties.
What I love: Black and red is killing me right now. Love the contrast and slightly 80s feeling of it. It’s so chic! I think this look is kind of perfection, do you?

Look 4: Black Zac Posen tuxedo pants, Lanvin silver brocade top, Alexander McQueen belt.
What I love: I’d normally stay away from dark colors for TV but the silver is so happy and shiny that I thought it would work well. Agreed?

Look 5: Orange Marni dress, Lanvin lemon necklace, Givenchy wedgies.
What I love: Okay, this is one of my favorite dresses on the planet but it could be too sack-like for TV. The color is rad, but the shape? Thoughts?

Look 6: Black Givenchy walking shorts. Balenciaga turquoise drapey top and crystal necklace. YSL pumps.
What I love: the aqua is made for TV and it’s high fashion without being unrelatable. Plus, a crystal necklace. I can’t resist some sparkle.

Can’t wait to see what you choose!

Mwah!
Karen
Purple Lab Creatrix

I am totally obsessed with Foursquare right now in my personal life. I can’t quite explain it but there’s an odd satisfaction I get when I check in. And an even bigger one when I become mayor (BTW, Ashley is currently mayor of Purple Lab! We keep ousting one another).

Follow Purple Lab on Foursquare here!

To make the use of the platform fun, the Purple Lab team and I added tips to all of our favorite spots so that if you check in, you can see what we recommend… what to have for brunch at Pastis, the best flavor of Pinkberry, where to get into sartorial trouble in Soho (Hi Kirna Zabete!), whose class to take at S-Factor.

It’s full of fun tid bits, insider intel, and delicious suggestions.

Have some good check ins!

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix

It’s been a long time dream of mine to be in the business section of the New York Times, the ultimate authentication and validation for any entrepreneur. I have always visualized a big, splashy feature on how I built a business in a new, innovative way… perhaps that I sold it to a major company for unheard of amounts of money… maybe a little bit about it happening before I turn 40. And when I woke up yesterday morning, this is what I saw!

Believe me, I am dying and think it’s the most amazing thing on the planet and I live and die for Sharon for securing the placement, which is a major “get” in the PR world. MAJOR! I just never pictured the words “absend minded” in the title of the piece!

I love this column of the business section. It’s called Frequent Flier and it always showcases successful ones who travels often for business – best-selling authors, presidents of companies, producers of films.

Sharon had been pitching me to the editor for ages and one random day, finally got her on the phone. “The norm is people who miss their kids and how people are really organized on flights,” Joan Raymond, the reporter said, “I want something fresh and out of the box.”

Sharon immediately replied, “Karen has no kids and she’s not organized!”

To be clear: I would not say I’m an organized person but there is a method to my madness, some kind of order to my chaos. That said, I have had many a travel mishaps that Sharon generously shared to Joan, who wound up laughing so hard that she had to include me! (Luckily, I have a sense of humor and laugh at myself enough to not be self conscious!)

You have to read the story. It involves a missing phone twice in one hour, begging strangers to let me use their phones and bribing them with lip gloss, losing my carry-on, getting my cleanser and toner confiscated, holding up the security check line due to metal clips (a styling technique for curly hair, to be used when wet in order to create more body at the roots), and some ugly hives.

True story. I’ll never forget that day!

When my brother saw the paper, he called and said “why didn’t you tell them about the time you forgot your flight was Thursday and showed up on Friday?”

Thanks, Jay. Maybe I’ll save that for Fast Company!

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix

I have been wanting to do kamakazi street-interviews with women for a long time and ask them questions inspired by Purple Lab products. Here’s what happened when we grabbed the camera and went to the one place we knew we’d find a hot bed of girls… The Tory Burch sample sale!

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix

Every season, fashion designers have a look book, a book that’s curated to perfection, showcasing the collection. It’s not something beauty brands would typically do. Being that I’m such a fashion girl at heart, I was a little jealous! I wanted one!

Today we launch our look book (the cover image is above)!

So I asked some of our favorite bloggers and F.O.P.L. (friends of Purple Lab) to strike a pose. We turned my apartment into a photo studio.

The kitchen was the Dolce Gusto coffee and muffin “craft station” as they say on movie sets.

The living room is was saved for hair and makeup. Turns out that Britt, our multi-tasking maven (a.k.a. intern) who also wound up in one of the pics, is genius with hair! To give you a sense of the mayhem – 11 models, 3 makeup artists, Sharon and a team of 4 interns, 2 Dolce Gusto girls manning the cappuccino, 1 photographer, and me.

Our makeup artists rocked! Thank you to Stacie Ford, Ani Hovhannisyan, and Donna Beretsky-Neidecker, who are so talented and smoke out an eye like nobody’s business! And then there’s Ana Schecter, photographer (or as I like to call her, photographess). She is sooooo talented, it hurts! Love, love, love you Ana, Stacie, Ani and Donna!

We carefully plotted which look would be right for each model. Extreme and edgy red liner (Huge Lips Skinny Hips in Red Sole doubled as shadow for the day) for Karen Blanchard of Where did U Get That – she has such a downtown vibe that we knew she could pull it off (not everyone in the world can, but we also gave her a natural look).

Meanwhile, Todd was on the roof deck, morphing it into a photo ready studio. We hung a white blanket on the fence between our deck and our neighbor’s (for a stark white background), removed the table, chairs and grill and set the stage.

This is Ana at work, shooting a pregger and beautiful Mildred of Beauty Logic Blog.

And here she is with the lovely Audrey of Homerun Ballerina, whose birthday is today by the way! HAPPY B’DAY PRETTY GIRL! J’ADORE! Audrey has such a natural glow about her so it was fun to get enhance it with the highlighter of Luxury Squared.

Now, Virginia Nam of Lovely 20s and The Examiner. She looks like such a perfect little porcelain doll so we had to go with it for this very Asian-inspired look, using Huge Lips Skinny Hips in Lychee Martini on the eyes (it really works well as a shadow but you do have to let it dry!)

P.S. We’re working on shadows, BTW! Coming somewhat soon-ish!

Christine from My Style Pill pulled off a really out-there, runway-ready eye – words won’t do it justice. The rest of the face was super natural so that the eyes were the main attraction. See below and drool!

It took a while to perfect the heavy rock star eyes for Anne of The Jet Set Girls. I love the contrast of the dark, dark eye on her fair skin. And that red hair! She was so fierce, I couldn’t stop kvelling all over her!

Noelle and Joelle of The Owls Are Not What They Seem, gave us the glamour – each with two looks.

But check out the eye on Noelle. When the eye was open, it just looked like a thin cat eye but when closed, it was ON!

And Joelle – no words!

F.O.P.L. included Amanda, the cutest blond! She entered our model search contest and we fell so in love with her that we asked her to be in our look book (she came with her mom, Andrea, who started a Twitter account called @vote4amanda when her daughter was racking up votes!)

Hello Bridget Bardot eyes (Ani, amazing job!).

Barbara Dial, our resident pole dancing teacher (from S-Factor, the inspiration behind Huge Lips Skinny Hips in Kitty Poledancer, soft nude-pink), is the consummate California girl. So we edged her up with a side bun and red-red lips.

There was one more look we were dying to do at the end of the day – something kind of hippie chic with a long side braid and we turned Britt into a model! How gorgeous is she here?

More Behind the scenes pics are on Facebook.

And there’s a great video as well, created by Kendra Elise (there she is below).

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix

Guess what we did yesterday? All the girls in the office and I went to the Sex & the City 2 world premiere. Sort of. Crashed is more like it. It was time for some serious guerilla marketing action at Radio City Music Hall.

Our girls dressed in their cute Purple Lab tees, skinny jeans, and one key accessory: retro style cigarette trays, wrapped in purple velvet and harnassed to their bodies. A moving beauty counter of products!

A close up of the trays:

See, I was there two years ago and it was a SCENE! There were hundreds, maybe thousands of girls outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of SJP and lines of ticket holders that spanned four city blocks. (I actually had passes in my hand and got all dressed up like a total cliche, took one look at the crowd and the line I’d have to stand in, gave my tickets to two tourists, and went to dinner with a friend).

I thought, if we can’t afford to be there as an official sponsor, we could sure street-team-it. It’s the best audience I could imagine – pop culture loving, style obsessed girls who love all things fab and glam!

To give you a sense of how long the line was:

We offered makeup touch-ups and SATC makeovers to gaggles of girls and gave out ring pops (what better snack for the movies?) and Foot Petals (a must-have for hours of heel-wearing).

Don’t worry – we brought hand sanitizer and a billion applicators to keep it totally sanitary. New Yorkers tend to be germaphobic.

One of the “afters” with Huge Lips Skinny Hips in Red Sole and newly lined eyes!

She had this adorable tattoo!

We found some new fans…

While stationed outside of the Duane Reade on 51st Street, the women who worked there started to knock on the window to find out about our products. I was showing them by holding them up against the window!

Then one came out to try out some gloss and get my card (she wanted to show it to the buyer – you know how Duane Reade has that new chic beauty division with luxe brands? We’ll see what happens.)

It was a success of “Big” standards.

Video coming soon!

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix