Last night I went to Nike’s Air Max Con in NYC –an event celebrating the history of the Air Max shoe. I went with some friends and was delighted when I found out that Madeline Poole was a part of the event. Having worked with Sally Hansen in my professional life, I knew that Madeline is the Global Brand Ambassador for Sally Hansen. The event was really neat, they had manicures inspired by 5 or so different Air Max shoes. Here’s some of the photo’s I snapped.
Let me start by saying this: I bought into (literally) the Instagram-fueled cultdom of Kat Von D’s Lolita. This shade has struck the perfect balance of being all over Instagram and simultaneously sold out everywhere. Incidentally, this is also the secret formula for beauty sales—but that’s another article. So when I found the Lolita shade at a Sephora, I didn’t even think twice about buying it. It was necessary.
Now all the images of people wearing Lolita show that it’s a beautiful dusty rose or mauve, depending on who’s wearing it. Here is the proof:
Looks pretty and rosy, right? Well when I wear it it looks BROWN. I’ve seen other pale people on Insta wearing it and it does not look brown on them. I briefly thought that maybe I got a dud-formula, so I bought the Kat Von D Lolita and Lolita II duo and it’s the exact same color.
It’s really strange, but I basically stumbled on a Kylie Lip Kit dupe without even trying. Every time I wear Kat Von D’s Lolita, I have people either ask me if I’m wearing the Kylie Lip Kit color True Brown, or they tell me that it looks similar to the color. So as my headline suggests, I’m calling Lolita the pale girl’s dupe for Kylie’s True Brown. Here’s a photo of me wearing it. What do you think?
Well it’s been a while since I’ve last written, but a lot has happened over the past few months. Most importantly, I got a new job! And it’s not just any job, but a dream job. I’m now a content strategist at Beamly, the digital content agency that was acquired by Coty back in October 2015. I’m so excited and I get to work on some amazing brands like Rimmel, Sally Hansen and Philosophy.
I’ve been at my new job for a few weeks now. I started during the busiest of times, the holidays! Since my last post, I’ve purchased many many beauty products. Please find the documented evidence below.
The last image shows some of my Christmas gifts! I was very very excited about the First Aid Beauty kit. That’s basically my favorite brand right now. Hope you all had a great holiday!
I splurged this weekend and bought myself the Sally Hansen gel manicure starter kit in Shell We Dance. It was literally like unwrapping a new toy. I had done some research on this kit and found that most everyone liked it and Sally Hansen offers a range of other gel colors that are compatible with this kit. Though part of me wants to see if I can buy the OPI and Essie gel colors and test them out in this thing. Has anyone tried this?
This kit comes with all the essentials to get started with your at-home gel kit: base coat, color, and top coat, the LED lamp, cleanser pads, acetone remover and a small nail file and cuticle stick. I read the instructions and got to work, and it was actually pretty simple. Prep your nails, make sure to use the alcohol pads on them to get your nails super dry. Then apply base coat and cure, then color and cure, color again and cure, top coat and cure x 2 (I cured twice at the end). The lamp stays on for 30 second increments. FYI: my nails were still “wet” after curing the base coat, and only the base coat. Not sure if that’s normal for this kit because I’m pretty sure the base coat always dries at the nail salon. Maybe I should have cured them twice, oh well, learnings for next time. I love the nail color “Shell We Dance” it’s very light and resembles my favorite Essie Sugar Daddy. This kit comes in two other colors a red and a fuchsia. I can’t wait to get other colors (of course!) and try out some nail art + the LED lamp. I’m interested to see what works!
Pretty kit with all the essentials included
Curing my first hand
Closer look at curing
All done!
P.S. This kit retails for $40. Don’t pay any higher. In NYC, they sell for $60 at Duane Reade and that’s very high. I purchased my kit at Bed Bath & Beyond and used a 20% off coupon. Amazon also has it for less than $40.
No sooner than I hit publish on my last post about Clinique’s new blog The Wink, I discovered that another beauty company is investing in content marketing. Coty announced on October 19, their acquisition of digital marketing and content agency Beamly, based in New York and London. This is a big deal for the future of beauty brands. It’s no longer enough to simply be online, but now brands must engage, interact and create experiences for their customers.
Beamly’s main focus is on driving audience growth and engagement for consumer brands across the digital space. This is a big step for Coty, on the heels of their P&G acquisition, they are the first among the big beauty companies to acquire a content marketing agency. Coty and its many licensed brands “will benefit from Beamly’s suite of social data benchmarking, content creation, content optimization and consumer engagement tools to deliver Coty’s brand strategies.”
Coty’s current roster of brands plus the 42 newly acquired brands from the P&G deal have positioned the beauty conglomerate as one of the leading global beauty companies. Competitors L’Oréal and Estée Lauder, both known for best in class digital strategies, might face increasing competition from Coty as they work with the Beamly team to become a digital content and marketing powerhouse.
Content Strategy is one of the new buzzed about positions that has now become a necessary part of the marketing team. Much like the addition of the Social Media Manager was a few years ago, the Content Strategist is quickly becoming a role in high demand. And Clinique is doing just that, offering a new way to use content to target a new customer: The Millennial woman.
Clinique is a popular and familiar brand, best known for being hypoallergenic and dermatologist approved. Clinique is, for many women, their first exposure to prestige skincare and even beauty products!
Clinique recently launched The Wink, a new online destination for beauty and lifestyle content. This was a smart move by Clinique —probably due to the success of it’s sister brand, Estée Lauder’s The Estée Edit. The platform definitely attracts a younger audience —through whimsical posts and lots of lovely pastels— a demographic that like Clinique’s other sister brand, Origins, also aimed to target. Clinique and Origins are two somewhat similar brands in the customer they attract. Origins has a great case study in Fast Company on, among many things, led to the co-creation of a product with millennial women that helped them gain access to this target demographic. I think Clinique might have seen the success in both The Estée Edit and Origin’s and developed their own way to connect with a younger audience.
The Wink is their own Pinterest-like boards and How-To guides, all in one. They even have a beauty index which lists popular beauty terms with definitions and related content. In another strategic move to garner user-generated content (UGC), The Wink offers a place for customers to upload and share their favorite products. Optimizing UGC is done expertly well by “L’Oréal brands, and it seems that Estée is catching up.
https://instagram.com/p/8f9GDiAvcn/?taken-by=clinique
Loving everything about this NARS x Steven Klein collab!
Things have been a bit crazy at work and I’ve been cut off from all “beauty news” over the past week and missed the launch of H&M Beauty. I was reading an article today about all the products and I immediately ran across the street from my office to H&M. While I was hoping to take a look at the hair products, the H&M I went to didn’t have them. I’m assuming the flagship at Herald Square only carries the full line.
So of course I had to pick up a few things. There were 4 displays: Nails, Lips, Eyes, Face, Blushes and accessories. I believe all of their products are between $1.99-$25, something like that. I would say that most of the items were moderately priced in the $6-$13 range. I had to exercise much restraint but I opted for the lash curler (who doesn’t need?), a makeup sponge, an eyebrow pencil and a lip crayon (of course). I have to say the displays were very nice and well thought out. The packaging is super clean and simple, but it works. I can’t wait to see how these products stand up and what they continue to create. What do you all think: would you use H&M’s new beauty products? Are you excited about them?
Sephora plans to give little brands a BIG chance with their recently announced “Scouted by Sephora” program. They plan to sell “the next big brands” already identifying 40 brands to participate. WWD reports “eight to 10 brands will be highlighted every other month. The current offerings include Viseart, Tatcha, Juliette has a Gun (fragrance), Makeup Eraser, Reverie, Cinema Secrets, Sunday Riley and Skin Inc. The next installation is planned for late October and will have a global theme.”
Niche brands being given the opportunity to reach Sephora’s customers is HUGE. This opportunity will certainly give these brands an instant jolt into stardom.
This announcement follows a series of recent marketing programs, including a beauty-box subscription offering. I could probably ramble on about how excited I am for Sephora Play and what a smart move this is by Sephora, but I will stop myself here. Enjoy for yourselves!
I just had two of my absolute favorite products run out. Lush Flying Fox shower gel and First Aid Beauty Face Cleanser. You may remember my last post of Empties, where I also had the F.A.B face cleanser. I do love this product. I feel like you can’t go wrong with this brand. So naturally, I must be off to sephora tomorrow to buy another!
The Lush Flying Fox shower gel is one of my favorite scents. Seriously. I wish there were popular jasmine fragrances out there. I’d totally rock it. I’ve gone through a few bottles of this shower gel and they actually last a pretty long time. I think one of the employees told me that the gel doesn’t contain that much water so the formula is much more concentrated which is why a little will go a long way, and the product can last. I’m dying to go to Lush but for whatever reason I don’t have the same self control that I do when I go into Sephora. When I go to Lush I end up leaving with 4 or 5 things! Maybe it’s all the events that get me.
What are your favorite products you’re constantly running out of?
♡ Pretty Well Dressed ♡ 
