Listen Up! There’s a new tech-savvy breed of the media now welcome to venture past the runway. They’re beauty bloggers, and they have a lot to say:
: “I got to test O-Glow Intuitive Cheek Color by Smashbox during L.A. Fashion Week, and once again, I’m in love. This blush is clear gel that turns to a perfect light pinkish, most natural blush. We add Smashbox Cosmetics to Talking Makeup’s most favorite makeup lines list.”
: “Led by Gregory Arlt of MAC Cosmetics, the makeup for the Kelly Nishimoto show was romance through and through. the models were made up beautifully with ultra-dewy goddess skin, blushing cheeks and lips that ‘look like she just ate the most delicious blackberries.’ So pretty!”
: “One of our personal highlights of L.A. Fashion Week was getting to meet Davis Factor, one of the founders of Smashbox Cosmetics, who was instrumental in bringing Fashion Week to L.A. five years ago (the shows are held at Smashbox Studios). He’s such a force in the industry, we know that when he’s excited about something, it has to be big!”
Bloggers getting more respect in fashion world
Hundreds are speaking their mind on the latest beauty buys.
BY SYLVIA MASUDA
Los Angeles Daily News
Blasts of hair spray cloud the air. Hair dryers roar. Makeup artists dab, brush and paint on to models' stone-still faces. It's hot, it's crammed, and it smells like flowers and chemicals.
Backstage, among the artists and models at Smashbox Studios in Culver City during L.A. Fashion Week, members of the press snap photos and scribble notes.
But some are not from magazines or newspapers. They are a new, tech-smart breed of the media now welcome to venture past the runway.
They're beauty bloggers.
Anyone, from a bona fide fashion mag editor to a makeup-counter junkie, can speak her mind on the latest beauty buys through a Web blog. And hundreds of them do.
"Bloggers have had a huge impact on the beauty industry," said Kristen Nelson Thibeault, vice president of business development for
Total Beauty. "As the new voice in beauty, bloggers speak from the experience of the everyday woman, and women are responding to that in a very positive way."
Total Beauty, a comprehensive user-friendly library of product reviews and how-to tips, flew in several of the most popular beauty bloggers from all over the country last week to report at L.A. Fashion Week.
Laurie Costanza has been posting her opinions and beauty anecdotes on her blog,
Beauty's Spot, since August. Just six months after she launched, she found herself on a plane from her home in North Carolina to sunny L.A.
"If there is one thing I have discovered in all of this, it is that women love to talk about their favorite products and get the inside scoop on other women's favorites," Costanza said.
Big-name beauty businesses now split their time between working with magazine editors and bloggers.
Erika Valente, beauty editor of the
Makeup Bag blog, receives a "good amount" of samples, she said. But she's not scooping up the freebies just for the sake of it. It's a serious commitment for which she works hard: For more than a year, Valente has been posting regularly on Makeup Bag, sometimes twice a day. Lately, makeupbag.net has been pulling in 185,000 hits monthly.
Thanks to Sylvia Masud, the LA Times, the LA Newspaper Group, totalbeauty.com, Erika Valente and all the other totalbeauty.com bloggers!
A few months ago we had the privilege of being interviewed by Ms. Sophie Douez of International Cosmetic News Magazine. With coresspondents on every continent, ICN is the industry's premiere publication, acting as the beauty bible for buyers, execs and estheticians alike. Today the June/July installment arrived with a skillfully written piece on the top bloggers in the beauty biz. We are delighted to be featured along with our good friends at Makeupbag, A Mom in Red High Heels, Total Beauty, Elke VonFreudenberg, and Bois de Jasmin. Read the full article!
