It’s been a long old day today, starting with a blow-dry in central London at silly o’clock in the morning before heading off with a team from Garnier plus camera crew and make up artist, Kenneth Soh, to Carnaby Street in Central London. We were doing mini-make overs for the Garnier YouTube channel using the new BB cream (well, Kenneth was expertly doing them – I can’t be let loose with a foundation brush) and sending our volunteers away with a goodie bag as a thank you.
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| Me, explaining what the heck we are doing to the camera! |
Of the twelve beautiful ladies we made over, not one had heard of a BB cream, so I had plenty of explaining to do! It was super-awkward dragging people over to take part – everyone thought I was trying to sell them something and I was paranoid they’d think I was from Victoria Jackson! In fact, sometimes I was a little frustrated, because even when we weren’t doing make-overs and were literally just handing them a free BB cream, people were saying no thank you and hurrying past.
Everyone from the make-overs had the chance to say exactly what they thought of the product and not one single one didn’t like it – whew! We had a couple of really funny moments: a fabulous girl had the make over and afterwards we asked her a couple of questions, such as ‘Do you like the feel of the product?’ But she started every sentence with ‘No’. As in, ‘No, it’s really good’! And, ‘Do you like the way it makes your skin feel?’. ‘No, no. It feels really soft’. I’m afraid I got the giggles. I also was a little taken aback when a Spanish lady who spoke no English at all came up and asked (gestured) for a product. We obviously couldn’t do a make over on her, because of the language difficulty, but I had to try and explain what it was for. I think I’ve invented the international sign language for ‘glowy’ (hands to face and away again really quickly…eek) and ‘smooth’ (hands wiping face softly with a look of bliss on face)!
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| She got BB’d! |
I had a freaky cable stuck to my bra and wound around to my back jeans pocket – I got into all kinds of knots when I nipped to the loo in Liberty! And, to my horror I realised later the sound was – still on! So, unfortunately, the crew will have a very desperate and long wee to edit out. *dies*. But, I am thanking my lucky stars that that is all it was!
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I can’t deny that it was a really fun day – interestingly, it was all the younger girls who were game on for taking part – if we approached anyone older they didn’t want to do it. In fact, only one older lady took part. But we did get lots of varying skin tones, and lots of smiley faces as they went away with the goodie bags. The last part of the make over was giving out the goodie bags and slapping a BB sticker on them and saying, ‘you’ve been BB’d’!
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23 comments
Brilliant. Wish I could be there to watch it all happen and maybe get a Kenneth special!
Did that sound rude? haha!
What a great day for you and K!
Sounds such fun! I would definitely have let Kenneth loose on me, plus it would have saved me the £10 I already spent on the cream last week! x
I’d have loved a professional makeover and the chance to meet you in person. The loo story is funny, only because it’s you, not me. 🙂
Thank you for my first proper belly laugh of the day… :0)
I’d love to try a BB cream – and have seen them mentioned in so many magazines recently – but they all look too dark for my pale-as-an-email skin.
Sarah x
http://stylesouk.wordpress.com
I wish I still lived in London. I’d have let you work miracles!! Sounds like loads of fun with you two. I have to say I really like the Garnier BB cream. Very impressed. x
I actually lol’d at your weeing boo boo! Would have loved to have been there (for the makeovers, not your toilet trip lol). xx
It was the best fun I’ve had for ages! Bit of a double act, although seeing as I can’t multi-task, you were the one chatting and talking while I concentrated on not looking like a tit on camera! Thanks for a fabulous day and I think everyone came off looking better than when we started so yay! That’s it! You heard it first! You’ve been BB’d!! x
I saw the Garnier BB cream in Superdrug and was put off by he brand. Garnier products in the past have not been good to me 🙁 Although this makes me wish I was there to sample it and meet you all!
I can’t believe I missed this :'(
Excellent piece and *love* the ‘peeing while still miked up’ anecdote – poor you. I suspect the older ladies you approached didn’t fancy the idea of having to take off their existing base to have the Garnier BB cream applied. Personally I’ve had to stop using it already because the Light shade, whilst seemingly a perfect match to my fair-warm complexion, oxidises almost immediately upon a full application of the product and so the overall effect is slighly ‘off’ and orange. I get more orange as the day goes on – eek! On a related note: I’ve been using the original BB cream by Dr Christine Schrammek (the product that influenced and inspired the trend for BB creams in Asia)after being introduced to it some 10 years ago when I had a Dr Schrammek ‘Green Peel’. It is fab, perhaps a tad more skincare than cosmetic and it now comes in more than 1 shade. I’m sure I’ll be tempted to try all the other European releases of BB creams as they hit the shops though! X
That looks a lot of fun. I wish I’d been there (although having tested the Garnier product I think I’m a bit too pale for it – could you match the paler shade to a MAC shade? I’m thinking it’s maybe NC20). Another question – when you do makeovers in the street like this, do you always stop younger women or do you do all ages?
You look beautiful on the photo x
Thanks Marina!! GreatShe – we approached all ages.. in fact we wanted to do a mum and daughter but the daughters were up for it the mums weren’t. We did one lady in her 40’s despite approaching a broad age range but she was the only one who was up for it, and only because her son’s girlfriend had had it done and she could see what was involved. We would have liked to do more in different age ranges but you can’t ‘make’ people do it! I think we did from teens to late twenties with the one exception of the older lady. But we did approach all age ranges, absolutely.
Niki.. I too had the green peel.. the most painful experience of my life!
Sounds like a hectic but hugely fun day! Can darker skintones use the Garnier BB cream then? I’d be very interested to know!
Hi Post Colonial.. well you can see from my skintone that I am very olive skinned.. and I was wearing the medium that day x
When you tweeted that you were on Carnaby street I ran to the blog to find more info but couldn’t so I decided not to stop at Carnaby Street and now I am regretting it so badly! I would love to have met you:-D
oh I’m sorry Miss Waterlily.. I wish I had now.. I was going to and then thought nahh nobody will want to see me!
bbb – re: Green Peel. I *loved* the Green Peel and have had it done 3 times. I assume you mean the actual rubbing the herbs in was the painful bit, not the 5 days peeling afterwards. If so, I know what you mean! I think it depends entirely on the skill and judgement of the person carrying out the peel treatment (kind of like you said re: your Decleor facial recently). I went to uber-facialist Joanne Evans, who treats famous models and celebs but who is also delightfully unstarry and lovely herself. Anyway, back to Peel..it worked a treat for me and I loved the predictability of it: after 3 or 4 days light peeling it was back to salon for follow-up facial and tada…lovely soft, glow-ey, clear skin (shame it’s only ever temporary..boo!). Interestingly, they don’t offer the Green Peel at the salon/centre Joanne works at because of mixed customer feedback and lack of perceived good ‘results’ post peel.
I tried the Garnier BB cream and I can honestly say it’s a-ma-zing!
What a fun day! How cool and fitting that BBB introduced BB to the streets of the UK! xx