Tag: beauty editor

14
Mar

I made a new book.

It’s called, ‘How To Write Intriguing, Interesting and Punchy Book Titles That Will Make People Immediately Want To Pick Up Your Book and Read It.’

Ha ha ha! As if. I would never use the word intrigiung because I can’t actually spell it. (See?)

But seriously, I am releasing a new book in June!

It’s called Amazinger Face, because, well, it is. In that it is the much-needed update to my beauty book, Amazing Facewhich I wrote back in 2010, and which is still glorious, but needed a makeover.

xamazing-face.jpg.pagespeed.ic.eqVow3wPwH

The cover. Still a total babe.

img_13731321 year-old me signing it back during the book tour.
And that’s Molly, from memory…

There are a few reasons I believe Amazing Face needed an update. (And yes, so does Textbook Romance probably, but guys, I’m so busy with my turnip farm and pet ferrets that there is just no time right now.)

1. My position on sun protection has changed. A lot.

I went for a facial last year and at the conclusion, the funny and extremely well-informed facialist presented her copy of Amazing Face with 400 post-it notes jammed in it regarding things she wanted to discuss or contest. Mostly regarding the stuff in there on skin care and sun protection, which I thoroughly agreed with her needed updating, because it was too brief for one, but mostly because since writing the book, I have made an evangelical, noisy switch from chemical sunscreens to physical, and I hated there being a book out there with my name on it that didn’t reflect my passion and education on and for properly applied sunscreen, and also, of course, physical sun protection.

 2. The beauty landscape has changed.

When I wrote Amazing Face, us beauty editors were the only ones really communicating trends, reviews, tips and technology to you, the beautiful public. Now there are countless vloggers, bloggers, makeup artists, derms and hair stylists with a shiny Youtube channel, a fat sack of Instagram followers and a pretty great technique with a foundation brush, actually.

Also, since the proliferation of online shopping, social media, and retailers like Sephora landing in Australia, we have access to around six billion more products and brands than when this book first went to print, and I wanted to include and honour these new kids on the block.

3. Products come and go.

Nothing like going to your favourite, best-ever beauty reference book (too much?) to see which nude nail polish you should buy, only to find the one recommended has been brutally yanked from shelves. War and famine aside, there might not be anything worse.

So, I went through every single product I mention in the book, and I checked if it was still:

A) Available

B) Relevant

C) The best I had tried in that category

D) Tasty on crumpets.

And look, some were still around, and some were still the best on offer, but many were not, or had been surpassed by a sexy new offering from another brand. You cannot believe how many new products I have jammed into Amazinger Face you guys. It’s friggen filthy with them.

4. I have written a lot of beauty content since then.

(And had a baby, so I know heaps more about stretch marks and pigmentation now. Lucky me.) It seemed silly to waste five years of pretty helpful beauty advice, and not fatten up and update a book that I adore and am so proud of, especially when cuteheads pop photos of it next to candles and other pretty tone-parallel books on their Instagram feed.

5. I made some of my own beauty products.

Since releasing Amazing Face I have launched a simple, effective, irritant-free skin care line, Go-To, because I felt there were gaps in the skin care industry that I knew how to fill, because yes, I really am that arrogant.

I wanted to include my products in my beauty book, because I believe in them, and of course I think they are the best in the category or why the frigdog would I bother making them. Don’t worry though, it’s subtle. I’m not that gross. Or AM I.

6. I have a phenomenal designer.

Allison Colpoys, her name is, though I refer to as Queen Magical Designypants. Al kind of created a whole new book design when Amazing Face came out; her work was (and always is) somewhere in the future, superfresh and unlike anything else out there. I’m SO LUCKY TO HAVE HER. When Amazing Face was finished neither of us could imagine a better, more delightful design.

But zoom in your spacemobile to 2016 and we have both grown up, and changed our style, and are inspired by new things, and so, in the same way I wanted to refresh all the copy and products within the book, Al wanted to overhaul the entire visual feast. Which she did. And it’s absolutely lush. Godammit she’s talented. (Buy her stationary range here! Her tear-inducing children’s book here!)

7. I get bored and need new projects.

And believe me when I say/write that even though it’s just an ‘update’, it has been quite the project.

 

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Proofing is terrific fun! Ask any author!

Anyway! All done now. Almost ready for you to get your mitts on. Here’s the new cover. Here’s the new look. Here’s my pretty, papery sweetypie.


Amazinger Face, Zoe Foster Blake

Amazinger Face is officially on sale June 27, but if you’re smart and cute and smart, you’ll pre-order now, here (and get almost 20% off.) That’s what a smart and cute and smart person would do.

And hey. Thank you to all of you for buying and reading Amazing Face. The feedback you have given me over the years on that book has brought me much joy, satisfaction, and many happy tears, not to mention acting as the catalyst for me to start Go-To.

I’m positive you will love her sophisticated younger sister just as much, even if she does borrow your leather jacket without telling you sometimes.

Fondest,

ZFB

Responses to this drivel: 25 Comments
20
Feb

Allow me to introduce you to my very own skin care line: Go-To.


Today I take immense joy in announcing the name of and first peek at my skin care line, Go-To.

Go-To skin care logo

Since we’re still a fair way off launch, this is really just me sharing the name and giving you a little snizz at what the products look like, care of the image below which features Lips! our lip wizard.

Why the name Go-To? Because Clinique was taken. Also, I found that during the creation and manufacturing process I was constantly describing the products in the following ways: “This is, like, the essential, foolproof, go-to moisturiser,” or “it needs to be girls’ go-to exfoliator” or “this is the perfect go-to travel product” or “I’m exhausted can I go-to the cafe and get a coffee now?”

GoTo_Lips_Purple

“I love this lip balm. So much.”
– Zoe’s lips.

 

As I explained in this initial blog last month, the products and range thereof have very much been formulated to act as your skin care basics. The simple, reliable foundation products you rely on and need to maintain healthy, happy, glowing skin. By all means bring inject those power serums and peels and masks and treatments that you love, but also feel a bit smug knowing Go-To has got your back when it comes to the necessities of daily skin maintenance.

And that’s my version of daily skin maintenance, by the way – a fussy beauty editor of 10 years who has a strong/educated/totally inflated opinion about what she knows works, what women feel comfortable using and what the modern woman’s skin actually needs. So, hydration, yes, but also protection from ageing and skin discolouration in the form of powerful anti-oxidants. Some gentle AHAs for foolproof, effective exfoliation. And a cleanser that will actually remove all that primer and sunscreen and long-wear makeup I keep telling you to use.

As well as being effective, I went to great (some might say “annoying”) lengths to ensure each product was perfectly natural. Zero nasties. No palm oil, (obviously) no petrochemicals, PEGs, mineral oils, parabens, sulfates, silicones, GMOs, synthetic colours or fragrances. There has been no animal testing of any kind, except on me. (And sometimes Meowbert cos he gets dry lips.)

So there you have it! Millions more details to come of course, but for now, this is Go-To skin care. Officially on sale April 1, a date that I am assured people take very seriously. You can start stalking us gently on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Plangscootch too, if you like.

(… Full details on our fun pre-order campaign coming early next week!)

 

Responses to this drivel: 48 Comments
14
Jan

I’m launching my own skin care line.

I am!

I really, really am. And HOLY SHIT IT’S EXCITING. I am so thrilled to even be writing this (admittedly cryptic and annoying) post about it, such has the level of secrecy been thus far.

I’ve been working on the range since 2012, and I can say with absolute certainty that it is the finest skin care in the entire world, which might sound like an arrogant, unqualified and completely outrageous claim, but that’s only because it is an arrogant, unqualified and completely outrageous claim.

Still, it’s very, very lovely, and I am almost certain you will like it, because, well I kind of created it with you in mind.

You being all of the gorgeous, enthusiastic, curious, feedbacky fruits I’ve had the pleasure of writing for and interacting with since I became a beauty editor a decade ago. You’ve been so beautifully honest about what you like, what you don’t like, what you use, what you think you should be using, what you know you should be using, and most vitally, just how confusing you find skin care to be.

And I agree. It IS confusing. There are so many dingin’ products out there, and so many different steps, and so many avenues and options to pursue, and so many big sciencey words and terrifying potential skin issues, it’s no wonder so many of us:

– just stick to whatever we’ve always used in the hope it’s doing something/anything

– buy whatever is new and shiny and popular because the ads make it sound so rad

– copy whatever our mum/sister/friends use

– resort to rubbing peanut butter on our faces before bed.

And look, I’m the first in line to try products with dazzling claims and fancy new ingredients. That’s my job. BUT, ultimately, and I say this as someone who can literally choose to use any skin care product she desires, and has given very many of them a good whack over the years, (and will continue to) simplicity is the backbone of my skin care routine. (Also, I travel a lot and have got my basics down to a fine art.)

All I really use is:

A great cleanser.

Something with AHAs to exfoliate.

Moisturiser.

Lip balm.

A physical sunscreen.

Targeted serums.

Stuff to keep the skin on my body nice.

And so I wondered…. would it be the craziest thing in the world to make a tight edit of really very useful, incredibly simple, extremely natural but very effective skin care products that combined my years of experience testing and using a wide range of them, with the ingredients I know work, with my desire for simplicity and my firsthand understanding of what women actually want (and need, whether they know it or not) from their skin care? And – gasp – make it all a bit fun, too?

No. It would not be the craziest thing in the world. (That would be smoking on a commercial airliner while announcing loudly that you are messenger from out of space here to expertly cull the population using planes as your weapon and caramel sauce as your sustenance.)

That said, it has been a BIG BIG undertaking. I now get why not many people start their own skin care lines. It’s hard. Stressful. Challenging. And even though I have an exceptional team around me, including overwhelmingly valuable guidance from my dear friend, Megan Larsen, founder of  superb organic skin care brand (and personal favourite) Sodashi, it’s been a huge, wild learning curve, one not helped by my insane levels of fussiness and perfectionism and endless demands of my brilliant biochemist for ‘less ingredient X’ and ‘half of a whisper more of ingredient Y,’ and questions regarding making something ‘less grabby but not too slippy, you know?’

Zoe Foster Blake Skin Care Samples
Some of my many many samples…

Here’s an example: This is VERSION 16 of my lip balm. And that’s not even the final one. No surprises there, though, you guys know how fucking pedantic I am about lip balm. Always have been. Never quite found the perfect one. So, if I am making my own, guess where all of that pedantic fury is going to be funnelled?

Zoe Foster Blake Skin Care Versions 2
Version 16. The almost final product. 

To say that I am impressed with this particular product is a violent and spectacular understatement. I don’t want to talk it up too much, but actually, wait a second, yes I do. It’s excellent. It is! Am I allowed to say that? Who cares. As you can imagine, it’s stupidly exciting finally getting the products to look, feel, smell and act just as I imagined them to, and use them and love them, and just be disgustingly proud of them like a gross stage mum. 

You cannot know how excited I am for you all to try them.

Speaking of which, this post is obviously just a frustrating teaser, but the range will officially launch April 1. (Yes, on April fools day. You know me).

Well before then, though, I will of course give you all the proper details about the range like, oh I don’t know, the name maybe? And the product breakdown, what they do, the long list of nasties we left out, the cool shit we definitely didn’t leave out, what they look like, smell like, where they like to eat lunch, where they were made, and where you can buy them.

AND! Hold on to your hand creams, because in February I am doing a special pre-order campaign just for my faithful fruits. Of course I am! You helped create the range, it’s only fair you get your silky paws on it first.

Yours in giddiness and perfectly nourished lips,

Zo

 

Responses to this drivel: 174 Comments