Smashbox Event at Sephora Bloor Street – September 11, 2011

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Smashbox blogger event at the Bloor Street store yesterday. The event, which featured Smashbox founder Davis Factor (great-grandson of make-up guru, Max Factor) as well as Pro Lead Artist of Smashbox, Lori Taylor, discussed the history of the company (how Smashbox is not only a cosmetics company, but a studio as well – Davis is a well-known LA-based photographer. Smashbox Studios serves both as a shooting space as well as a “lab” to test out new products) and also suggested different products for different situations. Davis and Lori also mentioned how make-up had to change when HD TV became more common, which led to the development of Smashbox’s High Definition make-up line. This was no different, according to Davis, from the need to create make-up for colour film back in the 1930s.

Lori Taylor (left) and Davis Factor (right)

Pastries from the event

Smashbox Cosmetics definitely loves social media and involving the consumer. The US website has links to their blog, videos of products and shoots, as well as social media integration (the Canadian site, unfortunately, does not), with Facebook and Twitter buttons on all products. This means that the public can review products and share it with their friends. In addition to Facebook and Twitter, the company also has a YouTube channel, featuring additional videos. When they first launched as a cosmetics company, Davis went to stores to pictures of people getting made-over, giving the consumer the chance to feel like a star.

Swag bag with Photo Op Eye Shadow Trio (in Telephoto) and Photo Finish foundation primer

The event as a whole was pretty good. Attendees were treated to a continental breakfast of pastries, fruit, juice and coffee prior to the start of the talk and were also given a swag containing their Photo Finish primer as well as the new Photo Op Eyeshadow Trio. What I’d like to have seen was a demonstration using some of the newer products and favourites as well as spending more time discussing the products. We were given some pointers to products for different situations, as well as what the ” it” looks for fall – a deep lip (lipstick, not gloss) and smokey eye.

Special thanks to Sephora and Pamela Kennedy for organizing this event.

About Cynthia Cheng Mintz

Cynthia Cheng Mintz is the founder and webitor-in-chief of this site and the petite-focused site, Shorty Stories. She has also written for other publications including the Toronto Star and has blogged for The Huffington Post. Her first novel, Aspirations, was published in 2007. Outside of writing, Cynthia researches and advises philanthropic ideas for family funds and foundations and also volunteers.