Judging the Harper's Bazaar Beauty Awards 2009

I received an exciting e-mail from Alli Sim, Harper's Beauty Editor a couple of weeks ago. She wanted to know if I woud be keen on being on the judging panel of Harper's Bazaar's Beauty Awards 2009! She warned me that it would be an intensive month of trying out a variety of the newest products for 90 categories! It was naturally an offer that I could not refuse! Which female would?!!! My brief was to give the medical take on which products were best in each category.

The products arrived yesterday. I had a phone call from my very excited 13 year old daughter (and self-elected co-judge), exclaiming that she was "traumatised" at the number of products to try! Fortunately she changed the term to "overwhelmed". Hmmmmmm................

I didn't get home till after 10pm, and all hopes of a decent "early night" were dashed immediately. Six of the largest plastic containers from IKEA were waiting for me. In them was a myriad of products, spanning cosmetics, skincare, hair products, nail care, scrubs, body washes, perfumes, even 2 eyelash curlers! My jaw dropped as it looked like over 1000 items to try in just one month! No wonder Alli said her hair almost dropped out with trying out the hair products last year!

My daughter was bouncing off the wall with glee, proclaiming she now officially has more makeup than any of her friends. The dogs were going crazy trying to get into the boxes. All I could think of was "Oh My God!" and "Thank God I have help!". My daughter is definitely better with makeup than I am. Her beady eyes were already on the eyelash curlers and she'd tried on one of the nail polishes already. One of my friends has extremely dry skin and is desperate for a tan, so anything vaguely oily and in the self tan range will be palmed off to her. The scrubs and hand/foot spa things will be brought into Divine MedSpa for the girls to try on me. Nothing like an expert opinion!

I managed to try a shampoo and conditoner last night. A common high street brand that my daughter has purchased before. Cannot make it. Neither could the face wash I tried. I was intrigued by another sample which had a strange plastic tool and capsule of cream. I have to say that it was the tool that really grabbed my attention! After fiddling about, pulling & twisting it, it broke! Then I realised that the fancy "tool" was nothing but a spatula to scrape out the cream. What a joke!

At this point, I have to say that I gave up on trialling the products & decided to try something "simple": choose the lipstick with the most compelling design. The age gap then surfaced with the little princess going for something hip and the old mother insisting on something classy. The real judge won that battle and we decided on a lipstick with a beautiful shape and unique matt black finish. Settled one item out of 90.

Tonight's task will be an attempt at sorting out the products into the correct categories, choosing some to bring on holiday with me this weekend, and packing the ones for the spa. Then slowly trying out the makeup one by one. If I can find eye makeup that is resistant to my compulsive rubbing, that'll be a miracle!