As I mentioned on Friday, I spent Saturday in the headquarters of Simple Skin Care in Solihull as one of the judges for their Teen Video Blogger Beauty Boot Camp.
I really like Simple as a brand. They’re affordable, and the formulations are *ahem* simple. I’ve used their products off and on over the years and I always use their cleansing wipes for camping and lazy days so I was more than happy to be involved with their blogger competition.
This particular Boot Camp was to fill the Teen Video Blogger role. Amongst other things the winner would be given a nice new video camera and a years supply of Simple products and sent home to create video blogs for the Simple website about them.
Honestly, it was far, far too early for my self employed body clock when I arrived to creep around the Simple offices taking photos before our briefing. So early, in fact, that I forgot to put mascara on before leaving my hotel and had to borrow some off one of the other judges. How very professional of me….
The finalists (apart from a few late arrivals. Tut!) arrived for the morning session and after a few ice breaker tasks they were dispatched in groups to seperate rooms to create a short video blog about skin health and nutrition using a table full of plastic food and real chocolate as props. After half an hour they returned to present it to the judges and the other contestants.
The resulting short skits were generally interesting and entertaining and very hard to score as a judge. I tried really hard, but my score sheet contained a lot of crossing out. The real chocolate proved a popular prop and I was pretty impressed with how girls so young already have such a good understanding of the link between junk food and clear healthy skin.
After lunch there was a quick photo shoot with Shout magazine. At some point photos should emerge from this with me sat among the finalists like a giant clad all in purple, but as of yet I haven’t received them, I don’t know if I am pleased about this or not! I’m sure they’ll make it onto my facebook page when I get them.
The next task at the beauty boot camp was to create a skin care regime for a celebrity. Each finalist got a different celebrity profile and had to select from a range of products on the table the ones that would be best for that persons age, lifestyle and specific skin needs. Then they had to present to the rest of the group, the judges, and Stardoll TV who were filming the day.
By this point I was very glad I was a judge and not a finalist as it all looked like very hard work, frankly. Stardoll TV asked me to do a couple of little pieces to camera which reduced me to a quivering wreck, so presenting to a full group AND the camera would probably have finished me off.
The final step was individual interviews with me, Shout magazine and a pre prepared presentation to the Simple judges. To me, by this point, there were some stand out personalities and it was great to get a chance to find out more about them, their previous blogging experience and their ambitions. Some of them were so clear about their potential futures and what they hoped to gain from their time as the Simple Video Blogger that they left me for dust. If these are the bloggers of the future then the blogsphere will be a very interesting place.
Then, onto the deliberations. I felt a bit like I was on Masterchef or X Factor with a table covered in polaroid pictures and some intense discussion as we picked our top 3 finalists and the eventual winner.
Our final top 3 were Kaitlin Richmond, Victoria Howkins and Tegan Davies.
The winner, Tegan Davies will be profiled in the November issue of Shout magazine, which I shall buy, even if I never buy a copy again, being as I’m probably not really in it’s target demographic at the grand old age of *cough* 31.
As I was about to leave for the long drive back to Norwich I was handed a goodie bag of Simple products as a thank you. Some of them I’ve used before, and some I haven’t. Some I’m planning to review in future, and others will probably just work their way into my bathroom cabinet and enter into my regular skin care routine.
The lovely people at Simple were so generous, however, that I’ve decided to put together a little pack to give as a prize to one of you lovely lot. I have an exciting big giveaway planned for October, so I shall run this for just a week and I shan’t pimp it out too much to make sure a regular reader has a chance to win it!
In this prize pack are:
- Simple Kind to Skin Cleansing Facial Wipes
- Simple Kind to Skin Hydrating Light Moisturiser
- Simple Kind to Eyes Nourishing Eye Make-Up Remover
- Simple Kind to Eyes Soothing Eye Balm
in short, everything you need for a new daily skin care regime.
All I want you to do is leave a comment to be entered into the draw.
If you’ve found my blog just because I’m running a competition then hello! If you want to enter I really would appreciate it if you were a follower in some way, so tell me if you’re following me on Facebook, Twitter, or if you’ve signed in using Google Friend Connect or subscribed to my RSS feed. Retro Chick really is a lovely place and I’d love to have you join in!
Good Luck!
The competition will end at midnight on Tuesday 28th September. The winner will be selected at random from all valid entries UK entries only I'm afraid. Sorry my lovely overseas readers, October's giveaway will be open to you all!
