BOBBI BROWN PRETTY POWERFUL CAMPAIGN 1ST MARCH 2010

When the credit crunch body slammed the nation and crept into all of our lives whether it was being made redundant, having to do the job of 3 people or having to give up on your weekly high street shopping treat the world suddenly changed.

As a beauty journalist I do lots of lovely teas and lunches with beauty PRS. I remember a couple of years ago in the Wolseley seeing a group of bankers celebrating their bonuses, ordering oysters and champagne like it was going out of fashion doing their best to channel Gordon Gekko from ‘ Wall Street’. If any bankers were to do that today I think they would be lynched even in the posh Wolseley. Anyway, this mood this ‘rage against the machine’ attitude has crept into beauty too, as women are over being fed the garbage that 14 girls who have just hit puberty represent working woman and mothers in their 20s, 30s and 40s in beauty ads.

Bobbi Brown has known what woman really want and she has been giving it to us for years with her beautiful neutrals and wearable colours, which make you look like you only better, that’s a Bobbism by the way. Another one is always applying a pop of blush on the cheeks at 4pm to freshen up your look. Now that’s the stuff women trapped in moisture sucking air con/ heated offices and at home mums with screaming kids feeling crap really want to know.

Now thankfully I have been blessed with high self esteem when it comes to accepting and loving my pretty.  God knows I needed to because in my teens walking around beauty halls was like being part of a beauty apartheid, as I was turned away from make up counters with make up artists saying sorry there is nothing here for you. Bobbi Brown was one of a handful of beauty brands whose make up screamed you are accepted, you do deserve to play with make up and feel and look beautiful. I interviewed Bobbi once on the phone while I was in the cupboard of a Marco Pierre White restaurant (I wasn’t doing a Boris Becker at Nobu but just had to nib out of another launch to do my transatlantic telephone interview) and I gushed to her, “thank you Bobbi for making me feel accepted and not like a freak and for catering to black beauty, it meant a lot to me growing up”. She was very sweet and gracious and I felt like a strange make up groupie all huddled and whispering in the cupboard- but you get my drift. 

In true Bobbi style she is trying to make us all pretty from the inside out again with a new campaign launching on the 1^st March called Pretty Powerful to help celebrate the diverse beauty of real women. Shockingly Bobbi Brown UK conducted a survey asking over 1000 British women about perceptions of beauty and only 50% of them said they were happy with their looks, which is really sad. Bobbi has used real woman, friends and family to champion all types of beauty with her new campaign and explains, “Pretty Powerful symbolizes my belief that all women possess natural beauty, and with the right tools, are empowered to a higher level of pretty… Pretty Powerful, Pretty Amazing, Pretty Gorgeous. Everywhere women look; they are confronted with the same kinds of fashion and beauty images – ones that showcase a perfectionism that’s not realistically achievable. It’s not feasible for women to spend hours in front of the mirror trying to emulate an airbrushed photo. But it’s very real to feel this kind of pressure. I always tell women to be who you are. This means everything from learning to love your lines to appreciating your unique features”. Bobbi again I find myself saying thank you but instead of whispering it in a cupboard I am shouting- you go girl!