As a writer, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the freedom and spontaneity of writing a blog. There are no publication deadlines, no limitations of distribution, and no delay in making updates available. When things change, the ability to share the information in a blink of the eye is astonishing. That’s sheer ecstasy for a writer.

However, as you can tell from how infrequently I post, I have lost the focus needed to keep this blog vibrant and up to date.

As Paula’s Choice continues to grow (we had a brilliant year: my international distributors are doing great, and I launched some of the best products I have ever formulated), I just don’t have time to do my blog justice and neither does my team.

Aside from the many responsibilities I have of running my company and formulating products (thank God for the team I have around me), I have a fervent desire to make the information and articles on PaulasChoice.com and my other intertwining websites—Beautypedia.com and CosmeticsCop.com—more dynamic, current, and scrupulously accurate.

As a result of all this, our brains and energies are maxed out. The reality (and this was a big wakeup call) is that none of us have room in our schedules to pay attention to this blog so it can flourish.

Therefore, as of today, January 6, 2011, the Beauty Bunch blog will become inactive. I will definitely miss your feedback and the questions you shared here. To those who took the time to comment, whether it was positive or negative, thank you for joining the conversation.

Going forward, my team and I will be more involved on Facebook (I sporadically go on to answer questions live). We will announce the updates we do to articles and product launches that appear on PaulasChoice.com or CosmeticsCop.com at our Paula’s Choice Facebook page, as well as @PaulasChoice on Twitter.

I want to thank you again for sharing this incredible forum with me. In the future I look forward to reading your comments and concerns on Facebook!

Warmest regards,

Paula

CEO and owner of Paula’s Choice

www.PaulasChoice.com

If you are anything like me, when you envision the CEO of a cosmetics company you may picture an authoritative figure wearing a designer outfit with an executive assistant sitting right outside their door, waiting to answer every beckoning call. Ok, The Devil Wears Prada may have influenced this vision a bit, but the fact remains that we often perceive these high power individuals to be intimidating, untouchable, and far removed from everyday people or everyday life just in general.

While that may be true for some corporations, let me set the record straight here at Paula’s Choice. I would know; I’m Paula’s assistant! First of all, I have to start out by mentioning that in the 30 years Paula has been flying around the world educating women about skin care, and running Paula’s Choice, this is the first time she has had an assistant. I’m flabbergasted at how she managed to juggle it all on her own (though to the credit of the office, she has had great support). Nonetheless, let’s get down to the details you really want to know…

Is Paula a diva? Well, she does like her Perrier mineral water and flying first class (but she flies me first class, too, so that part of her being a diva is fine with me), yet in reality Paula is about as down-to-earth as they come. Some days she comes into the office dressed to the nines, but other days she’s completely comfortable sporting a casual ensemble. She’ll be the first one to greet everybody as she enters the building, compliment you on a new hair cut, or stop to play with the dogs in the office. It’s easy to tell when Paula is here because you can usually hear a roar of laughter before she has even made it up to her office on the second floor. (Speaking of laughter, she has been known to interrupt a meeting to play a funny video she just saw on YouTube, but you didn’t hear that from me.)

Another surprising fact is how hands-on Paula is. You might typically think of a CEO as someone who has “people” for everything, but as busy as Paula may be, she will actually read letters from customers and take the time to respond. She holds weekly meetings with our Customer Service department to keep them up-to-date with the latest information, as well as get feedback on what our customers have to say. Even when she is traveling across the globe to different time zones, Paula will wake up at 3am to do her online radio show. Every product development idea, Beautypedia.com review, or Paula’s Choice promotion goes through Paula.

Last, but certainly not least, what sets Paula apart as a CEO and as The Cosmetics Cop is her capacity to relate to people. Fans catch a glimpse of this on her weekly radio show where Paula tells all from her struggles with puberty and acne as a teen, to her experiences with menopause and plastic surgery. Paula has sincere empathy for the skin-care issues that her customers, fans, friends, and employees face and she is always there to lend advice and sometimes even some free products. Moreover, what other CEO would recommend products outside of their own? Only someone who is dedicated to helping you find the best products for your skin. Now that’s a far cry from what most of us would picture of any CEO from any other company in the world.

Meet Paula in Toronto, ON where she will be exposing the truth behind common beauty myths and signing copies of her latest editions of, The Original Beauty Bible and Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me (Brand New 8th Edition).

Thursday, May 6, 2010
6:30pm

Indigo Books Music & Café (Yorkdale Shopping Centre)
3401 Dufferin St.
Toronto, Ontario

Join us for your chance to:

• Find out how to look younger without spending a fortune.
• Learn why typical acne products can make breakouts worse.
• Discover the reality vs. the hype behind organic and natural products.
• Ask The Cosmetics Cop your skin-care questions.
• Get FREE samples of Paula’s Choice products.
• Win a $100 Paula’s Choice gift certificate!

RSVP Here or on Facebook

Call in & ask Paula your skin-care questions during her live Internet talk radio show,
Be Beautifully Informed with Paula Begoun,
The Cosmetics Cop.

Every Thursday beginning
6pm PST, 8pm CST, 9pm EST

• Best & worst products for the week.
• Behind-the-scenes look at cosmetic tips, advertising, & procedures.
• Call in & get personalized advice from Paula.
• Select callers can win free products on every show!

To tune in…
Call (347) 426-3783 to listen live & ask questions at show time, or listen to live & archived segments online .

Subscribers to Beautypedia.com know that our Web site is home to reviews of thousands of skin-care, makeup, hair-care, and body-care products. From Avon to Zo Skin Health, if it’s on the market, Beautypedia probably has a review of it—or we’ll get to it eventually!

Part of my job as Beautypedia Database Coordinator at Paula’s Choice is to keep our Web site’s information as current as possible, and that means tracking the launch of all new beauty products as well as discontinuations and reformulations of existing ones. Something as innocuous as a single new shade of a foundation means that research must be done—in fact, any change to a product means that its review needs to be revisited and potentially revised. With over 300 brands represented on Beautypedia, simply saying that keeping up with the industry is “a lot of work” is somewhat of an understatement. Sometimes, my head swims just thinking about it! But thanks to our readers, my job and that of the rest of the Beautypedia team isn’t nearly as difficult as it could be.

On a regular basis, my inbox teems with your insider tips, alerts and feedback. Many of our Beautypedia subscribers have become an important part of our Cosmetics Cop Team. Fielding these emails is a part of my job I always enjoy, because I’m continually impressed at the insights, knowledge, and tenacity of our readers—and I’m grateful for their willingness to share information with us! Those of you who take the time to let us know what cosmetic counter representatives are telling you, or what you’re seeing (or not seeing) on stores shelves are helpful to us in ways that defy words.

Not surprisingly, a good number of our readers are industry insiders themselves, and they let us know what new products are in the works, or just take the time to thank us for our hard work and dedication to holding this industry accountable for the empty promises it makes to consumers. And let me tell you, those thanks fill us with a lot of pride in what we do!

The email product alerts we receive makes Beautypedia (the big, beautiful, information-laden beast that it is) a more interactive experience for us and our subscribers. What amazes me about this process is that the information you give us gets cycled through Paula and the Cosmetics Cop Team and right back to other subscribers. And often, there’s very little lag. If a reader alerts us to a reformulation, we can research it, confirm it, and have the team revise the review and rating, usually the same day. Same thing goes for discontinuations. That’s pretty cool, and it makes Beautypedia more than a Web site—it’s an active community of fellow Cosmetic Cops!

We routinely receive emails (lots of emails) from new and longtime readers asking us to review a specific brand or product. It never ceases to amaze us how many brands are out there that we’ve yet to review—given the millions of products available, you’d think no one in the world would have a single skin-care complaint!

Lately I’ve received a series of emails from readers that leave me shaking my head at the audacity some of these cosmetic companies have. These women who write to us have the best intentions of finding products that work for them, but they’re increasingly up against some of the most ridiculous claims and prices we’ve ever seen. I wasn’t a bit surprised when I explored some of the products these women were intensely curious about…and found out that they were terrible in most respects. Good thing they checked with us first, but imagine all of those who don’t and wind up financially and emotionally down when the wow-factor claims don’t show up in the mirror. One more reason why, as Paula states, “You need a Cosmetics Cop!”

 But back to these emails I field daily…the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t put my finger on why even well-informed, Paula-educated consumers still get curious about products with miraculous claims and stratospheric prices. For example, one of the messages asked about a serum with placental enzymes that cost $200 for an ounce. Not only was the price outrageous, but the formula, quite frankly, sucked. Alcohol was a major ingredient, and it contained irritating plant extracts, too. Of course, placental enzymes (which come from animals, not people) have no effect on skin, but that’s fodder for another blog. This woman must’ve felt that the price and claims added up to something special, because she honestly wanted to know if this serum was worth abandoning the one she normally uses from Paula’s Choice. That’s a hard question for me because after reviewing thousands of products, I know the value of our formulations but at the very least if a woman is going to make a change it should be for the better, not for worse. 

I know women are always looking for the best products. They always want to know if some secret ingredient or formula really exists. The perpetual lure of advertising and dollar signs makes us second-guess ourselves. Is the grass really greener if only we spend a lot more money? With so many products vying for our attention, it’s easy to let our hopeful human nature to take over regardless of how much it costs. That’s not the most rational or pragmatic approach, but in the midst of seeing things we don’t like about our appearance (wrinkles, sagging skin, discolorations) who isn’t tempted to ignore reality and wish for the fantasy? I imagine many women, despite being consistently disappointed by products that don’t work as claimed, remain hopeful because of the boost they get from feeling as if they are doing something to address their appearance. It may not be the best thing and it may cost much more than it realistically should, but simply making the effort and refusing to give up has to count for something, right?

What do you think? Are my theories spot-on or did I completely miss the mark? As cosmetics consumers, how vulnerable are all of us to fantastic claims coupled with jaw-dropping prices?

As researchers for Beautypedia, it’s fair to say we work the beat for the Cosmetics Cop precinct. Every day we take to the phones and to the streets in an effort to track down complete and correct ingredient information for the thousands of products housed in Beautypedia. Considering that no formula-specific or trade secrets are revealed within these lists (and that these products go on our bodies and faces) it’s simply baffling that this information isn’t made readily available. Companies like to boast about their newest, magical ingredients and then suddenly get shy when you want to know anything more (basic stuff like studies or research details). The more time we spend patrolling the industry for Beautypedia, the more we feel that you should know the kind of lengths we have to go to do our jobs– it’s sometimes amusing, often maddening, and always makes us shake our heads in disbelief.

What’s so infuriating is that sometimes even the bigwigs in the cosmetic industry agree that disclosing ingredient information is important, and yet either hypocritically or just because they think no one will notice they keep this information deliberately unavailable or difficult to access. For example, in this month’s ELLE Jane Lauder (VP and GM of Origins, not to mention Estee Lauder’s granddaughter) went on the record as saying “Every company should be clear about what ingredients it is using.” If only that were true! This quote brought a groan from all of us here at Beautypedia that could have been heard around the world. First of all, Estee Lauder is one of the more notorious companies for making it almost impossible for us to get ingredient information from – their web sites are void of ingredient listings. For us that means we have go to the cosmetic counter and transcribe it by hand, or contact their call center and wait 1-5 days for the ingredient list to be sent to you, if it arrives at all.

I hate to get in a pissing match. That isn’t what I wanted this blog to be about in the least. Fun, upbeat, iconoclastic, ironic, challenging, pushing the envelope, and open minded but not rude or insulting. Please, let’s keep it that way.

The post that I’m not the only one “asking” about ingredients isn’t the point I was making. We don’t just ask about ingredients or ask what the chemist thinks. We ask to discuss the properties of the ingredients, compare research (which they usually don’t have because these people are chemists, not researchers), and look at the ingredient manufacturers’ data with a skeptical eye because that is rarely published research. Of course I’m not the only one but my team and I are among the few who come in with research and facts, not press releases or articles from fashion magazines. As someone who’s been in this industry for 30 years and has worked with hundreds of cosmetic chemists, what each and every one has told me (and I even belong to he Society of Cosmetic Chemists not to mention all the other work I do) the people they meet with have no idea about cosmetic formulations and ingredients. Of course, people are curious about ingredients. The fact is marketing people are not researchers either, they don’t know how to read scientific data or studies, and they are at the forefront of getting a product on the shelf, for makeup that’s fine, but for skin care, it is really unnerving.

The 3rd edition of my book The Beauty Bible will be out next month! It just blows me away as to how much new information there is. Everything from controversies in sunscreens, the organic natural debate/hysteria, antioxidants, inflame-aging., and on and on has all new research and studies concluding different aspects of how best to take care of skin.

Perhaps the most stunning part for me is the research of why irritating ingredients are so bad for skin but in particular oily skin. This is where my endless recommendations and nagging not to use alcohol or menthol, citrus, eucalyptus, volatile fragrance components (natural or otherwise) makes even more sense. It turns out irritating ingredients can stimulate oil production by triggering a neurogenic response that release androgen receptors in the pore thus producing more oil. (Sources: Archives of Dermatologic Research, July 2008, pages 311–316; Dermatology, January 2003, pages 17–23; and Medical Electron Microscopy, March 2001, pages 29–40.) This means when you use products that contain irritating ingredients, though you may initially feel less oily because they decrease the oil on the surface of skin, they stimulate the pore to make more oil then you hade before which creates an endless cycle.

I met with a business reporter yesterday who interviewed me about my business and my role as the CEO. Her questions were a great exercise. Really made me think about how I run my company and what is important to me. Here are some of the questions she asked and my answers:

What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?
It was from my father. He always struggled to keep his own business. I was very young when he told me nothing was as important as being your own boss. He said you will work harder then you can imagine and the money risks will be frightening, but at the end of the day, no one controls your time but you. It has been my mantra since I was 12 years old.

How do you motivate your team?
Mostly through empathy and blatant honesty which can be quite a balancing act. A fundamental concept of my company is don’t do to anyone else what you wouldn’t want them to do to you, and don’t ask anyone to do what you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself. I’m in there doing it with them every day. We also often talk about our fundamental mission is to change the world for women, giving them what other companies won’t. It’s important to almost all of us.

What is the most remarkable thing you’ve done to increase your business?
Found a way to maintain my integrity and retail skin care and makeup products. Believe me, that is unique in my industry.