A CHAT WITH DREW BARRYMORE: FLOWER SPRING LAUNCHES
I stare at Drew Barrymore from across the room and she’s obviously glowing like the painting of Madonna and Child by Raphael.
“When I’m in my 60s I’m going to get my groove back,” she jokes about her second child and how she gulps caffeine and puts FLOWER Beauty products on a daily basis. Hanging out with Drew Barrymore was one of the best experiences in my editorial career—no joke! She is truly a flower, blooming goodness inside and out. She obviously loves her flora, and really knows how to make them last. “Put a shot of vodka in your blooms to make them last,” she says half seriously, “or pennies.”
But her latest collection of products from her FLOWER Beauty collection specifically for Walmart doesn’t need vodka shots or any help from pennies. The company’s mantra, “Love the way you look” is 100% essence of Barrymore, who told me that “insecurity is not an option” when she was growing up. Barrymore says she worked very hard with formulators to get the quality of FLOWER Beauty’s products just right. “The last few years, especially with the Maybellines of the world nailing color, were about getting that perfect (color) formula,” she says. “Our whole business model is about bringing prestige to mass, and bringing these formulas to the consumers and selling them for a totally different price,” she continues. When she started her line, Barrymore tinkered with the Lip and Cheek Chubbys and tried to go for colors that pop. Her green shades have gold in it (a “vibrant” green, she says) and her blue colors have teal in it and “goes great with an apricot lip.”
New spring launches (from top down): the Kiss me Twice Lip and Cheek chubby in Rosie Posie; Eye2Eye Liner/Mascara in Midnight Bloom‘and Velvet Lip Chubby in Red-dy to Bloom.
She also loves aubergine, which really brings out any person’s eye color. Her lip crayons are very popular among consumers. Her new lip launches include “lip suede” items that now come in a non-drying matte formula (we’re hooked). She says they are greatly buidlable and never feather either. Her cream blushes are also best sellers and have a nice jelly-like cushion-y feel. She has also introduced new lip glosses and nude lip glosses with a tint of rosy/apricot tones because “nude lipsticks (without too much of a tint) make me feel like I’m missing half a face.”
Her cream foundation sticks (Skincognito) is something that never leaves her bag, and coincidentally, it never leaves our bag either. “In the day and age of long-lasting, I feel like I’m losing layers of my epidermis if I keep reapplying (foundation),” she jokes. Her latest and greatest (genius) product is the dual Eye2Eye Liquid Eye Liner & Volumizing Mascara wand in one. I wonder why no one has thought of these before, especially in a day of dual-ended products!
“The FLOWER Beauty products are comparable to prestige brands because we’re working with the same labs and their formulas,” says Barrymore, who refuses to compromise even though her items are priced extremely reasonably. “Pigment is everything.”
If you were to cherry pick just a few products from her collection, go with the new Eye2Eye Liquid Eye Liner with felt tip, her silky-finish eye shadows, and her gorgeous Skincognito foundation sticks (since they’re solid, they’re portable and travel friendly too). Highlighting, contouring, and sculpting all make Barrymore tick, and color above all is her collection’s horsepower.
Regarding her relationship with Walmart, she says that FLOWER is exclusive to the company. “We do want to do something different here,” says Barrymore, who says she has been given a lot of liberty into what she creates and markets at the mass retailer. “We have to find new and inventive ways to show the consumers what that product does,” she says, and hence her #TipTuesdays on social media and other online creative efforts.
Barrymore also has a Facebook contest called the “Face of FLOWER” currently underway, which allows all beauty product fans to submit selfies wearing their own FLOWER products for a chance to win a trip to LA to meet Drew, walk the red carpet at her upcoming movie premiere for Blended, and receive a FLOWER makeover. Be sure to use #FaceofFLOWER when you tag your photos (entries accepted until 4/7).
To be sure, these new products are not wallflowers.
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