Beaut.ie Undercover: The Low-Down on Prescriptives Custom Blending

At the end of July, I embarked upon a journalistic mission of great importance. I was tasked with learning how to create Prescriptives Custom Blend products, and I also spent a day on counter at Brown Thomas, exercising my skills on the general public. Poor general public, what? I wrote the experience up for the Evening Herald a couple of weeks ago, but here's the extra, behind-the-scenes stuff that didn't make it to the paper.

I know you guys are a savvy bunch, so I decided to interview myself in classic devils advocate stylee. If I haven't addressed anything you'd like to know about Custom Blend, leave me a comment and if I can provide the info, I will.

Ah here, you just made all that stuff up and tottered into BT for five minutes to have yer snap taken, didn't you?

No! I really truly did have to learn the theory, process and procedure and in fact, originally I was due to fly to the UK to attend a formal training day (which all Custom Blenders have to go on), but the dates didn't fit, so I was taught here instead. Myself, the delightful brand PR Ali and Irish CB ambassador Ailbhe O'Brien spent a day holed up in a hotel room, and Ailbhe took me through the massive training manual and showed me the one billion ingredients I'd need to master. We concentrated mainly on the foundation service, but I was also shown how to make lipgloss (amazingly good fun) and powder too.

C'mon, surely it's not that hard, is it?

Actually - it is.  The girls who are good at it make it look easy, precisely because they're so adept. But this is tricky stuff, and the hardest part of it is something that can't be taught. You need an innate sense of what works colour- and tone-wise on someone's skin to even begin the process, and for that reason, not everyone will be good at Custom Blend. This step is crucial, and it's called Colour Print. The rest of the service hangs off you getting this correct.

I spent four years at art college, so my colour theory smarts are pretty good, but I found it tricky. You do have help in the form of little diagnostic pens that look like concealers, and they help you to identify your customers base skin tone, but this part of the process is really intuitive and while I did ok on it, and I am pretty sure practice would have perfected my technique, this was when I really started to have respect for the counter staff who can do this well.

How do you actually make the products?

You've got an arsenal of pigments, base shades, colour extenders and additives at your fingertips, which is when the whole bespoke aspect of it comes home to you. It's possible to add anti-ageing benefits, extra moisturiser, a luminizing glow or a sheering effect to the foundation products too. Lip glosses are easier and more fun to make because they're BRIGHT and SHINY, and you can blend pigments, add glitter and even flavours like mango and mojito to your mix.

With the foundation service, you mix according to a recipe (you'll know which to go for in your manual once you've completed the Colour Print step correctly) and you have to be really precise. You also need to talk to your customer and find out what she wants and needs: young skin may need some sebum control; older skin might like anti-ageing benefits. You'll also need to know what sort of coverage she'd like, so there is a lot to keep an eye on, and it's really confusing if you've never done it before.

Using a calibrated bottle and the pigments, extenders, treatments and base shades at hand, you measure and mix in the bottle by quite literally putting the lid on and shaking it.  And you have to do it for ages, it kills your arms!

Testing is the next step, and you'd do that directly onto your customers cheek. If it doesn't look quite right, you'll need to make some adjustments, typically with terrifyingly bright pigments which come in blue, green, pink and yellow, among others. As I have a cool skintone, I needed extra blue in mine, but someone with sallower skin might need some additional yellow, for example.

Gloss is easier, with less diagnosing and measuring required and you can pretty much make it by eye - or freestyling, as it's known in Prescriptives-speak.

So did you actually spend the day working at the counter?

Yeah, I really did!  I went in at 10am and left at 3pm (with very sore feet), so I did spend the guts of a shift and I got to experience a day in the life of a counter makeup artist/sales assistant. What I observed was that some women are shy to approach for help, but others know precisely what they want and ask for it immediately.  Ladies - approach a beauty counter with confidence, it really works.

The Prescriptives girls I found to be hugely helpful to customers and they seem to know a lot of them by name, in particular, a man who came in to buy some products for his wife. A regular, apparently, they got his order without him having to say what he was after. I didn't get to take money or advise customers too much - I am a big fan of the brand and can enthuse about it with the best of them, but these ladies know every product inside and out, and I can't compete with that!

Did they really let you loose on the customers?

Ok, here's the gen: I was meant to have a 100% live customer, a bride-to-be, but she cancelled on the morning of my day on counter, so I was let loose on two of BTs other counter staff instead. I had a lot of help: Ailbhe O'Brien assisted me mightily and confirmed my decisions with regard to Colour Printing (and I was right both times, yay!).

Is the foundation worth €70, though?

I completely agree that it is expensive - the guts of €100 is a lot to spend on base. But given the level of diagnosis, the time the assistants spend with you and the bespoke aspect of the product, it is worth the cash, especially if you find it really difficult to get a product to match your tone and type.

Your details are held on file at the counter so you can always have your base mixed up again, and each bottle of foundation comes with an extra wee bottle which you can use for travel or for touch-ups on the go. So you get a lot of bang for your buck, and a bottle should last several months.

The Prescriptives Custom Blend service - which includes foundation, concealer, lipgloss, tinted moisturiser and powder - is available at Brown Thomas Dublin, and House of Fraser, Dundrum, Dublin 14.