Beauty Events

Guests entered the venue through an archway lined with a lush garland of pale blooms. The foyer also included a mural of St. Jude Children’s artwork.

The welcome room featured a clean, white, contemporary setting.

In the welcome room, guests were served artistic bites from Pinch Food Design.

St. Lifer explained that they chose a wood-paneled parlor space to showcase the new luxe fragrances because the scents feature woodsy notes and amber tones.

The ornate patterns on the bottles inspired the artwork in the room.

In the garden area, HL Group created a poppy Parisian bistro café with a whimsical hand-painted fountain and topiaries, along with products from the brand’s collaboration with French designer Sonia Rykiel.

Guests could play with the colorful products while snacking on tea sandwiches and macarons.

The GIF photo booth from the Bosco, located off the garden area, was adorned with playful Sonia Rykiel illustrations.

Inspired by the idea of science and innovation, the skincare room included a modern lab-like setup with bright green neon lighting.

Some of the actual ingredients found in the products, such as goji berries, were weaved into the displays.

The event team spray-painted roses to represent the more than 20 shades of the brand’s foundation. Barlow said that “the biggest challenge was the amount of product being featured and to [be able to] display each piece but in an organized way.”

The wire frame, which showcased the new foundation products, reflected the technology used in the compact’s design.

The makeup color room served as a nod to Lancôme’s new creative director, Lisa Eldridge. The florals were inspired by the new lipstick shades, which were on display.

“The way we’re displaying the product is almost museum-style or gallery-style, so we wanted to have more interesting, interactive, modern pieces floating in the space,” said St. Lifer of the colorful geometric floral installation in the makeup color room.

Caviar chilling on ice sculptures with frozen roses highlighted Lancôme’s high-end, luxe skin products.

Guests were given bouquets of peonies, roses, and hydrangeas as parting favors.

For a Los Angeles event celebrating the launch of its Sur.face Pro makeup palette, beauty brand Beautyblender hosted an August 2014 event with a customized gift for bloggers. A Stuk Designs artist sketched portraits of invitees holding the new products, creating the drawings based on photos from guests’ social media streams.

Kari Feinstein produced a brunch at the Hotel on Rivington for skincare brand host Proactiv, with a guest list including an intimate crowd of bloggers. The September event in New York included cookies in the brand's signature blue color from Tribeca Treats, which bore the names of the individual guests.

For a May 2014 event to fete its new premium skincare collection, Target invited bloggers to a Beverly Hills estate, where they collected products from four theme stations at which beauty concierges gave them personalized consultations based on their skin types. All along, guests posted to social media—the event also included highly visual vignettes and decor—and the attendees with the most online traction for a single post at the end received a gift bag filled with the whole skincare collection.

Online retailer ModCloth launched its first in-person fit shop event in Los Angeles, known as ModCloth IRL, with an April luncheon for fashion bloggers and other social influencers in that sphere. Wildflowers in shot glasses with name plaques served as seating cards, prompting many guests to share their own arrangement on social media.

Following the Streamy awards in September, digital media company Fullscreen hosted a neon-colored after-party in Los Angeles, partnering with Caravents on the production and digital strategy. The fete was intended to create a space where the Web content-creating millennial and Gen Z attendees would feel motivated to share in authentic ways. One detail ripe for sharing was a collection of small animal objects placed throughout the space along with the hashtag #EmojisintheWild.

Kari Feinstein also produced a second blogger brunch at the Hotel on Rivington during New York Fashion Week in September for Hearts on Fire and Chapstick, where products sat upon plates next to heart-shaped personalized cookies from Tribeca Treats.

Vanity Fair brought its Vanity Fair Social Club to Emmy weekend for the first time this year; previously, it happened only during the Oscars. The event produced by Caravents and held at the creative co-working space WeWork Hollywood hosted panels, events, and activations aimed at bloggers as well as digital journalists. A bar offered goods from various sponsors like Brooks Brothers and Viktor & Rolf; guests could step up, select their offerings, and post to social media channels in exchange for the goodies.

Johnnie Walker hosted its House of Walker tasting and education events last fall in Austin, Texas. As they arrived, all social media influencer guests received cards embedded with R.F.I.D. tags that allowed them tastes at each of the six stations. Guests could link their cards to their social accounts to enable easy sharing, and a highly visual and personal welcome message appeared when guests put their cards into designated slots at the tasting mats.

In February 2014, W Chicago City Center hosted a Valentine's Day event for bloggers and other media. Given the event celebrated the romantic holiday, the property’s in-house mixologist, Lauren Parton, created personalized love potions at the bar, after inquiring about their cocktail preferences. She also wrote down the recipe, and sent guests home with jars of their potions printed with cheeky labels.

In January 2014, Dermalogica Canada invited beauty bloggers as well as editors for a breakfast on the set of Degrassi High. The event launched the new teen and young-adult-targeted skincare line Clear Start, so the breakfast took on a look reminiscent of high school, with prom-style decor and even corsages.

Kenneth Cole drew a group of 30 bloggers to its New York showroom in March 2011 to showcase the new collection alongside a screening of Rebel Without a Cause. The line was partly inspired by the iconic James Dean movie, so the host nodded to rebellious youth culture with motorcycle gear and the brand’s well-known style of cheeky eyebrow-raising quotes printed throughout decor. The original concept was to transport guests to the event on motorcycles with pro drivers, an idea cancelled due to rain. However, bloggers did nevertheless receive custom helmets—a social-media-ready visual.

At Charlotte Tilbury's Scent of a Dream fragrance launch party, which took place September 10 in New York, guests could immerse themselves in a virtual reality short film starring Kate Moss, a spokesmodel for Scent of a Dream. Virtual-reality stations were placed throughout the three-story Samsung 837, where the event was held.

As guests entered the party, they could see Scent of a Dream bottles and Samsung smartphones on prominent display.

A giant video screen playing a Scent of Dream promotional video starring Kate Moss towered above the event's V.I.P. area.

Guests could take pictures at a 360-degree photo booth decorated with a visually compelling array of light fixtures.

The event blended high fashion with high technology. There were interactive installations throughout the space, including Social Galaxy and a dedicated Snapchat filter.

Products from Charlotte Tilbury Beauty were on display and available to sample for partygoers.

Guests could also indulge in Dreamy Look makeovers from Team Tilbury beauty experts.

Charlotte Tilbury (pictured, right) mingled with guests such as Olivia Palermo.

The event's catering, provided in-house by the Samsung 837 hospitality staff, included cookies in the form of lipstick tubes and wrapped with festive pink bows.

DJ Harley Viera Newton spun tunes at the party.

Partygoers could also get personalized lip readings based on their shades of lipstick.

The Greenpoint Terminal space provided access to an alleyway, which featured several branded scenarios for guests to discover.

Custom-made neon signs were hung throughout the event.

The event hashtag #lipstickismyvice was inspired by the after-dark theme.

Lipstick names were incorporated throughout the event in unexpected ways like this license plate wall decor.

Urban Decay imagery was transformed into large-scale wheat pastings, which were stuck to the brick walls of the outdoor space.

An adult bookstore with fluorescent-lined bookshelves was the inspiration for a bar area.

Guests could "check in" to the "No-Tell Motel" by choosing a lipstick name; the room's lighting would change color based on the selection.

The motel featured a boudoir scene with kitschy furnishings and props.

In the "No-Tell Motel," guests tested out the new lipsticks in a makeshift dressing room.

Guests could try on masks and snap pics in the hotel room setting. "We wanted every single area of the event to be a photo-ready moment," said Long.

Cloud Catering provided street cart-style grub for the crowd, including hot dogs, noodle dishes, and more.

A newspaper rack held Urban Decay's branded riff on the Village Voice, with stories promoting the new makeup collection and star, actress Ruby Rose.

The lipstick collection served as decor and was on display in clear, round coffee tables.