Interviewher.com had the opportunity to get to know Bethany Karlyn, who has worked for 25 years as a makeup artist in Los Angeles. She works on photo shoots for various magazines and Her clientele includes both celebrities and models. Her task? Taking their skin to the next level for the camera.
“What I found to be the most common question when people see my work and find out what I do for a living, is, ‘how do you get the skin to look like that?’ And my answer always was, well, I have my own little recipe I blend up in my kitchen and I bring it to set in Tupperware. I can’t really tell you what I do because I use so many ingredients and it’s just my own little formula I’ve worked out over all these 25 years,” she told Interviewher.com.
The “little formula” Bethany concocted is now Prtty Peaushun (pronounced pretty potion) Skin Tight Body Lotion, a glowing, conditioning body lotion. It looks gorgeous on your skin but at the same time, it’s lifting, tightening, firming and helping with bruising and sore muscles. It makes minor imperfections less noticeable. In short, it’s a magic potion.
How the brew came to birth
“I had to create a product I could use myself and on my celebrities and models,” Bethany explains. “I started working with Tracy Anderson about six years ago. She is a celebrity fitness guru and she has trained every a-lister you can imagine, from Madonna to Gwyneth Paltrow to Shakira to Jennifer Lopez, you name it. Anybody who has an unbelieveable body or who needs an unbelievable body, Tracy is the one getting them there. When I first started using my product on her, she was like, “’what is this, where do I get it? I’ve used everything and I’ve never seen anything like this!’”
“I told her I’d mix her up a batch, but it’s not something you can really get. She started giving me a hard time about it, saying, ‘you need to get this out there. This is amazing. Everyone needs to know about this.’ I kept saying it was kind of her to say, but I had doubts. I felt I couldn’t just take my savings and launch this. It’s the worst economy ever. How could I take a risk like this?”
Double, Double, Toil, and No Trouble
After several years of support from Tracy, Bethany realized this was something worth pursuing. She started to envision her magic potion spreading to different faces and bodies all around the globe.Bethany decided to use her connections in the industry to interview chemists who could help her take what she was mixing up in her kitchen to women everywhere.
“I started really investigating. I had to make the formula so it would hold up on the shelves. It had to have preservatives so that it would have a long life. I started working with a chemist and we clicked right away. She totally understood what I was trying to do. By working together side by side in the lab we were able to bring it together very, very quickly.” Bethany officially launched her company in January 2010. “I didn’t know if it would be a roaring success, but enough people who are the kind of people you turn to for their opinions on these kinds of products were loving it that I felt like I had something. I took the first batch from the chemist and I took it to the set, started using it on everyone to make sure it would perform the same as the original formula, and it really did the trick. Everybody was loving it.”
No Essence of Newt or Bat’s Wings
“I had a list of what would make it the perfect product to me, as if I was the ultimate customer. For myself, it came down to not
only looking gorgeous on the skin, but also being a natural product made of raw ingredients – no animal products and no animal testing. As far as all the conditioning elements, I wanted the same thing every woman wants, my skin to be lifted, tightened and firmed and I wanted the imperfections to disappear.” She goes on to say, “I did a ton of research on all of the plant extracts I added into the formula. I really wanted to create just one product that did the work of several different products. I wanted to hit every point with one bottle. I wanted my packaging to have as light a carbon footprint as possible. In the makeup industry, you don’t get a lot of extra packaging. You get the product and you put it in our own pallet. I used a similar philosophy for Prtty Peaushun. I wanted lightweight packaging that would allow the customer to get every last drop from it and it wouldn’t fill up landfills.” Bethany’s unique packaging minimizes shipping costs and with no glass bottle, there’s nothing to break in your bag while you are carrying it through the airport. Also, Prtty Peaushun is not made with chemical propellants so taking it on a plane is no problem.
Skin Potion No. 9
“The product doesn’t have any dyes in it, so there is no color to transfer. It’s very sheer and very forgiving. The shades come from the color of the mineral glow that’s suspended in the plane base that gives a shine. The light, medium, dark and deep dark have a glow and those shades are the color of the glow itself. It’s not going to change your skin color. I’m light, I have very fair skin, but I can wear the deep dark and it looks like I have a natural, warm, subtle tan.”
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, who’s the Fairest of them all?
“I start every single makeup with Prtty Peaushun. I had a model in my chair the other day and we were doing tight face shots, with hands in beauty shots for OPI. She looked in the mirror and said, ‘what foundation is this? My skin has never looked like this?’ I told her, it’s not the foundation it’s the Prtty Peaushun beneath the foundation. It allows the glow to peak through. If you have flawless skin, you can wear the Peaushun alone on your face. If you want to even your skin out slightly, a drop of Prtty Peaushun and a drop of foundation mixed together become the most glorious tinted moisturizer.
The Recipe for Magic
“Everything kind of worked out very organically and synergistically with this whole process. In February 2010, Tracy mentioned the product in a magazine interview in London. When that came out, the phone started ringing off the hook. People called wanting to carry it, distribute it, write about it. One of the first calls was a spa that does a lot of celebrity work and are considered one of the top spas in London. They wanted a three-month exclusive with them in exchange for free PR. I would recommend that to anyone to help get a brand launched. PR is so expensive and you don’t always know who you are getting in bed with. Everybody is going to promise you the world because they want the account. It can be really frightening and your press is important. Where is a new business owner going to get the kind of money for good PR and a guarantee that it will work for them? For me, this was a great opportunity to barter in exclusivity and get PR. The press I got from them was insane. It was one article after the next, after the next, after the next. Instyle named Prtty Peaushun as an editor’s pick in August which was only eight months after launching the brand. That was pretty amazing. Then in November, Harper’s Bazaar UK named it the best skin enhancer in the top 100 beauty products.”
Continuing to Concoct Success
“I didn’t really know what to expect because I’d never done this before. I had some money tucked away and I was hoping it wouldn’t use everything up. It only took a few months to get the money I invested back. It’s been really great.” Bethany goes on to say, “I will always continue to do makeup because it’s a great way to showcase Prtty Peaushun. Of course I’ve got it out to the makeup kits of every makeup artist out there. Right now, all over LA, every photo shoot has Prtty Peaushun on it. It’s great to get positive of feedback from models in the industry and see that it really has legs. The product is really running on its own.
Hard Knocks
“It’s definitely challenging at times, but don’t be afraid to take a risk. Make sure you are making smart moves and decisions and you aren’t taking silly risks. It’s important to see that it’s really possible and there is every reason to trust in yourself. Believe what you believe. Do your research. Do not leave any stone unturned. That is going to be your strength. You don’t want lack of information to be your enemy. You want to be informed. Go for it. Absolutely go for it because it’s the only way to learn, and from there a million other opportunities will come out of it.”
