Fast Facts Behind Clozette Beauty Awards 2015 | Clozette

When we embarked on Clozette's very first Clozette Beauty Awards this year, we did so with the intention of giving our Beauty Community a bigger voice in the region. These are Clozetters who live, breathe, and love everything about all things Beauty and we wanted to give them a platform to celebrate their most beloved products and brands. At the same time, we wanted to also get together as a Community to place our Clozette stamp of approval on the beauty products that are highly-loved in the region. 


So since we just announced the Winners in our inaugural Beauty Awards, we thought it would also be fun to share a few fun-facts about Clozette Beauty Awards 2015. Here is everything you need to know at what went on in creating and launching our regional beauty award.


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Sifting Through The Beauty Pile



Our Clozette Beauty Awards started in the hands of our Clozette Beauty Crew, consisting of beauty-obsessed Clozette staffers who are in the loop of the latest trends, product releases, and holy-grail products in the Beauty world. As a team, they sifted through all the products and separated them into main categories and sub-categories in preparation for product nominations from our Beauty Panel. At the end of it, we had split the awards into 4 main categories (skincare, makeup, haircare, and fragrances), further broken down into 31 sub-categories.

Selecting Our Beauty Panel



A snapshot of some of our Beauty Panel

The main thing we wanted to do with our Beauty Awards was to ensure that every product nominated came from our regional Community. So who better to represent our community than our Clozette Ambassadors, specifically our Beauty girls who are synced into the latest trends in the Beauty world. By the time nomination forms were ready to be sent out, we had created a Beauty Panel that consisted of 50 Clozette Ambassadors and the Clozette Beauty Crew.


Finalising The Products For Voting



The Beauty Panel spent about a month carefully nominating products for each category and sub-category, listing out products that have worked for them and they regularly use in their beauty routine. The focus of the selection was that we wanted to find the highly-raved products in our Community. At the end of the nomination period, the Clozette Beauty Crew sifted through all the nominations and picked out the top-five nominated products under each sub-category. These would be the products that the rest of the Community voted on.


Countries That Participated & Number of Votes Cast




As a Regional Community, we knew immediately that we wanted a Beauty Award that went across the Clozette family--giving a voice to our Communities in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia. Together, our community voted for their favourite products, creating a Community-curated list of holy-grail beauty products worthy of the Clozette stamp of approval. As a whole, our Clozette Beauty Awards received a total of close to 40,000 votes.


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Did your favourite beauty product make it to the top? Click here to see the list of winners in this year's Clozette Beauty Awards.

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(cover photo from KelynnStory)


If you’re a skincare junkie, you’ve probably already heard about the konjac sponge, which is all the rage here in Asia, specifically in Japan and Korea. And recently, it’s starting to spread out and gain popularity across the world because of its benefits and uses.


It may look scary (especially when it's dry, rough, and hard) and gimmicky, but this tiny sponge is going to be your new BFF. Don’t believe us? Read below for our reasons on why the konjac sponge should be, and will be, your skin’s new best friend (forever)!

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It's Extremely Gentle 


(photo from RoxanneChia)


Don’t be scared of its rock-like physical quality because these sponges are extremely gentle on your skin! So gentle, that they can be used every day, making it perfect for even the most sensitive skin out there. All you have to do is wet the sponge until it turns soft and feel gelatinous, and massage all over your face and neck!

It Will Give You Radiant Skin


(photo from itzeugena)


This sponge doesn’t promise to heal acne, but it will unclog those pores holding onto bacteria and other impurities! The gentle rubbing motion on your face will help bring blood back to your skin, promoting new cell turnover, and will give you that beautiful radiant glow!


A 3-in-1 Product


(photo from Syafiera)


For those who want to save a few steps in their skincare routine, then the konjac sponge is for you as it can cleanse, exfoliate, and remove makeup! All you have to do is wet the sponge, put a bit of your makeup remover on it, and gently massage your face! After rinsing everything off, you can wash the sponge and rub it all over your face again for a double-cleanse. And this can be used as rare as once a week for that gentle-but-effective exfoliation.


It's All Natural


(photo from musicalhouses)


You know how sometimes it’s scary to look at the ingredients of our favourite products because they have words we can’t pronounce, or they have ingredients with the word “paraben” at the end of it? Well, we don’t have to be afraid with the konjac sponge because this tool is purely organic!

They’re made from the fibers of the konnyaku tuber, which has been used for beauty, food, and medicinal purposes since the 5th century! Now if that doesn’t speak well about a product, I don’t know what will.

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What's your favourite skincare tool? Let us know in the comments below!

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Creating a collection of new scents is harder than it looks — knowing which smells are good together, or those that complement each other requires great skill and knowledge on the scents one is working with. Which is why the brand new L’OCCITANE x Pierre Hermé collection is a collaboration sent by the scent gods themselves!


Olivier Baussan, founder of L’OCCITANE en Provence, created the jars and boxes that house the new products - its cylindrical form and aromatic colours will remind you of a hat box and a cake. And his friend, pasty chef Pierre Hermé, designed the new scents that was inspired by “ingredients that awaken desires, raw materials that conjure up pleasures.”

So get all the details from this unique collaboration from Olivier Baussan himself, and find out everything there is to know about this wonderful and delicious collection!

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What brings you [and Pierre Hermé] together? What do you have in common?


I think that we take a modest approach to things, and we both believe in the importance of meeting and exchanging with other people. Pierre uses candied fruits because he met people who used them. He's a bit like a library of tastes: he'll try something, memorize it, and store it in the back of his mind. As for me, when I learn about a tradition, I like to observe it, and then I like to wait and store it in my memory bank. And when it's the right time, this taste or tradition will resurface. We build through our memories, not through the present.

How did the project for this collection come about?


It was Corsica and immortelle that first inspired us. We were seduced by ingredients from the land of Corsica, and we wanted to integrate these ingredients into our three collections. 

The starting point for the project was immortelle. I showed Pierre our plantations and he was fascinated, just as I was. He loved that subtle blend of spices that you get when you crush an immortelle flower between your fingers, with scents of honey, spices and curry. He was fascinated by this smell, because he loves combining extremes in his creations. He'll bring together unexpected flavours, which become one rather than pushing each other away. He was astonished and surprised by the strength of the scents of immortelle. For him, it was an ingredient in its own right that he wanted to work with as it was. We wanted to create something by combining our talents, where each one brings his vision and expertise. We began working on immortelle and in the end we created a complete collection that really puts the emphasis on the ingredients.




Could you tell us a little about the work you did on the packaging?


There again, I didn't want to focus too obviously on macarons. The packaging alludes to macarons. There are bands and "layers" on the bottles, but it's just a subtle reference, nothing more. 

 When I create a packaging design, I'm always inspired by traditions. For this collection, I began by working on the box. I was inspired by round hat boxes and cake boxes, with a lid on the top. I wanted to evoke these cake boxes, which are very classic and wonderful to behold. There are different colours and engravings, tributes to ingredients, and precious, festive touches, with gold and silver hot-foil stamping. 

I wanted the bottle to be a cylinder that you would slip into these round boxes. I wanted to recreate what I felt when I discovered these boxes as a child, to share that pleasure. Nadette, my wife, designed the Christmas gift boxes. She wanted to express the explosion of flavours in the mouth that you experience when you taste a pastry. 

How were you involved in creating the fragrances?

I wasn't involved in creating the fragrances. I worked on the packaging. We wanted to reflect, in a way, the encounter that is our friendship, through an encounter between the fragrances and the packaging. It's an encounter between the imagination of Pierre, focused on scents, and my imagination, focused on the packaging. Pierre was free to dream up explosive, surprising combinations.




What connection do you think there is between the world of patisserie and the world of beauty products?


It's an explosive combination. Pierre focuses on pleasure for the palate, while L'OCCITANE focuses on pleasure for the body. Both are connected by the notion of pleasure and awakening the senses.

Why did you choose Christmas time to launch this collection?

Christmas is the time of year when there's all that excitement in the air, everything sparkles, we want things that dazzle and shimmer, we want gold… So it made perfect sense to unveil this collection for Christmas. It's a collection that makes you think of an imaginary garden, a magical moment that brings back childhood memories, when everything is bright and full of light. Just like Christmas, this collection is an explosion of joy and flavours.




If you had to imagine one world that you would both have in common, what would it be? 
 
It would be an imaginary garden, inspired by skills, techniques, know-how and ingredients. My imagination is shaped around skills and techniques; my imaginary garden is about looking at the stars. We're all looking for a wonderful Eden. In Greek mythology, it's the garden with the golden apple. It's the citrus fruit, the orange tree.
Reference to the garden of the Hesperides and the story of Paris and Helen of Sparta.

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Which item from the collection are you excited about? Tell us in the comment section below!

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