Having grown up in Southlake, I have a special love for Town Square. Even though I remember it most fondly from the days when it was just a small strip of stores and gazebo, I still enjoy stopping at Town Square with my mom for our occasional Starbucks and shopping dates. One of her favorite stores in Town Square is Soft Surroundings. It’s a beautiful upscale retail store with clothing, accessories, bedding, and beauty products.
The beauty section at Soft Surroundings is like a mini-beauty department store of top cosmetics and skincare such as stila, bliss and jane iredale. Jane Iredale made a personal appearance at Soft Surroundings today during her trip to Dallas featuring complimentary makeup applications, the opportunity to receive an exclusive gift with purchase, and a $600 tote with beauty products giveaway. I was unable to make it to the afternoon’s events, but was given the fortunate opportunity to attend a meet & greet this morning, which included a personal makeover and interview with Jane Iredale, herself!
Jane Iredale is considered a mineral makeup pioneer. Her career started in the entertainment industry, working first as a casting director and then as a writer and producer in both New York and Los Angeles. She moved on from film, television and theater to create her makeup line, jane iredale. She introduced her first mineral foundation in 1994. The makeup line now consists of more than 400 items, all grounded in the principle of providing skin care benefits. In celebration of jane iredale’s 20th anniversary, the brand launched Magic Hour, a new collection inspired by the hour before sunset which is loved so well by photographers for the gorgeous glow and light.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Jane after my makeover to discuss the new collection as well as the rest of her skin care line. Read on for the interview:
Actually, we have it right here! This is called Moonglow, one of our iconic products that we’ve had for a long time. You can swirl your brush around and use it as a bronzer or use the individual colors as eyeshadow. It’s all handmade, every piece of it is hand pressed. We decided to do the collection around Moonglow.
There’s the Golden Girl eyeshadow and the Jelly Jar Gel Eyeliners we just released in brown and black.
This is the Comfort In Touch® Highlighter, which you could use as a highlighter, blush or on your lips.
Two new Lip Fixations, Compulsion and Craze— one side is a lip stain and the gloss is at the other end.
This has been a very, very successful collection.
We’re coming out with this new product in the summer- called Golden Shimmer- you can put it on your arms or on your legs. It looks so great, wear it to the beach and you just shine, or glimmer at dinner! I have it on my legs right now. It’s so much fun, and you can even put it in your hair.
With May being Skin Cancer Awareness Month, could you speak a little about how you’ve incorporated SPF into your product line and why it’s so important for women?
The sun is responsible for 80% of the signs of aging—so it couldn’t be more important. When people talk about anti-aging products, to me sunscreen is by far the best anti-aging thing you could wear. We have one that goes up to 30, our bases are SPF 20. We add it wherever we can… such as our tinted moisturizers. We’re going to bring out a hand cream next year with sunscreen.
For someone that has just been introduced to your brand, what is the first product they should buy?
The PurePressed® Base– I wear it every day. It’s a foundation, powder, concealer, sunscreen all in one. You can buy one compact and refill it.
With all the spring and summer travel coming up, which products are essential for a beach vacation?
Obviously, the PurePressed Base, because even if you’ve got a tan on your body, please don’t tan your face! You need that SPF. I love our lash conditioner and the mascara that goes with it. A lip gloss, because it’s so easy, you don’t need a mirror to put it on. I would probably take one of our hydration sprays, if you feel parched, they’re also very versatile you can use wet a brush and use them on the eyeshadows wet. If I get a lot of static in my hair, I just spritz it with that.
I think women today, because they’re so busy, they need multi-tasking products. Especially when you’re doing any kind of traveling.
How have technology and social media impacted your company’s marketing efforts?
Before, we were business to business and we were kind of guessing what the consumer wanted. To be honest, the professionals, the aestheticians were not trained on selling, so they don’t know how to close a sale. For us, it was kind of frustrating because we just didn’t have that contact with the consumer. Now that’s changed, and we have contact with them all the time. We know what she likes, what she doesn’t like. I think it’s really helped our line because of that feedback, and it’s growing! My feeling is that people who think they own their brands are in for trouble, because for now the consumer owns our brand. They are the voice.
Your product line is very inclusive of all skin tones and types. How has that been important in your philosophy?
In our mission statement, one of the lines says, “enhance the lives of women”, and for me that means all women. So, we’re in 46 countries now, wherever I go, I see different skin types, but all the women want the same thing. For example the base shade we developed for Japan, turns out is now our third best seller in the U.S. Being international has helped us to get a deeper understanding of that. We get a lot of feedback– these shades work, but we’ve really got a gap here, so we’re coming out with three darker shades which I think will fill in some of the gaps.
You’re really listening to the consumer and adjusting your line.
Why not? They know what they want!”
Well, I definitely know what I want after the event today… to purchase every item in the Magic Hour collection and all the products used in my makeover! Will definitely be stocking up for summer soon.
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