Simply Gorgeous

-- Video Business, 3/3/2004

Color, NR (nothing offensive), 45 min., DVD $12.98

DVD: no extras

Street: April 6, Prebook: March 20

Director: Robin Zorn

First Run: Video premiere

RAZOR & TIE

Catherine Hickland is a glamorous TV actor best known for her role on the soap opera One Life to Live. She also a side job, however, as a beauty expert and makeup artist, and in this DVD, she is determined to show every woman how easy it is to apply makeup to achieve a natural, but polished, look. To illustrate her point, she introduces the video with a bare face, and the switch from that to her finished look is truly astonishing (and will convince every woman that a little makeup does go a long way). She then goes on to explain the importance of skin care, what kind of brushes to buy and how to apply makeup step by step, going out to the streets to do real-life makeovers on regular women. She is careful not to recommend any specific brands, only going so far as to say that you can buy certain things in drug stores, but this might be because she wants the viewer to purchase items from her newly launched makeup line Cat Cosmetics. This is never mentioned directly, which is a relief, but it's obvious that this video is meant to go along with her products. Hickland overall, however, makes grooming seem easy and fun and encourages women to devote time to it. She acknowledges that women want to look pretty--"embrace your babe-ness," she says--and her conversational and non-threatening manner will make even the most gun-shy women excited about using lipstick and bronzer. -- Mayna Bergmann