Canada’s Best Beauty Talent, episode 6: we feel a bit eh. It just isn’t wow
On this episode of Canada’s Best Beauty Talent, it’s time for the judges—Flare’s Lisa Tant, Chatelaine’s Catherine Franklin, Lancome’s Lora Spiga and L’Oréal’s Anna Pacitto—to critique Sunday night’s bridal looks. Right from the start, the judges are wowed by Matt and Marcia for giving a woman with dark skin an unconventional colourful lip and shiny hair, and they take forever congratulating them for their moxie—we like Matt and Marcia’s look, too, but the praise is wasting airtime in an already short show. Later, Tant resorts to soundbites like “Overall I feel a bit eh. It just isn’t wow,” which she says to describe Jenna and Roger’s fresh-faced look (come on, if you’re going to play the role of the ambivalent judge, at least take a card from Michael Kors’ deck).
Franklin believes that Caylee and Cait’s look isn’t something most women could pull off (the hairstyle Caylee creates does look complicated), but our question is, why does this matter? Coco Rocha very clearly pointed out in the last episode that contestants were to create the perfect bridal look for a client—not womankind. Add Franklin’s query to a long list of moments that eat up air time CBBT can’t afford to lose (See episodes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). Then comes Rocha’s slow (painfully slow!) reveal, where she tells Roger and Andrea—who are on two separate teams—that they must pack up their kits and go. Even though it is usually one team that gets the boot, there’s no major shock from the other contestants, nor are there tearful goodbyes; ultimately, it seems like a missed opportunity to get the audience excited about the drama a competition show can provide. Inexplicably (perhaps because the episode ended with an unconventional elimination?) there was also no challenge winner this week, so we’re going to make our own call: Matt and Marcia’s creation is the best of the bunch, because the bride’s hair is not your typical boring bridal do—it has an I’m-not-a-virgin-and-just-had-sex-and-left-the-house kind of appeal—and Marcia really shows off her skills as a makeup artist by blending foundations to smooth out out the model’s uneven skin tone. What we learn this episode: Matt teaches us that if you put an excessive amount of shine spray on typically not-so-shiny hair and then flat iron it, your locks will glow; and Marcia tells us that women of colour have two or three tones in their skin due to hyperpigmentation, so sometimes it can take two or more foundations to get a perfect match. Oh, and Isabelle cries on camera. Twice (once during judging, and once when she realizes she’s safe for another week). We don’t really learn that (we witness it), but we thought it might be interesting to note.
• Coco Rocha (or whoever is writing her script) continues to rely on cheeseball lines. In this episode, she starts the show by saying, “the bridal challenge gave some of you the chance to shine; others got cold feet”
• In her full get-up, Isabelle and Andrea’s bride looks like a cast member from Toddlers and Tiaras
Once again, this show seems to make a habit of punishing creativity and rewarding mediocrity.
Marcia did do the best makeup, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out the praise given to Matt’s hair by both the show and this article. It’s a boring mess, and having worked countless weddings, there’s no way a bride would be happy with that on their wedding day.
The only two hair styles that showed any creativity or talent were Caylee’s and Isabelle’s, and of the two, Isabelle’s was better executed…..yet both hairstyles were savaged. Even Roger’s hair, which they correctly sent home for being “safe” and “boring” got more on-air praise.
We want to see what “canada’s best” can actually do, not what’s safe.
Hey, that’s surprising! more snarky, baseless criticism of Isabelle. Toddlers and Tiaras? I don’t see it. The dress was a little tacky, but they had nothing to do with that.
I will admit to a slight bias, since she’s been my go-to stylist for years, but she clearly did do the best hair in this episode. It’s beautiful, creative and clean.
The author has nothing but praise for Roger, who also snarkily dissed Isabelle on camera after he was booted off. BAD SPORT! It was in poor taste and made him look like sore loser.
I also don’t understand why Matt’s hair was praised at all, it was bad hair, the sad state of it made me think he really didn’t have experience styling African American hair. There were spots in the hair where you could see a flat iron was used. Sloppy.