Virtual Beauty Boot Camp helps teens find inner beauty to boost confidence

NEW YORK CITY -- Stay-at-home orders may have rocked the booming beauty industry, but Blushington wasn't letting a global pandemic get in the way of making their customers feel beautiful.

Blushington's CEO, Natasha Cornstein, and her team closed all six of their locations ahead of the shutdown for the safety of her staff and customers.

"That was such a painful decision. We were having a record year," said Cornstein.

Once they realized their makeup & beauty lounges would be closed indefinitely... Blushington made a genius pivot: Virtual makeup classes.

Not only did the idea allow the company to keep their professional makeup artists at work, it was a chance to give back to their customers and gain an entirely new community!

Cornstein put the idea in motion immediately. "Right away we started something called Honoring Our Heroes." A complimentary hour-long makeup class for first responders and essential workers.

Those hour-long makeup classes were then offered to the public. For $20 you get professional lessons on anything you want! I wish I knew about them when I tried contouring and eyebrow shaping on my own.

With much popularity surrounding the virtual classes, Blushington took the idea one step forward with the Virtual Beauty Boot Camp.

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A four-hour interactive zoom session for teens and tweens alike. Immediately they noticed an interest from teens across the country!

It tapped into an important issue: building confidence in teens by giving them age-appropriate tools to express themselves. It certainly got parents on board!

"It's moms that are saying 'My daughter loves makeup and she can sit and watch YouTube tutorials all day long, but it's not really relating to her life," said Cornstein.

As someone who feels they didn't discover their full confidence until my mid-twenties, it made me ecstatic to see these young women finding their inner beauty and personal style as early as 15 and 16!

"Makeup is a really big thing for me because I like expressing myself like that," says 15-year old Francesa Enriquez who loved the Beauty Boot Camp.

Related: How to shape, measure, and clean up your eyebrows at home

I created Glam Lab to give people an open and honest look behind the curtain of beauty treatment and trends as well as the tools to make the best decision for themselves.

Whether you're someone who loves wearing a full face of makeup or nothing at all, if you look like your best, you feel your best and you can put your best foot forward.

Check out the latest episode for an in-depth look at the new world of virtual makeup!

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