Report from Sophie for Barry M

Stood outside Madame JoJo’s, a nightclub reminiscent of the Moulin rouge, I hardly knew what to expect. Luckily, the inside exceeded any expectations I possibly had. The dark set room and low mood lighting set the perfect background for  Barry M’s super bright cosmetics Advert launch. There were towers of fairy cakes covered in pearlescent icing and chocolate hearts, bowls on every table filled with rainbow coloured sweets, and best of all a table in the middle of the dance floor covered in Barry M goodies.

  “Hello I’m Sophie and I’m reporting on behalf of stardoll.com today!” Cue the big handshake and friendly smile of Dean Mero, Barry M’s Managing Director and son of the companies creator Barry Mero. His passion for the company and his drive for success was clearly strong, and it was evident Barry M was a much-loved family company with family traditions and morals included. “Barry M has never and will never test it’s products on animals. Rabbits are still used across the world in painful and unnecessary testing, so we decided to adopt cookie - a much loved family rabbit - as our furry ambassador.” Cookie’s web pages, blog and live ‘bunny cam’ can be found on the Barry M website. A cute and lop-eared way to convey a serious message, Barry M is against animal testing. (As if there wasn’t enough reasons to love Barry M!)

Possibly the nicest Entrepreneur in British business success, Barry Mero was as welcoming as a hot chocolate in winter, and so easy to talk to I almost forgot I was supposed to be interviewing him and started chatting about Boy George instead! I quickly found that Barry Mero was incredibly proud of his business and exceptionally grateful for his success, saying his proudest moment was “watching the company grow, being here and seeing all the young girls enjoy themselves!”

 The company Barry M was first created in 1982 by Barry himself, selling bright coloured nail varnishes, a product previously unavailable on the 80’s mid-price makeup market. Soon to be followed by Dazzle Dust’s, which to this day are one of the companies most popular products, now available in over 300 different colours! I had to know what started Barry’s love of bold and daring makeup, “I started working in makeup when the likes of Adam Ant and Cindy Lauper were famous, and they really started the trend for colourful makeup - they used to mix one or two eye colours together to get a colour that was really bold as the weren’t available to buy. So I decided to start Barry M and sell brighter colours that the customer wanted.”

Thus the notorious Barry M brand was born! To this day the ethos of the Barry M brand is to provide affordable makeup in extraordinary colours that aren’t available anywhere else. I was also eager to find out who Barry M designs his makeup for, “Girls aged 13-30 mainly, but anyone can wear it. What I love about young girls is they’re not afraid of colour. Older girls tend to use a brush to put on our Dazzle Dusts and want to be careful of how much they put on, but young girls will just stick it on their finger and go for it, that’s much more exciting!”

The advert was as bold and daring as you can imagine from the fabulous Barry M cosmetics, starring the beautiful Sarah-Anne, a model for Select Modelling Agency.  Sarah-Anne was as glamorous off the big screen as she was on, dressed in a military style mini dress, embellished with gold buttons and featuring some super shoulder volume, there was some serious outfit envy on my part. I wanted to find out how she landed a role in Barry M’s fist ever TV ad, “Well I did the campaign for Barry M last year, and my agent sent me along to the casting for the TV ad. There were hundreds of girls there and we were given this guitar and just told to rock out, so I did!” I asked Sarah-Anne if she had any makeup and fashion tips for us stardollians, “dark lips is going to be a big trend in makeup, its been all over the catwalks. And when it comes to fashion be individual.”

I said my goodbyes to everyone and left with a bursting bag of goodies in hand (YAY!) and made my way back to the train station. Today had only confirmed what I already knew, I loved Barry M cosmetics, for their ability to turn a mundane outfit into something exciting with a glossy nail polish or popping eye shadow.  Barry M is at the forefront of Mid-price British makeup brands, offering colour and quality incomparable to any other brand, perfect for girls like us! 
 
   Sophie x