Canada’s Best Beauty Talent, episode 3: gone in 10 minutes, six seconds

Canada’s Best Beauty Talent, episode 3: gone in 10 minutes, six seconds

Hair professional Eric Del Monaco and makeup artist Eddie Malter with contestant Marcia (Image: CBBT)

Canada’s Best Beauty Talent, Episode 3

All 10 remaining contestants are competing in this week’s episode of Canada’s Best Beauty Talent, and they’re tasked with updating classic Hollywood icons, from Grace Kelly to Elizabeth Taylor to Brigitte Bardot. With such a juicy challenge, and given that last week’s 12-minute episodes proved too short, we were disappointed to see this week’s episode clocks in at just over 10 minutes (with the regrettable “ready, set, style!” catchphrase not uttered until the 3:45 mark). It all amounts to a remarkably swift webisode where we’re left wishing the guest mentors, like hair professional Eric Del Monaco and makeup artist Eddie Malter, had time to offer up industry insights. But showing a challenge in a rushed six minutes means they can only throw out beauty industry jargon without explaining what it actually means. 

Del Monaco at one point asks a contestant if he’s going to “overset, then shoooosh,” which, let’s be honest, means absolutely nothing to anybody. (We’ll be the first to admit that we were incredibly confused.) Less confusing is the 10 seconds’ worth of L’Oréal product shots before the start of the challenge—since it is the main ad partner, we can expect a lot more of this. We can tell the products are unfamiliar to the contestants, because they have to read off the labels when asked “What did you use?” It’s unfortunate, because the show might have a more educational bent if the contestants were permitted to use brands they work with on a regular basis. That said, makeup contestant Marcia gives a very descriptive step-by-step analysis of how she plans to get the Elizabeth Taylor makeup just right by stripping colour from the face and adding contours along the cheekbones (she even tells Malter that she’ll achieve this by liberally applying a hydrating foundation—so, um, we actually learned something). Hair contestant Matt, meanwhile, provides some instructional commentary on how he’ll approach updating Grace Kelly’s look, stating that he’s going to tone down the volume, unlike his competitors. By far the best part of the show is the action, though there isn’t enough of it, save some liberal spritzing of hair spray and some frantic makeup brush action. Sadly, that’s all there is time for, because before we know it, Coco Rocha says “time’s up” and it is straight to the judging room. We don’t want to beat a dead horse, but this show should be getting longer, not shorter.

• The introductions of the weekly experts continue to be painful. This week Del Monaco and Malter stand awkwardly and make gestures while Rocha is reading her intro spiel. At least these experts are allowed to have last names and job descriptions

• Rocha takes great pride in reading every word she says correctly, but she end ups over-enunciating everything, and the segments simply take way too long