Canada’s Best Beauty Talent, episode 7: Max Abadian to the rescue

Let’s be honest: this show hasn’t been great so far. Sure, makeup contestant Marcia has taught us how to make a face beautiful (see here and here), and we’ve gotten a few giggles out of Coco Rocha’s robotic delivery (see here, here and here), but the show has been short on the kind of entertainment that keeps audiences begging for more. (Sorry, but intentionally flubbing the catchphrase “ready, set, style!” by saying “ready, set, don’t style!” is just painful to watch.) We were even thinking of giving up on it—and then internationally renowned photographer Max Abadian came on for this week’s Flare cover shoot challenge, and what a difference he makes. Abadian’s presence adds something to the show that has been lacking: action. The contestants are tasked with the challenge of creating the perfect high fashion cover look, which they have 45 minutes to finish before heading straight to Abadian for the shoot. The six remaining contestants struggle to keep their models’ head still enough to work simultaneously (turns out it’s tricky to do delicate makeup application while someone else is jerking her hair around), and when it comes time for the shoot, we witness some seriously impressive eye rolls from makeup contestant Cait. (We love you Cait!)

During the shoot, Abadian keeps the contestants on their toes by asking for powder touch-ups and slight hair adjustments. In the case of Caylee, he asks her to basically change the hair entirely—it’s pretty funny to see her running back and forth while her partner Cait just stands back and rolls her eyes. Marcia and Isabelle aren’t asked to make a single tweak to their look, so they’re pretty pleased with themselves, and Jenna and Matt are only asked to reduce shine and adjust the hair for maybe a fraction of a second. It all moves pretty quickly, so we’re curious to see what the photos look like—and whether the producers can continue with this new-and-improved, action-filled pace. (On America’s Next Top Model, we’d have seen them already, but this is Canada’s Best Beauty Talent, so we’ll have to wait until tonight’s episode.) What we learned this week: Matt shares that the secret of a great wet look is sealing the hair before wetting it to avoid frizz. He preps with mousse and blow dries it tight, then he flat irons the hair to seal it and finishes with oil.

• Bring in a rep from YSL (Eden Bluestein) to be a guest judge, and she will never stop talking about the benefits of using YSL products. She is easily the most car salesman–like of the guest judges to date.