5 Days of Gifts Giveaway: Pretty Girl Cosmetics
CheerMAD is celebrating its 5-year anniversary and as always, YOU get the gifts!
For the next four days, leading up to the official anniversary on Sunday, CheerMAD will announce a product that it believes is 100% "Certifiably CheerMAD" and you'll have the chance to win each day.
Today’s Certifiably CheerMAD product and product endorsement is: Pretty Girl Cosmetics, a division of ColorOn Beauty.
What do you do when your daughter’s rec cheer squad wants its eye makeup to be glittery and have the “Wow” factor but the team color is green?
If you are a chemist, like Colleen Dugan, you mix and match until you’ve concocted the most beautiful hue of green that citizens of Emerald City in the Land of Oz would envy.
“Let’s face it, green is not the most complimentary eye shadow,” Colleen said. “And from a distance, the kids looked like raccoons."
After years of being a cheer mom and sitting on the sidelines watching the coaches interact with the cheerleaders, Colleen said she felt disconnected.
“I wanted to help the team in my own way,” she said.
While many cheer moms might interact by hosting bonding events or putting together goodie bags, Colleen used her chemistry skills and put together a cheer makeup kit as a gift for daughter Merisa (pictured with Colleen) and her team.
“I knew that makeup was not in the budget so I gifted all 15 girls a makeup kit as a competition gift for the season,” Colleen said. “The girls were so excited to receive makeup kits in their team colors that they all convinced me to start selling team makeup kits to other cheer teams.
“I never thought I was an entrepreneur at the time but when I look how far Pretty Girl Cosmetics has grown and is now a division of my new company ColorOn Professional, I feel I am a cheermompreneur for sure!”
Colleen and I met through mutual friends soon after I launched CheerMAD in 2011. We had a lot in common, two of the newest to join the competitive cheer industry, we’d talk on the phone about our experiences and learned from each other’s growth. We both wanted to be a participant in our daughters’ lives by using our own skills: mine as a writer, Colleen as a chemist. As a scientist, Colleen has a logical way of thinking that keeps her out of the sometimes competitive knit-picking and gossip of the industry. I’ve found her to always be fair and helpful, even at times when we were at different ends of a project.
But it’s her exceptional customer service that puts her in such high regard with cheer moms and dads.
Colleen’s company Pretty Girl Cosmetics also launched in 2011 a few months before CheerMAD. Working from her home workshop, she experimented with hues and consistencies of her hand-made makeup. Soon she was packaging and maintaining an online store competing with the more well-known cosmetic companies.
In the last five years, her company continued to grow by offering many performance cosmetic products to the cheer industry and added dance makeup as well. But she noticed an issue commonly brought up by gym owners and coaches from across the nation.
“They needed makeup that was water proof and sweat proof and would stand up to the elements of a long day under performance lights and athletic competition,” Colleen said. “In addition, it had to have a consistent look for all team members, was something easy to apply, that looked stage ready but didn't require a makeup artist's talents or time.”
In 2014, Dugan found the solution in ColorOn Pro Instant Eye Shadows.
Its patented, application technology made ColorOn Professional easy and fast to apply to which Colleen created unique designs and color combinations to match her clients' team uniforms and costume colors. A built in primer and waterproof design make ColorOn last for 24 hours and stay consistently looking great from the start of an early comp day to the end of the night's awards.
All of ColorOn's eye shadows contain pure mineral makeup, and in addition, the moisturizing formula fills in and smooths the skin, while light-reflecting pigments correct and enhance the eye area.
Colleen was now able to fulfill all of her client's needs with a product that was easy, professional-looking and could withstand the stage lights at a cheerleading or dance competition.
Enter to win a set of ColorOns from the Performance Collection (above) by tagging five freinds
Soon she became the ColorOn Professioinal's largest seller and its owners approached Colleen about buying the division.
It was a major life-changing decision that, even with her successes, Colleen was unsure of.
“Everyone doubts themselves at some point in their life, and I doubted myself a lot last year,” she said.
“Pretty Girl Cosmetics has been in business for five years and I was not sure what direction I wanted the company to go. It has been a lot of hard work but selling cheer and dance makeup is seasonal and I wanted more.”
Taking a leap of faith and she says “after many sleepless nights” the New Yorker bought ColorOn Professional's manufacturing company in Pompano Beach, Florida.
“After an amazing season and record sales in 2015, I can rest easy that my decision to buy a manufacturing company was the right one," Colleen said.
"The possibilities are endless," she continued. "I have dreamed about owning my own manufacturing company for years, and I have to say all the planning and hard work paid off. Things do not happen for a reason, we have to make things happen."
As a former cheer mom herself, Colleen has an insider's approach to her business.
“Cheer parents are our most important customer,” Colleen said. “They give the loudest and proudest cheer recommendations and we, as industry providers, need to listen to their voice.”
“They tell us when they love or dislike the products and services they receive from their gym and from the gym's suppliers. I ultimately had the cheer parents in mind when I purchased ColorOn Professional last year. There are so many cosmetic companies who want to sell makeup looks that parents and kids will never be able to recreate. My goal is to provide a makeup solution that is easy to apply, has a consistent team look, is waterproof and is cost effective for the cheer parents and gyms.”
It’s my honor to offer Colleen Dugan and her line of products with the Certifibly CheerMAD seal of approval. Using her scientific background to participate in the cheer that her daughter loved, Colleen created a way to stay connected with her teenager. Five years later, the gift she offered to a team has grown into a leader in the cheer and dance makeup industries and a major cosmetic manufacturer: Pretty Girl Cosmetics div of ColorOn Beauty, LLC. This fall major Halloween outlets, Wal Mart, Target and Michael's will carry her ColorOns eye shadows.
Most importantly Colleen and her products have solved eyeshadow issues for cheer moms who painstakingly appy comp makeup every weekend.
“I am so excited to receive the CheerMAD seal of approval,” Colleen said. “Lisa has been in the cheerleading industry for many years providing us the most recent news and views. I have been a follower of CheerMAD all these years and have enjoyed her stories written straight from heart. And I am so excited to receive the CheerMAD seal of approval."
Where can I buy ColorOn Professional Instant Eye Shadow Applicators? You can find ColorOn Professional Products in the United States at www.coloronpro.com or in the UK atwww.coloronpro.co.uk. How can I get information about becoming a distributor of colorOn Professional Instant Eye Shadow Applicators? Please contact ColorOn Pro at sales@coloronpro.com. For mor information go to: www.prettygirlcosmetics.com