How we held a makeup brunch (after the shelling)
A Brilliant Idea
Planning events in Kyiv is quite a quest, especially when they are private and require attendance confirmation. But as a brand that launched during the full-scale invasion with almost no investment and sheer enthusiasm, it's clear we never sought easy paths.
We decided to gather brand friends at Salon Reading to introduce them to our new product – peptide lip pencils. However, simply presenting it wasn't exciting enough. So, we came up with a makeup brunch format dedicated to creating ideal lip combos.
With the launch of the lip pencils, everything fell into place: all our products together created endless possibilities for makeup creativity. 7 shades of multitaskers, 6 tinted glosses, and 4 pencils!
"So many cool combinations can be made," we were thrilled.
To learn how to harmoniously combine all colors and textures, we invited makeup artist Mariia Sova to curate our event and conduct a masterclass. What could go wrong, right?
D-Day
September 28th, 3 hours of sleep, flowers, decor, cosmetics, and a complete lack of understanding of "who would come to get their makeup done after night shelling in Kyiv." Between "canceling the event" and "still going through with it," we chose the latter, thinking that a makeup brunch could be a way to recover after a tough night.
After all, UNICO was always about that – about choosing to continue despite the circumstances. Perhaps this idea resonated not only with us, as at the appointed time, our guests stood at the door, ready for makeup experiments with sparkling wine in hand.
Color Theory
To demonstrate how UNICO products can be combined, our expert Mariia created a selection of lip combos – from matte to glossy, from basic to festive. She helped each guest choose ideal combinations, shared secrets for successful application, and inspired them to experiment more and more.
Palettes were filled with new strokes, and makeup looks changed one after another because, let's be honest, you can definitely have several ideal lip combos in your beauty arsenal.
Beauty secret from Mariia: It's not necessary to combine shades from the same color palette. Sometimes the most interesting match happens between the seemingly unmatchable: for example, the grey-brown IDOL pencil and the bright red LEADER multitasker.
To reveal the character of the pencils, we asked our partners Musse Confectionery to make sweet eclairs in the shades of our palette so that guests could taste each color. It turned out so beautiful that we seriously considered a collaboration!
And at the end of the brunch, we offered guests to practice colors once more and choose lip combos for two of their friends, so we could send them the chosen products as a gift!
This was our first event of this kind, and we were happy to share the launch of our new product with brand friends. To dedicate these few hours to something seemingly unnecessary, but in reality – very much needed. To play with colors, try different textures, learn to combine them into a whole, and simply spend time with each other.
And perhaps, the difficult night before actually made us appreciate these things – even more.