Karen Rovinovitz, the founder of Purple Lab and creator of Huge Lips, Skinny Hips lip gloss, dishes on the trials and tribulations of creating your own makeup line. Read her all her Beauty bLab columns here.

Friday, January 29, 2010, Purple Lab made history. We broke the Guinness world record for the largest speed dating event (the record was 250 people, total).

The whole premise for the event was to celebrate the launch of Luvah, our new double-plumping, aphrodesiac infused lip product, created as a nod to my journey of 150 dates to find my husband. I figured the event could speed the process up for everyone and maybe they, too, could find their luvah (said like Will Ferrell in SNL).



With Master Matchmer Steve Ward of VH-1's Tough Love as host, 350 daters came to the W Hoboken to get their groove on over X-Rated Fusion cocktails. I can't say the night wasn't chaotic. Forget the dozens of girls, trying to bust in on the action even though the event was closed due to fire hazards!

Never mind the Steve Ward fans hoping to possibly leave with his digits (sorry, girls, he's taken). And forget the sea of boys surveying the scene like a bunch of sharks encircling their prey. Two men, apparently brothers, actually left their designated posts and stood in the back of the room to try to pick the girls they wanted to meet! As a girl's girl, I warned their victims in advance. Can you even?

There was so much going on between hair touch up stations by got2b, perfume girls spritzing a new pheremone-laced fragrance called Swingle by Michael Todd Cosmetics, and making sure that I could find girls to test out all of the new products and give HSN some video testimonials, that it was almost hard to stay organized (speaking of organization, we could have used a few extra helping hands, but I did score 13 fabulous testimonials!).

Here's how the speed dating worked: There were to be 20 three-minute dates. Girls stayed still and the guys moved to the right every time a siren went off. This all went down in the wedding ball room (coincidence?) and giant Purple Lab gobos lit up the walls in a chic purple glow.



Each table was equipped with paper and pen for copious dating notes, as each dater received an I.D. number (B1 to B175 for boy 1 to boy 175 and so on). On our speed dating microsite, everyone is able to plug in who they liked. If the feeling is mutual, they will all be alerted next week.

But I spotted success long before the night ended. One couple actually decided they met their new Luvahs, left half way through, and got cozy at the bar downstairs for the rest of the night! And I spotted another in serious lip lock, with Dentyne in hand (we had a supply of gum for these very moments!).

i don't know yet about the rest of the daters, but I promise to do the makeup for any girl who gets married to someone she met at our soiree!

Here's to love. May your journey be full of yummy kisses - and amazing lip stains and gloss, like Luvah. Did I mention that the shades are named after archetypes of guys I dated? The first two are Rich Jerk and Mama's Boy. May you never have to date them yourself, but the colors rock!

Mwah!
Karen
Purple Lab Creatrix