I got started in my second week of interning at Look Magazine by completing overhauling the (lack of) organisation in the beauty cupboard! Myself and the other two interns currently here colour-coded new beauty stock by the month of its release, referring to their corresponding press releases. We then categorised these products based on their purpose and once we were done, the beauty cupboard was a much neater and more functional space! It's been really enlightening to understand the sheer volume of products that are gifted and loaned to magazine publications - so much so that the Beauty Editor actually can't really keep up with the pace herself! Really excitingly, Benefit were visiting the offices today for a press event regarding the launch of their newly released Porefessional Pearl Illuminating Primer. I got my hands on a free sample, chatted with PRs and ate free pizza for lunch!
The next day I was tasked with one of the most exciting projects of placement year so far - a small request to write a few sentences about my favourite beauty product from a few different categories like a moisturising foundation, a spot-targeting face mask and a false-lash effect mascara. I had to submit a headshot and my Instagram handle which is so cool; I love the idea of gaining some exposure from the feature once its been published, and at the very least having some recognition for my contribution! We received a large amount of samples to record in dockets and organise onto the stylist's rails on Tuesday so a lot of the day was spent completing this. I also arranged a bike courier to collect some samples from the loading bay of Miss Selfridge, where one of the stylist's had had an appointment the previous day. This isn't always the easiest task as the company that Look outsources its couriering service are a bit difficult to communicate with and seem to be very temperamental!
Wednesday was a very busy day despite being able to split the tasks between the three of us. After receiving a lot of samples for upcoming shoots on the previous day, today was more focussed on returning the samples that the stylists had since decided they definitely didn't want to include. The day also involved chasing up PRs on behalf of the stylists for samples that had not been delivered yet to ensure that they would be delivered on time. As well as that, I assisted some more on the Beauty Team by putting together some bags of the newest beauty releases into specific categories. This meant that upcoming features have already been prepped so that the Beauty Editors don't need to spend time laboriously picking out products as we have already chosen the full selection of whats on offer for them to pick and choose from.
Thursday was a day of yet more freebies - a definite common perk of the job! I assisted the Lifestyle Editor by organising the backlog of books from her desk space, similar to the prices of organising the Beauty cupboard earlier in the week. After sorting the books and their corresponding press releases into month order, we had first pick of any books released pre-January to take home with us for free. It's lovely to experience gestures like this in the workplace, especially when I'm not being paid for my time and efforts.
The final day of the week was quite uneventful and largely concerned processing a large amount of returns from samples which had been called-in for a large main fashion shoot but would no longer be required for the feature. I've been finding the placement quite frustrating at times as now that one intern has left, myself and the remaining intern have some quite big personality differences and don't necessarily work well together. I'm working hard to overcome this by remaining as patient as I possibly can. Interning definitely presents some challenges when it comes to sharing a workspace and it can be made all the more difficult by working alongside people that don't share the same work-ethic or level of experience as you!
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