This Beauty Runway Show Is the Most Inspiring Thing You'll See Today

Typically when we talk about a runway show, all eyes are on the clothing that the designers are sending down the catwalk. But, last night, beauty brand Thrive Causemetics brought the first beauty-focused runway show to New York Fashion Week. The event was purely for a good cause, celebrating the fact that the line donated $25,000 worth of products to women undergoing cancer treatment.

That's typical for Thrive, though. Makeup artist Karissa Bodnar founded the company after her friend passed away from cancer at the age of 24. The beauty entreprenuer set out to create a luxury brand that is both free of chemicals and gives back. For every Thrive product sold, one is donated to a woman undergoing cancer treatments.

To ensure the focus was purely on the beauty at the fashion show, Karissa worked hard (with key makeup artist Ashley Donovan as well as Tina Turnbow) to create bespoke looks for each model. According to Karissa, their aim was to "build the beauty look from one key element, with no one look being the same."

Perhaps the coolest part of the catwalk was that real women (re: nonprofessional models) were cast to walk the runway (many of them were beauty editors, with our very own Senior Beauty Editor Lauren Levinson). Many of the makeup looks were not quite finished — from being in the midst of contouring to an extremely elongated brow. And others still were focused on fun, out-of-this-world lip shades. For example, Lauren rocked a turquoise lipstick and another woman wore hot pink glitter stars on her pout!