July 30th, 2005, 7:29 am

St. Pete Times gives away column for lip gloss

TampaBayBeauty.com’s Carolyn Brundage is now writing a beauty column for the St. Pete Times‘ faux-alt, the *tbt. That in and of itself isn’t suspicious — unless you’re a fellow member of the media, and you know that TampaBayBeauty.com throws monthly “beauty bashes” at salons in the Tampa Bay area. Members of the media are VIPs, read about the parties here.

My editor at the Weekly Planet asked me to attend one such bash — at a spa in Clearwater. I’m not really the beauty type, but I — like all swag gluttons — was enticed by the offers of free food, cocktails, mini-treatments and a goodie bag. (Hey, I wasn’t writing about it, just checking out the scene!) I’m not positive exactly who was at the bash, but the ladies in charge did tell me that members of the St. Pete Times and the Trib were there.

The food was nonexistent, the mocktails weak, but the manicure and the goodie bag were all right. I really liked the little tube of “Venom” lip gloss; so much that I remembered the name … and was surprised to read about it on the *tbt’s website, in Carolyn’s new column.

Where’s the conflict in that? Well, it would be a conflict for a *tbt editor to give Carolyn a column after having attended one of her bashes … and receiving all that free swag. And I’m not saying that Carolyn is a paid shill for Venom lip gloss … but she certainly does has access to lots of free tubes of the stuff, doesn’t she? And linking to Carolyn’s website does have the potential to drive traffic to her site, which results in more business for her, does it not?

It’s not surprising for the beauty mag industry, but it shouldn’t be happening at the St. Pete Times.