Updated June 5, 2013 at 12:03 PM 
Birmingham native Tara Gray (center) and friend Brook Roberts star in TLC’s “The Good Buy Girls” premiering Wednesday, June 5.

Birmingham’s Tara Gray, along with Brook Roberts, is hoping to pull back the curtain on life as a home shopping network host when TLC’s new reality “The Good Buy Girls” premieres Wednesday, June 5.

“I think a lot of people think that you just show up and you have this pretty jewelry and your hair is all pretty and your makeup’s all perfect.” Gray said. “It’s not. We have to source our own products. It’s a really difficult job.”

It’s especially difficult when you’re trying to breathe new life into an established network. The show follows Gray and Roberts, or Team BT, as they try to integrate new products into the Direct Shopping Network (DSN) jewelry-only inventory.

Their boss, DSN owner Art, begrudgingly allows them to try to breathe new life into network programming amid doubts they can pull it off.
What follows is a series of hijinks as the best friends of seven years find and test out products from doggy treadmills to menopause pajamas. The craziest testing experience was for a product called Model in a Bottle, according to Gray. The two tested its promise to keep makeup in place by doing laps in a swimming pool.

“I was so worried we’d come out looking like Tammy Faye,” Roberts joked.

“We actually had Brook throw glasses of water in my face live on television to prove it works,” Gray said. “I think that’s the craziest thing I personally have ever done on live TV.”

“We’re really big about putting products to the test,” Gray said. “If they do not work, we’re not going to sell them.”

Perseverance is a key theme in “The Good Buy Girls.” Trying to break network traditions can be challenging, according to Roberts and Gray, but they mix in fun where they can, especially on air.

“We wanted to bring an element of entertainment and fun when selling the products by testing them on air,” Roberts said. “You get a level of SNL but you also get a level of a live demonstration.”

The two are also former beauty queens. Gray was Miss Alabama USA 2002 and Roberts served as Miss Oregon in 2004.They say pageants taught them to think on their feet as hosts of a three hour, unscripted program.

“It’s you,” Gray said. “It’s the Brook and Tara Show for real. You have to think on your feet and talk for three straight hours about things that you know. For me, that’s what pageants kind of brought to this world.”
The craziest testing experience was for a product called Model in a Bottle, according to Gray. The two tested its promise to keep makeup in place by doing laps in a swimming pool.

“I was so worried we’d come out looking like Tammy Faye,” Roberts joked.

“We actually had Brook throw glasses of water in my face live on television to prove it works,” Gray said. “I think that’s the craziest thing I personally have ever done on live TV.”

It isn’t all fun and games with the two hosts, though.

Both Roberts and Gray’s backgrounds in broadcast journalism inform their duties as DSN hosts.

“We know how to do our due diligence,” Gray said. “We know how to dig when it comes to product to make sure that it’s legit.”

Gray, who also hosts Birmingham Fashion Week annually, said her friends and family—even her tee ball coach—are excited to see her TV debut. She calls the support “heartwarming.”

“Alabama is so wonderful about getting behind their people and supporting their hometown girls and guys,” she said. “Everybody that I’ve talked to is just so excited and so thrilled. My mom gets calls every single day and people come up to her in Books-A-Million and talk about it.”

“The Good Buy Girls” airs Wednesday, June 5 on TLC at 9 p.m.