Woman Seeking Mr. Right Gets Total Dating Makeover From 'Love at First Swipe' Hosts

Tara Udut has a great career, and now she’s looking for love.

ByABC News
October 2, 2015, 9:39 AM

— -- Meet Tara Udut.

The 43-year-old New Yorker says she has spent the past 10 years working hard on her career. With those goals achieved, she has her sights set on a new goal: finding Mr. Right.

“I'm really ready to settle down and meet someone, a partner who I can spend my life with,” she told ABC News.

For Udut, that has been easier said than done.

“Off and on I've been doing online dating for about five years. I've done eHarmony, Match.com, PlentyofFish and, most, recently Hinge. … I haven't had great results with any of them,” she said, adding that more often than not, “it’s sort of a dead end.”

Enter Clinton Kelly and Devyn Simone, the hosts of TLC’s new dating show, “Love at First Swipe.” Kelly also hosts “The Chew” on ABC, and Simone is a former cast member on MTV’s “The Real World: Brooklyn” who now offers dating advice on the website DevynOnDating.com.

The two met Udut for a dating intervention session at Macy’s Herald Square in Manhattan. Within minutes of taking a look at her dating profile, they had feedback and ideas to help.

First, they said, Udut‘s number one mistake was being too general in her profile and not describing herself fully.

“Your photos are pretty, well, they're pretty vanilla. You know what I mean?” Kelly said. “They're very girl next door. I'm going to say bordering on average."

Udut replied: “I’ve been hurt before. So I’m kind of safe in terms of what I put out online.”

Kelly agreed. “That’s exactly what this is … this profile says, ‘I’m playing it safe,’” he said.

Simone explained why she believed Udut’s profile appeared “uninteresting.”

“It's not because she's not an interesting woman,” Simone said. “She just wasn't highlighting any specifics about herself. Everything was general. She likes movies. She likes food. She likes drink. We all eat and drink. So you want to be specific and really nail down what kind of food do you like, what kind of music do you like.”

As for Udut’s appearance, Kelly had some ideas there, too. He asked her whether she was open to color, and she was.

He also suggested that her first-date wardrobe needed an upgrade. Referring to one of Udut’s tops as “a giant poncho” that would only camouflage her body, he advised her to show off her curves.

“You have a lot of average clothes,” he said. “I want to take you from average to amazing.”

Within minutes, Clinton had introduced Udut to some bold new looks, and he unveiled her total transformation live on “Good Morning America” today.

“I feel fantastic,” Udut said, showing off her sassy wrap dress, bold necklace and flowing hair. “I love everything they did. The hair, makeup, my dress. I feel like a new person. I’m so excited.”

Kelly explained that when it comes to your online profile picture, “You want to look like yourself but you don’t want to look like a boring version of yourself.”

“You might think that you’re playing it safe or going with the classics, but you don’t want to do that,” he added. “You want to go a little bit bolder with your online profile. It’s like fishing. You want to entice the fish to take the bait. Also, add some color. Color goes a long way when it comes to making you pop off the page. You want to pop. You don’t want to look like everybody else online.”

Simone said that before Udut’s makeover, she was hiding behind her profile photo with bad lighting and a grainy picture.

“It’s really important to celebrate yourself,” she explained. “Use your light. Make sure you really stand out and pop. Don’t play it safe in your profile photo because that’s what’s going to get you the guy. That’s what’s going to catch their attention.”

And secondly, Simone added, “be descriptive.”

“You have friends, you have family. How about, ‘You have great friends, you have great family. I love my niece and nephew. I love football as opposed to I love sports,’” she elaborated. “Really tell them about yourself so a guy with similar interests will see that and you’ll potentially have a match.”

As for Udut, she couldn’t be more thrilled and excited to get out there and put her new look and updated profile picture to good use.

“I feel fantastic. I’m so happy,” she said, smiling ear to ear.

“Love at First Swipe” premieres today at 9 p.m. ET on TLC.