Beauty Shoot Light Setups

[JJM]

My wife and I are planning a few more beauty shoots for her makeup business website and general marketing and I want to try and improve my setup a little.
Currently I have the following lighting gear and want to keep the purchasing of new gear to a minimum if possible

• Elinchrom D-Lite 4 Kite with the square soft boxes
• 580EX II Flash (No stand or transmitter yet..)

First aim is to be able to able change the background colour quickly and easily using gels on a flash. After a little research grey backgrounds seem to be able to changed to various colours (reds, blues, greens) and depending on light setup also get the black or almost white.

• I am not sure if I could use my 580EX II for this or if I need to use one of my D-Lites?
• Is Grey actually the best background colour to use for this purpose? Or is white better?
• Planning on getting Vinyl background at this stage as the long term horizontal storage of paper worries me or should I not be worried about it.

Secondly, I want to try a different light modifier rather than the square soft boxes, looking very seriously at either a 70cm Elinchrom white beauty dish or maybe an Indirect Soft Box or a Large Parabolic Umbrella.

• Should I consider a Silver beauty dish over a white one?
• Are grids worthwhile on the beauty dish?
• Knowing the type of photos going to be shooting what do you guys recommend?
• I am open to any other suggestions anyone has?

Thirdly, if I am using for example one of my D-Lites with some gels to light my background and say another in a beauty dish.

• In an ideal world should I be looking to either use my 580EX II as a hair/rim light?
• I have seen tutorials where they use a further two studio strobes one on each side as hair/rim lights is this really necessary?

Thanks in advance and if anyone has any further suggestions I am all ears.

Jeremy