The Beauty Social Recap: The Sponsors and Activities *Picture Heavy*

This is going to be the first of this week's posts talking about The Beauty Social event I went to on Saturday. I didn't plan on going until about a week before the event but I'm so happy I did. Today I'm recapping the day's events, the sponsors and the activities. Stay tuned for the rest of this week's post of what happened (I couldn't condense it down to one post, there was a lot to say!)

Right up to the event, I felt like I wasn't really sure what was going to be there and what was going to happen. I read the speakers schedule and saw the list of activities but I still felt like I wasn't really sure what to expect.

The main event was held in a one large conference room that had a stage in the middle and all the participating companies against the walls. However music playing in the background combined with the speakers throughout the day made it really difficult to hear anyone speaking in the room. I understand that they wanted everyone to be able to listen to the speakers while doing all the activities but was hard to understand people sometimes.

A side perspective of the room and part of the Benefit booth.

There were nine companies in the main conference room and one outside of the room next to the signup booth. I'll talk about each company and their booth.

Cover FX

They were the main sponsor of the event and their booth seemed large in comparison to the other ones. Cover FX was also doing another event with Kandee Johnson on the same day in the Sephora in Santa Monica. She was having a meet and greet there and if you were the first 100 people to go to the Sephora and buy a Foundation, you got a free primer. I thought it was kind of strange that they were advertising for another event off site at The Beauty Social, I didn't think many people would have wanted to leave.

At the booth, they were doing color matching with the cream Cover FX foundation. The woman there had asked me what kind of foundation I liked to use and I said powder, so I was expecting to be color matched with one of their powder foundations. They also had a computer where you could sign up for their pro club and get set up for a 40% discount. I can't remember now if it was a one time thing or membership deal. They also had small samples of their SkinPrep FX available.

Fresh

After Cover FX, I went to the Fresh booth. It was there that I meant Alicia from FunnyFace Beauty :D She's the first blogger I've ever met in person and it was so nice to meet someone whose blog I not only read but who also read my blog. We hung out for most of the event and at the VIP Reception.

I didn't spend a lot of time at Fresh. It looked like they were doing a short demo of their products and helping you figure out which kind of tint of lip treatment best suited you.

I don't remember what order I visited the booths after this so I'll just talk about all of them in no particular order.

Sugarpill

I loved Sugarpill's booth if only because Amy was there. I liked that they had some of their upcoming colors and after asking, I took swatch and product pictures of the new eyeshadows which I'll show in the next post. In the beginning I didn't notice them doing makeovers or anything like that but I did later on in the afternoon.

Amy and I!

Urban Decay

At the Urban Decay booth, they had all of their recent Holiday collections out and were doing eye looks for girls with glasses or a glitter tattoo with their new Starlight Glitter Body Art kit. I opted for the glitter tattoo and got a black glittery one. The process of course was super messy because of the glitter. She had put the stencil on me and then covered the area with glue. After that, she shook on the glitter and then had to sweep the excess away. She then covered it with All Nighter Makeup Setting Spray.

It lasted pretty damn long, this picture was taken on Sunday after I had slept with it on because I forgot about it.

CND

Sigh CND. They were doing Shellac manicures and unfortunately booked up so fast. I wasn't able to get one done. There's not much to say but I really wish I could have gotten a Shellac manicure done.

Temptu

I don't really know why I didn't visit the Temptu booth, I just didn't. It looked like they were doing skin makeovers with the Temptu Airbrush System.

Makeup Mandy

I hadn't heard of Makeup Mandy before the event. They're a salon that specializes in doing eyelash application, makeup, hair, tanning, etc. At the event, they were doing eyelash extentions, putting in either one day eyelash clusters or eyelash clusters lasting a week. I had gone there earlier in the day and they were all booked up, but I was told to come back later to see if someone had skipped their appointment.

Alicia from Funny Face Beauty went at 4:20 to get her eyelashes done. I tagged along and waited while she was getting it done. I asked the person setting up the appointments if she could tell me if they were able to squeeze me in. I'm pretty sure she took pity on me and I managed to get my eyelashes done.

Here's how they looked. I really wish I had taken a before picture but I think you've seen my lashes enough to know that they were nowhere near this awesome. I wore Darling Girl's Jeweled Taupe by the way :)

I did notice that Alicia's eyelash application and mine seemed to go a lot faster than the ones happening earlier in the afternoon. I remember seeing some of the girls in the afternoon having fans to dry the glue on their lashes but Alicia and I didn't get that when we were having ours done. I think it's just because we were getting ours done close to the end of the event.

Benefit

Benefit had their brow bars there and I got my brows tweezed and shaped. I really loved what they did to my brows (The picture above shows off my new brows). I felt like the overall shape was softened but she didn't try to make them too skinny. They also did a makeup application after my brows were done.

Wella

Oooh but this place was fun. I got my hair braided and curled at the booth and I loved how Alicia got a full wraparound brain. It was a really nice place and the woman doing my hair was so nice.

How it looked from the front :)

Goody

Goody was the only brand that wasn't featured inside the conference room. Instead, they had a small table outside of the conference room, next to the desk where you signed in. They were so generous though, they had packs of their new Doublewear line to give away as samples. I got two packs of the ponytail holder/bracelet in silver and gold and a necklace/headband in gold and silver.

At the lunch I paid for an overpriced lunch ($12 bucks for a ham sandwich, crudite and hummus, a chocolate chip cookie and a drink is a little too much). I did like the VIP reception, it gave me a chance to take pictures with a lot of bloggers that I super admire and love reading. I mean, I was in the same room they were in, it was amazing. They had a lot of hors d'oeuvres there like these mini cupcakes.

During the event a man from Beautylish asked Alicia and I questions about the site and how we felt about it and what they could improve. I liked that they were proactive enough to ask us about how we felt about the site but I wasn't really expecting it so I think my answers weren't very good.

I will say that I felt like they weren't able to handle all the people wanting to do some of the activities. At the CND Booth, they got booked so fast, I was the 2nd person on the waiting list in case someone didn't show up to their Shellac appointment and I think I signed up a little before noon. I know when I got my brows done at the Benefit booth at 1:20 they were turning people away because they were booked for the day. I don't believe the Wella booth was booked and Makeup Mandy was but I was able to squeeze in.

I was lucky enough to be able to get my brows done, my eyelashes done, my glitter tattoo, etc. I imagine though that some of the people arriving later might not have been so lucky, and what could they have done in between the speakers you know? I'll talk about the speakers in the next part of my recap of the event. I believe there will be a Beauty Social 2012 event and that it'll be bigger and better than this year's first one. I hope they get a better idea of how many people to get for each service. I was there from 10-6, lunch was at 12-1 so I had seven hours to do a lot of stuff.

At the end of the event, I got this amazing amazing swag bag. My god I am set for blogging for the next couple of weeks! I need to show off the swag bag because it was amazing! I know you guys will be super jealous.