Selfridges Big Beauty Bang Event

Last night my friend Leonie and I headed out to a beauty event at Selfridges Oxford St. They are having a whole series of events collectively called 'The Big British Bang' to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and last night was the opening night of the beauty event.

We bought tickets the previous week when we were shopping in the beauty hall, which cost £10 but is redeemable against purchase on the night. The reason I'm telling you all about this now is because there is another big event on the 7th of June, and I highly reccomend you get tickets if you can! Essentially it's a free event as you can claim your £10 back, and there were plenty of goodies to sample, from free champagne to jelly beans and of course, beauty samples.

Upon arrival we were provided with big yellow rosettes to wear so that the staff on the counters knew that we were part of the event, and that they should shower us with gifts! I'm exagerating a little, but there really were lots of things going on, and people without tickets were gutted that they werent allowed to join in with any of the festivities.

I spent quite a lot of time at the Illamaqua counter where the artist created a really amazing eye look for me, and I bought the palette that he had used, redeeming my £10 ticket cost at the same time.

Unfortunately not the best photo, Taken a few hours later when I got home, as my compact camera that I took with me really wasn't standing up to the low light conditions, but the look really was beautiful.

Leonie getting her eye-makeup done at NARS

NARS cupcakes!

Trying Chubby Sticks at Clinique

One bottle of champagne is never enough!

Leonie getting her eyes re-done at Bobbi Brown

There were also a few performers laid on at the event. The first and most obvious was a brilliant drag artist who was dressed as Mary Portas. He was really very convincing! He seemed to be 'master of ceremonies' and also had a photo area where you could dress up as the queen and have your photo taken. We obviously couldnt pass up this opportunity, but Leonie has the photo and I wanted this to go out as soon as possible, so I can't post it here! There was also a performance by Marawa The Amazing who appeared on Britain's Got Talent 2011, I believe she reached the semi-finals. Anyway, she was very entertaining! Sorry again about the photo quality!

Lastly, they had a 'grabber' machine, like you get in amusement arcades. It was filled with iconic yellow selfridges bags, which contained various (unseen) beauty products. If you spent over £60 on the night, you got to have a go. Leonie and I spent £60 between us, so we pretended that I had bought both of our shopping and they let me go without a problem, so definitely team up with people! Also, I reccomend going at the end of the event, as the guy running it was just picking out bags for people who didnt manage to grab one as the event was ending soon, and they certainly weren't doing that at the beginning of the night! I actually did manage to grab one and it contained Shu Uemura UV Underbase BB Mousse, which is worth £29 and is absolutely brilliant!

Would you go to an event like this?







The IMATS Experience

Hey girls!

I went to IMATS yesterday and had the most amazing time, and i have so much to tell you all that i'm splitting the IMATS London posts into two, this one will be only about the actual experiene, and the other will be a huge haul of all the stuff i bought!

the event itsself is held over 2 days, and i chose to go on the saturday, which is the first day. i would reccomend going on a saturday for a few reasons, but mainly because lots of stalls were sold out of the best deals by the middle of saturday, and had no plans to re-stock, so i imagine that sunday shopping would be slim pickings! it was held int he grand hall in Alexandra Palace in north london, which is a beautiful building and had more than enough space to fit everything in.

When i first arrived i was completely overawed, and kind of nervous of even looking at stalls because there were so many people who all seemed very driven and knew what they wanted, whereas i just felt a bit lost!

i spent some time just looking around, and soon got used to competing for space at stalls. i sadly didn't get too many pictures of the actual makeup and stalls, i was far to distracted by the amazing demos happening all around me!

the event itsself was so much fun, which i kind of didn't expect it to be. i thought it would be quite fasat paced, stressful, driven shopping for bargains, but i found that i was actually going at a reasonably slow pace and taking time to really look at and appreciate everything. there were a couple of things i knew i wanted to get, mainly a compressor, and looking for that was a bit stressful but i bought one early on (and left it at the stall to be collected later) and then i was so pleased to just be able to shop for things that simply caught my eye, and of course some new airbase makeup to go with my compressor!

the nyx stall was SOOO tempting but the queue was HUGE. another tip is to check out what you want and then come back nearer to closing time. i returned to nyx later on and there wa no line at all, because the show was due to close in half an hour.

i would advise keeping your phone to hand too, especially if it has a web browser. maybe i'm just a bit cynical but i wanted to price check everything, and i found that some things were being advertised as 50% off when in reality they werent reduced at all. even if it doesn't have internet keep it close at hand even for the calculator, to keep your budget in check and to make sure that you're getting a good deal. on one stall (i wont say which) they had a deal on airbrush stuff where if you paid £200 you got the compressor and 2 mini sets of makeup, but if you paid £250 you got 4 mini sets with it. what they didn't tell you was that separately the mini sets were only £15, so if you bought the £200 set plus the other 2 minis separately, it would only have cost £230!
overall i had a great day, spent far too much money and got some great deals, i throughly reccomend it to everyone!

i'll leave you with some more photos of the amazing demos!

warwick davis was there having goblin makeup from harry potter being re-created on him. his kids were there too, and seemed to be having a wicked time playing with presthetics and wounds!

the wonderful EnKore at the crown brush stand creating and awsome airbrush look to be viewed with 3D glasses!

an unusual fashion piece!

hey ladies, i'm so sorry that i messed up on my schedule before i even started it, but i ended up having to rush off to liverpool to see a family member at short notice. i hope you guys dont mind!

basically, i want to talk to you guys today about all in ones. they quite often get called onesies, but i really hate that word! they have become increasingly popular recently, with high street brands such as primark selling them, and higher end brands like jack wills and Onepiece selling them too.

Onepiece is a dedicated brand which sells only these garments, and i'm lucky enough to own one of them. i feel as if a onesie is something you might quietly admit that you own, but onepiece are really a different brand, making items which are designed to be worn outside the comfort of your own bedroom.

when i first saw them, i thought they were incredibly cool, which is an odd thing to think about what is basically an oversized babygro. onepieces are quite expensive but i absolutely love mine, though i didn't pay for it, i recieved it as a gift from my aunt!

the Onepiece has recently been spotted on tooons of celebs such as:

Justin Bieber

Ellie Goulding

Henry Holland (who appears to have several!)

and One Directions Naill Horen, though all of the boys from One Direction have them!

that is just a small sample of celebs who have them taken from the Onepiece website. basically i want to know what side of the fence people are on. are they acceptable for popping out to buy your milk and bread? or walking your dog (as sadie frost was papped doing in a purple one?)

here is a horrendous snap of me in mine, just to show what it looks like.

what side of the fence are YOU on?? would you be seen dead in one of these?