BEAUTYCON NYC 2017

Dear Lovely Reader,

Just came back from a day of beauty — BeautyCon that is — that was held today in New York City (Brooklyn to be exact).  I had been waiting for this because it was first “official” BeautyCon for me, another official step for my makeup blog and life career journey, and I didn’t know what to expect.  This helped, because having my sense of wonder buoyed my sense of humor, and I was smart enough to wear cute flats.

There was a lot of walking.  For those who didn’t cab or drive in, it was ALSO a LONG walk from the train stop, a lot of ground to cover, like at least 6 long blocks and then coming around into the boat/ferry terminal (Brooklyn Cruise Terminal).  The convention was held in two huge tent spaces, and at times it got pretty packed trying to navigate some of the stalls with the lines of people looking to check out what what was going on in each stall.

One of the first things I saw was a huge video screen, and three horses, unicorns, made with a blackboard feature.  A bucket of white chalk rested next to each one.  You picked up a piece and signed in…whatever you want.  After a while a bunch of signatures and instant work of art!

There was also a huge area for the Beauty Conference they had going on with special beauty and talent speakers (one of the actors from the Fox show Empire was there).

Brands like NYX, L’Oreal, Soap & Glory, Revlon, Maybelline, really rolled out the red carpet and showed their shine and showed how much thought and care they put into their presentation, greeting us and, yes, the free gifts.

 

Other brands to applaud their presentation and attention to their guests were Big Sexy Hair (which were selling their #1 hairspray as well as each item of their line they had there for $10.00 (U.S.) a piece, unheard unbelievable price for full size items) and Not Your Mother’s.  I picked up the Big Sexy spray as well as two additional items I’ve never tried from their hair care line, and the brand staff at the desk were super knowledgeable, friendly, and I will definitely buy more of this brand because of them.

I did not see brands like Makeup Revolution, Makeup For Ever, Stila, Smashbox, Benefit — they were not participating in this BeautyCon which disappointed me.  I saw mentions of “hashtag coming to Sephora” but no Sephora site either.  Brands like Cantu (which smell delicious!), Absolute Cosmetics, and Pop! Cosmetics came through with their colorful branding.  A lot of the stalls had giveaways (Artis brushes was there, next to Pixi, and Artis was giving away like two sets of brushes you had to sign up for).  I was able to give feedback to Pixi (they may be in Target but they are NOT at the East 116 St. and Pleasant Avenue mall in Manhattan — they have a HUGE Target store there).

Interestingly, two non makeup entities, MTV and Lifetime channels, also had stalls and ample space.

I covered maybe 60 percent of the booths within five hours, but I did have to sacrifice standing on some lines for a while — the one for Wet N Wild was long but moved fairly quickly — and Absolute Cosmetics (local NY gem from Roslyn NY) was a ton of unicorn cotton candy fun.

The Absolute Cosmetics Makeup Table is this makeup girl’s GOALS.

I went into BeautyCon on the Beauty Hauler category, where you are gifted a nice sized black canvas bag filled with assorted goodies from most of the participants of BeautyCon this year.  It was pretty heavy, and got heavier as I collected more stuff and bought some things while there.  But the bag was very useful and convenient.  They also sold another version of a BeautyCon bag but it was different from the one I had which was a nice touch – made me feel special!

Here’s what the haul inside the Hauler bag looked like:

As you can see…NOT bad!

Revlon went all out and put their entire color line of lippies (that smell and taste incredible, like fruit).  I was just shocked and utterly delighted.  The colors are beautiful and I can’t wait to find a reason to try them on (“oh, this color dream is my Tuesday lip, dahling”).

If you paid in a higher tier category, you got an invite to the Beauty Academy.  All makeup on each “dresser”, was from NYX Cosmetics and theirs to keep.  Very nice.

There was free cotton candy and Popsicles given out which was nice.  The wristband I received came with a code to activate and to attach a method of payment so you could buy food and drink while you were there.  There were food stalls dotted inside — more were outside in what I figure was for health code reasons — proper ventilation so they could cook the food properly.  Inside food was sandwiches, cookies and drinks only.

The only sour note was, incredibly, Milk Cosmetics.  It was weird.  I was standing there, checking out the Hologram and Blur sticks they had, and waiting and while they had several cashiers set up in their section, I was not greeted, I was not asked if I wanted anything, and when I was ready to purchase, the cashiers seemed a little nonchalant and basically ignored me.  I wanted to buy the holographic and the blur, and I had also heard that there was a special lip color that was being given out at the cashier station when you bought, but it seems they weren’t really interested in taking money from a regular person.  So I was kind of bummed out about that.  I tried three registers there, waited politely, and no response not even a look up to say “hey welcome to Milk Cosmetics, what can I do for you?”

Just.  Weird.

Bummed me out enough to write Milk about it.  Don’t know if anything will come of it.

Overall, a pleasant, slightly tiring experience.  Met such nice helpful people, overall.  Getting out of the terminal was a bit of a problem for cabs, but I managed to get out OK.  There were shuttles provided to and from the train station for those riding public transit.  I wish next year they do it in Manhattan.  But if they do it again at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, I will probably still go.

I will admit one company that stood out a bit — Kopari.  A new company that recently started selling at Sephora.  I bought one of their products called “Coconut Melt”, and the coconut smell is natural, not overpowering.  It’s described as an all over conditioning and moisturizing formula for hair, face and body that comes in a pot.  As a gift for buying, I was given their “Rose Coconut Toner” mist which smells absolutely heavenly.  I’m already picturing these two as part of my summer makeup routine.  Will update about that in a later post.

And if Milk Cosmetics responds, I’ll update about that as well.

And I MUST figure out what to do with my hair.  AUGH!  Breathe….In…Out….OK.

YAY!  Time for me to have some fun with all the goodies!

Stay lovely!