London IMATS 2014

First of all let me just say so sorry for my photography on this post. My camera wouldn’t charge so I was left with taking them on my iPhone – the troubles of a blogger.

The International Makeup Artists Trade Show as know as IMATS happens once a year in some of the biggest cities in the world and come June it was London’s turn to host the event. I had never been to IMATS before so I really didn’t know what to expect. Like most people I had it planned that I would attend on Saturday 28th June but the tickets were like stardust and sold out so quickly that I was left with tickets for the Sunday. I must say I was a little disappointed because I would’ve loved to have met some of the fab bloggers/vloggers who all seemed to grab a Saturday ticket. Before I knew it Sunday was upon us and I made my way to Olympia London where I was welcomed to a queue of people waiting to get inside the venue. Luckily, being a wheelchair user sometimes has its perks (and so there should be because being paralysed sucks!!!) and a kind man let my mum and I to the front of the queue. Once inside I made a beeline to NARS as it was the first thing I saw. As soon as I was at NARS I knew that being at IMATS wouldn’t be the funnest shopping experience for me. Being a wheelchair user I am lower down than everyone else, find it hard to get to the products which are all high up and even find it difficult to squeeze in to look at anything. For that reason I just picked up a ‘Laguna’ bronzer because I use it so often so knew I’d like it and it was 30% cheaper than usual which made it about £18 I believe and a lipgloss. I found most of the popular concessions to be difficult for me to look at products so I had to try and think of things I would like but ended up giving up and just went to the quieter stands. I was so disappointed I didn’t get to look at Inglot properly as I couldn’t see the products easy enough to swatch them even with mums help and the products seemed such bargains. I was going to have a mooch around the NYX stand but there was a queue which people were in for well over an hour and I wasn’t that desperate!

The highlight of my IMATS experience was meeting up with the lovely Jen and Nina from Gerard Cosmetics/Whitening Lightning. They had travelled from glamorous LA to come to IMATS/London. They were so kind and even gave me a little gift of their products.

To be honest IMATS didn’t have as many stalls as I had expected so I walked around it about 3 times quite quickly. Although there are reasonable discounts the tickets are a whopping £45 which I didn’t think was really worth it. IMATS also have guest speakers most of whom are influential makeup artists but on the Sunday it seemed the day was mainly focused on special effects makeup so I wasn’t interested enough to wait around to listen. Seeing all of the prosthetics was incredible though and it made me realise how many talented artists there are. I will probably attend next year if I get a Saturday ticket to mingle with fellow bloggers/vloggers as it is so nice to hang out with people who have the same interest.

Check out my IMATS Haul 🙂