I had a really busy weekend so I apologize that this post is mostly of stock photos, I will get to my own photos in future posts!
IMATS Toronto was held this weekend at the Toronto Congress Centre. As I mentioned in this post this was my first time attending IMATS and despite all the warnings about how crazy busy the show can get it was still quite overwhelming! I had meant to arrive at 8am but was late and arrived at 8:20am only to find a LOOOONG line of people waiting to get in! Luckily after checking in with registration the doors opened so I just followed the line in and didn’t have to wait at all.
I loved that bags were provided for shoppers needs because let me tell you the ladies in attendance were there to SHOP! As soon as I walked in a mere 30 seconds after the doors were open this is what I saw.
A crowd of people gathering around the Make Up For Ever counter – all the ladies came prepared most with lists to hand to the sales reps so they could grab their stuff and go! I’m so glad I ran into Fiona Man as she kind of “guided” me through her IMATS process. A list she said was essential. She was very efficient. I tagged along with her and her list was essentially completed by 9:30am!
Another tip I learned from Fiona and another makeup artist and beauty blogger Donna Marie (yay, so happy I FINALLY got to meet her) was to go with friends 🙂 They had a team game plan going one. One person lined up at one booth with their lists and the other went to the other! Saves plenty of time and definitely gets those lists checked off fast!
I didn’t listen to the number one tip from my fellow beauty bloggers: make a list and a budget and stick to it. I actually had my own game plan. Don’t research anything so there would be nothing I would want LOL! Well that plan SORT OF worked. I didn’t make any spontaneous makeup purchases I was however really impressed by the brushes I found at one booth: Bdellium Tools. I was told that this was their first time in Toronto and from the buzz on twitter sounds like Toronto really love them!
Although I wasn’t planning on purchasing anything I did end up getting two of Bdellium’s brush sets both from the “Green Bamboo” line. The foundation 4 piece brush set and the smoky eyes 5 piece brush set.
Later on in the day I was hanging with Arianne of Glitter Geek and Tamara of Beauty Thesis we made a stop at LA Splash yet another brand I had never heard of. They were raving about this eye shadow primer that is made for use with loose shadows especially glitter. I didn’t make any further purchases on day 1 but I went back quickly on day 2 and ended up picking up this primer along with some other amazing eyeshadows. I will do a review in a future post.
I also picked up the Beauty Blender sponge from Nigel Beauty Emporium since I had been wanting to try it out for a while.
My last stop on day 2 was checking out what all the buzz was for Make Up Forever. I know people really like their HD foundations and their Duo Mat Powder foundations but I still have plenty of foundations and powders that I’m happy with at the moment so I didn’t check any of those out. I DID however get suckered into buying their Microperfecting Primer in the yellow as it promised to minimize the appearance of dark areas. We shall see!
