My trip up to LA for The Makeup Show was an interesting one. My partner in crime for the day was Sam, who is a makeup obsessed lady like myself who I met on Makeup Alley a looong time ago at my very first MUA meetup! Sam lives up in LA so we made arrangements for me to pick her up and then together we would go on to The Makeup Show.
Except I got lost. Ugh, I ALWAYS get lost. Leave it to me to get lost even with a GPS. I even got so flustered at one point that I almost ran a red light and ended up having to back up out of the intersection (SO embarrassing not to mention…isn’t backing up at a red light illegal or something?)– luckily the driver behind me had left PLENTY of room. In the process of backing up I nearly flattened an old guy.
Yes. An old guy. With a walker and everything. -_-
….
Anyway, I finally connected with Sam (who is amazing and was waiting, cheerful, and with FOOD and water for me). The task of getting to The Makeup Show from where we met up involved like, maybe 3 turns. Piece of cake right?
Wrong. We got lost again. But it was much easier to fix this time (just involved turning around) and finally made it to our destination. No senior citizens had to die that day. Hooray!
Upon arrival, Sam and I did an initial “sweep” where we just walked around and quickly took everything in. Then we sat down to nibble on muffins and gather our thoughts about what we wanted to see, and chit chat. Then it was Serious Makeup Time.
Until I realized that we had a problem. My camera. YES, AGAIN. No memory card. Seriously? Yes. I’m that dumb. :(
I will confess, I did not go over each booth with a super fine-toothed comb. A few brands I’d seen at IMATS or wasn’t that interested in so I kind of glossed over them (no pun intended). Here is what I did take note of and what I found interesting.
Adoro
Adoro Cosmetics is a brand I haven’t heard about. From what I can tell they’re the type of brand that is really just distributed to beauty supply stores and doesn’t really aim to sell directly to the public. However, what caught my eye is their false eyelashes. They’re all handmade, 100% human hair, look gorgeous, and were only $3 a pair. They also offer human hair extensions, synthetic extensions, wigs, and much much more. The people I spoke to were very nice, and they said if you want to make an order from their website they do not have a checkout, but you can call them and order over the phone. I would imagine you could find their products in various beauty stores in the US, too. They’re the kind of brand that I would love to get my hands on as a marketing professional because I see so much potential there!
Revitalash
You may have heard of Revitalash, which came on to the beauty scene with an eyelash growth product. They have 3 other products including a mascara and a brow growth product, but what really got my attention is the newest addition to their line: HAIR by Revitalash. That’s right– a treatment that promises to condition your hair to make your it appear thicker and fuller. Fascinating. I do not have thinning hair, but I would LOVE to know how this works if any of you have tried it out!
National Fiber Technology
Ever wonder where hollywood’s furry creatures come from? Wonder no more. The NFT booth looked like the cast of the muppets exploded on it. It was hard to miss.
Mehron
Okay, I had only vaguely heard of Mehron from Youtube and some random mentions of it, but they primarily sell stage and theatre makeup. However, their display looked awesome so I had to check it out. ;) I have discovered my new favorite! Or my favorite of the moment anyway. ;) Sam and I both fell in LOVE with their Lip Creams, which are kind of like Stila Convertible Colors but a much better formula. I will be doing an in-depth review of the palette I got soon.
Naimies
The Naimies booth is ALWAYS going to be a good time because they carry so many different brands. Naimies is a big huge beauty supply store and salon in LA. They do have a website, but not everything they have is on it. Naimies is the only place in the US I know of where you can get the Canadian brand Lise Watier. They also carry a number of stage makeup brands (including Mehron! woot!) as well as lesser known boutique brands such as Eve Pearl Beauty, and many more.
There were similar booths there from Naimies’ competition, Frends Beauty Supply & Nigel’s Beauty Emporium.
Make Up For Ever
MUFE had their new high definition blushes out, which are the latest in their innovative, high-def quality makeup products. I’m a huge fan of MUFE’s high definition foundation (the HD concealer not so much), so I was curious about these blushes. I’m not that impressed. They’re $25, which is kind of pricey for just a blush in my opinion. The colors are pretty I suppose, but they’re almost too pigmented. For example I tried out Walk of Shame which is a bubblegum pink (ugh I hate the name, walk of shame? … don’t get me started) and even one tiny drop was still WAYYYY too much color and very clownish. These seem like kind of a pain to work with. :\ They go on kind of like a cheek stain though, looking very natural if you can get it right. I would probably have to apply this with the head of a pin to get just the tiniest speck of color. More trouble than they’re worth for the average lady. Unless you absolutely need something high-def, I say you can pass on these! I also just despise most of the names. There’s another one called…Nip Slip. Seriously? I’m not buying something called Nip Slip! That’s so tacky!
Graftobian
Graftobian is another largely stage/theatre & pro brand. I got a color correcting high def creme palette that I’m semi-obsessed with right now. It’s amazing. One of those life-changing products. Seriously. I will be doing a review/tutorial with it as soon as things settle down from my move (which is on Monday!!! omg!). Look out for that one!
Crown Brush
Crown Brush is possibly one of the best kept secrets of makeup brushes. They are a private label brush company but they also sell directly to the public. If these brushes look really familiar to you it’s probably because etailers you already know of sell their brushes! I know Coastal Scents does, and many others too. Their brushes are GREAT quality and very inexpensive. I picked up 2 that I will review more in-depth at a later date, but they’re great. And again, did I mention cheap? 2 brushes = $10. They were slightly reduced in price for the show, but I just looked up the retail prices and they’re still really cheap. More during the review!
The Rest – Random Thoughts
Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics – OCC, home of the Lip Tars. They had their newest lip tar colors out on display, but I did not buy. Frankly, I’m too lazy to play with mixing them, etc. so they’re kind of a waste on me. BUT they are a really nifty product.
Jane Iredale – JI is a brand I frankly do not pay a whole lot of attention to. Mostly because nothing really jumps out and grabs me. However, I did kind of think their cream to powder eyeliners looked kind of neat. Would like more variety in colors, but it’s a cool concept.
Shadow Shields – Now yes their product is sort of gimmicky, but I’m willing to go along with a good gimmick every once and a while, and a product specifically geared towards avoiding the ugly look of eyeshadow fallout is AOK in my book. I like them, and they’re just kinda cool ok? :)
I didn’t really get to iNuovi, but at the time I didn’t really mind as I kinda glanced over it and didn’t see much I was excited about. I can’t really put my finger on why.
I remembered Hakuhodo USA brushes from IMATS, and that they’re really really expensive. Like their biggest set is over $500. Yeah. Whoa. I’m sure they’re very nice, but “out of my league” doesn’t even cover it.
I was very very excited to see that Inglot would be there since I’d never gotten a chance to see Inglot in person before (they only have one store location in the US so far). I must say the eyeshadow textures are gorgeous. So smooth, and super pigmented. But the brand is bloody expensive! Eep! Basically…if you can get some, sure, try it out…but don’t kill yourself trying to get ahold of it as we have lots of nice brands here that aren’t as hard to find. When it’s more readily available in the US I’d possibly give it a whirl. I do think that it’s cool their eyeshadows come in large singles, circular (MAC-sized) pans, or square pans. That way you can choose what kind of palette(s) you want. Kind of a neat idea.
Well there were a lot of other exhibitiors, but those are pretty much my basic thoughts on the afternoon. TMSLA is smaller than IMATS, and while I did enjoy myself considerably, I thought there was more interesting stuff at IMATS. I am really looking forward to June– IMATS LA! :)