My sister invited me to last year’s GenBeauty last minute and I had a lot of fun in just a few short hours so of course I was interested in checking it out again this year.
We brunched at Bluebird London at Columbus Circle that morning with a gorgeous view before heading over to the convention. I’m usually only passing by this area quickly so it’s a new location for me to adventure in. There are a lot of nice shops that I would love to take more time to browse one day next time I’m around the area. The service at brunch was good, the waiter was super cute and the food was delicious. The girls even wear Ted Baker dresses as their uniforms, how snazzy! Unfortunately we didn’t make it to their tea service since it’s only served certain days and certain times so I guess we’ll be returning for the gram for that pastry tower. If you’re lucky enough to get a window seat, it’s really something. It actually reminds me a little bit of my time in Paris. Oh, how I miss Paris! I still have yet to find time to blog about that for you guys too.
I basically lived at the Javits for the past 3 weekends it seems. It’s where all the conventions are held due to its abundance of space for vendors and set up of booths and content. The perks of this con is all the free products you swipe at each booth by simply scanning your badge. You learn about new indie brands and their products and get to test them out. You’re not obligated or pressured to buy anything since they bring limited product with them anyway. And the booths that do sell their products, sell at some pretty nice discounts compared to their retail prices. Meanwhile a lot of the free products you get are decently sized, if not full sized! For example, I stopped by the Wen booth because I just wanted to snap a pic on their floral swings but they ended up filling my bag with full sized hair products. I didn’t expect this so that was a pretty nice bonus. It’s really nice to get free products because it's a nice way to test out new products and new brands without having to feel like you wasted your money if it doesn’t turn out a winner. You also get to discover new brands this way that you might end up falling in love with, that you would’ve never heard of otherwise. This con is basically like a Costco buffet, but for makeup. You go from booth to booth just getting samples of new products. Not a bad deal if you ask me. If you like trying new products and learning about new indie brands as they hit the market, this is definitely a con for you. Or even if you don’t, if you love taking cute photos with Instagrammable backgrounds, this con is also the con for you. There were a lot of cute photo opportunities but unfortunately I didn’t get to do them all due to the time constraints and long waits towards the end of the day so I don’t have all the photo ops you could do pictured, but hopefully next year I can attend on a Saturday for full coverage of the event for once.
My sister also eyed the MAC booth and saw they had these shirtless muscle guys chilling in the middle to promote their brand and obviously try to get girls to flock over cause duh, eye candy. Except that’s not what she saw, hahaha. She dared me to go over and flex with them to make them feel small. I can’t resist a challenge so I walked over after we finished with the Wen booth and shut those boys down. They thought I was going to hit them with the hand on hip pose but I had my guns ready to go. They were like “SHEEEET. THIS GIRL DON’T PLAY.” #dead.
Towards the end of the convention at closing time, some booths started giving away a lot of their goods. They started throwing them into the crowds causing hordes of girls to run over and trample each other just to score some freebies. It was crazy. Mayhem ensued. I got hit in the head with makeup, hahaha!
We ended the day with Ichiran ramen and Sweet Gloria honey ice cream even though I’m not at goal yet for my weight loss but I’m still meeting all my targets so far so a little cheat was okay. I had a sample of Ichiran at Japan Fest over the summer and it was delicious so I was looking for an opportunity to try the full bowl of ramen with all its fixings. And it didn’t disappoint. Ichiran was so good I drank all the soup! I stumbled upon Sweet Gloria last week and man I’ve been craving honey ice cream all week so I had to go back. It’s so delicious. It’s a small and simple ice cream shop but so good! All in all, it was a nice weekend and a beautiful day with my girls.