April 27, 2014

IMATS NYC 2014: The Experience


This year was my first time going and I am so happy I went with a fellow beauty blogger which I met through Instagram! Her name is Faith and you can find her blogging at www.loveroxie.com
Follow her on Instagram and Twitter: @FaithRoxas too!
She was featured as Nailtini's February "The Lacquer Cabinet" Mixologist (Nailtini's monthly subscription box). She does beautiful nail arts that she posts both on her blog and Instagram so go follow her if you haven't! 




The plan was to be there before the doors open at 8:30am, hoping to be there before the big crowd comes. I seriously did not expect a thousand other girls have the same plan. I was thinking only a hundred or something but not like a huge crowd waiting at 8am. As we stand in line, slowly getting everybody inside, I look around and felt under dressed. I went for a No-Makeup makeup look with my off-the-shoulder top and gray maxi skirt and comfy wedge sneakers. A lot of girls had full face makeup on and hair, dressed up from cute Spring floral dresses to colorful tops and pants. I did expect a lot would be in their "best dress" and stylish outfits, but that early? I just wonder what time these girls woke up to get ready because I would need like an hour or more to get hair, makeup and a good outfit set before heading out.  


When we finally got inside, we went straight for the Lime Crime booth because we knew that will be the most popular booth this year since this is their first time coming to IMATS-NY. We got there and there was already a two-hour-wait long on line, and so we decided to just walk around and check out the other booths before we go on the 2HR-wait Lime Crime line.
When we spotted the Beauty Blenders and the Ben Nye Banana Powder at the Alcone Company booth, we decided not to buy them yet and check out any other booths who will be selling the same products and check their prices. We did find 2-3 other booths selling them but Alcone actually had the best deal on it, and so we went back to their booth and purchased them there.
There were a lot of booths that were selling makeup brushes besides the Sigma Beauty booth, which had a 3HR-wait to buy their brushes for 30% off! We were not about to go on that line and so we shopped around as well for makeup brushes. I knew exactly what I wanted and did buy most of them from Bdellium Tools booth. 
Morphe brushes booth had great prices on their makeup brushes and I did fall in love with the fan brush they have. I would have gotten more but I did not want to go overboard as I had a long shopping list!
This was a long table of China Glaze nail polishes that were selling for 6 for $20!
2014 Summer Collection
Though that China Glaze of nail polish table was a very tempting deal, I focused and went to look for Julie G's booth! During IMATS-NY, Julie G. released her new 2014 Summer Collection. The collection was really beautiful and lovely but I just went to get polishes that my huge nail polish collection was kind of lacking, so I skipped the new colors and went for what I really wanted. I also grabbed Jessie's Girl waterproof liquid eye liner since I heard so many great things about it, and definitely my new favorite liquid liner!
The naked lose pigments are so gorgeous I wanted to buy them all!
Once both of us were (kinda) done shopping around, we walked around some more just to make sure we did check all the booths we wanted to see. Only then we decided to go stand on the 2HR-line for Lime Crime. The line literally went outside the door! We were very lucky that day was the perfect 65 degree Spring weather as we were outside for quite a while.  
I love how LIT Cosmetics had set up their booth like your own glitter makeup vanity! Unfortunately,  I was not shopping for glitter makeup so I just took a picture!
I did try to take a lot of pictures of the different booths that we visited but when all is in the frame are a crowd of people over the products, that is not something I really wanted to share with you guys. A lot of booths had such gorgeous displays of their makeup and other products but it was hard to get really good shots when there's a huge crowd in front of me. I apologize for the lack of pictures but during trade shows such as this, a big crowd is always expected.

These Hakuhodo makeup brushes are very expensive but they are super soft and have such great quality! 

Different booths were also doing some demonstrations of their makeup skills! These MUA's (MakeUp Artists) just amaze me with their creativity and talent! The makeup looks of the models were amazing and beautiful! I really wished I brought my good camera with me so excuse my poor quality phone pictures! It does not do justice when you see these models in person! 





All day Saturday and Sunday, there were also keynotes and seminars going on but I unfortunately did not take a look on that schedule because I knew I will not have time for them. I am hoping to attend to some next year as some of the best MakeUp Artists in the industry share their tips and tricks at these speaking events! 
By the time we finished with Lime Crime, we did a last walk around before we knew it was time to leave and grab some food! The best thing having the IMATS-NY in the city is you have a ton of food choices outside the venue! 
I am really glad to have attended this event and lucky that it is here in New York! I do plan to go again next year and organize my day better. But of course no matter how much planning happens, a lot of unexpected purchases and long hour waits cannot be controlled. 
Definitely expect a lot of walking which you do not realize at big events like this because there are so much to see and to do, and it's all under one big roof! We will talk about more of what I learned from going this year and I think are good tips to keep before heading to IMATS or any other trade shows.

If you have not seen my IMATS Haul, please click here:


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