This year I attended IMATS London 2014 as press which allowed me to enjoy the so called ‘makeup heaven’ on a large scale. This was my second time attending so I had a pretty good idea of what the atmosphere would be like. If you want to see my imats haul 2013 click here. The first time I attended, I did go all out on a crazy scale wanting to try any and everything. This year I was a little bit more selective with what I purchased but still loved every minute of it.
I made it my first priority to visit some stands like Nars, Velour Lashes, Love Makeup and Make-up forever as I knew I had to buy certain things which I will show you soon. I never ever thought I had the will power to do such thing, but I avoided the NYX stand. The queue was just sooo long all day so I just thought… nahh. You can buy all of those reasonably priced items online and in Next shops.
Throughout the day there were some weird and wonderful make-up artist creations which I managed to capture.
Starting off with Nars which was not as full as last year’s humongous 60% discount crazed counter. They had 30% off this year with a limited amount of products and quite a few gift sets. There was nothing I had a burning urge to get but when I saw the beautifully coloured 13g Pierre Hardy blush in ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ I simply could not put this £18 set back down! The peachy-orange toned blush was so eye catching. I also bought a concealer ‘Praline’ and the ‘Velvet Matte Lip Pencil with Sharpener’ gift set for £15.
At Love Make-up I bought another Limecrime lipstick as I 100% love my poisonberry one. This time I got the ‘Centrifuchsia’ shade which is a bright blue-toned pink and was £10. I also got the Velvetine liquid to matte lip stain in ‘wicked’ for £10. This is a dark red shade which has an amazing lasting power. I dont usually like matte finishes or red lip products so this was definitely a weird purchase for me :s One of my top two fave purchases of the weekend was the
Zoeva brushes! In my head I must have imagined them to be extremely
expensive and not worth purchasing but oh my I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only were they £8 / £8.50 each but they are super super soft and are made of good quality. The rose gold set which was well advertised for a discounted price before the show was sold out long time before I got to it but in all honesty I didn’t need all of the brushes in it. I did buy the 106 powder brush to replace my overworked Avon one, 102 silk finish brush for foundation blending and the 127 Luxe Sheer Cheek for blush.
I visited the Beautiful Brows stand which was mainly for my mum who wanted to try a new brow product. As much as I wanted to try them out in the past, I remember last year them being over priced for what I could see. I took the plunge this time and for a small square of eyebrow cake ‘chocolate’ and three part stencil set it was £20. I believe £30 for the whole set with a brush and compact. I will have to check in with her to see how she likes it!
I had a browse around Mac Pro stand being the lipstick addict that I am and I even got matched to a new foundation by a lovely Mac assistant. Lots of people don’t tend to love this stand at imats due to the small discounts issued and the fact they mainly have their pro products available. Their pro makeup include blue, yellow, red and more liquid paints etc 😮 But having a pro card I was able to get 35% rather than the set 10%. So I saved £20 on the Studio Fix Fluid NW48, ‘Candy yum-yum’ and ‘Sin’ lipsticks. Guess what finishes the lipsticks were in? Matte >_< The mac talk by Pablo Rodriguez a senior makeup artist was really interesting to see how catwalks and editorial shoots are done.
Sugarpill was at imats for the first time this year and seeing the shopping bags that came with the products… I was sold even more to make a purchase. The pro palette looks amazing and is so pigmented but I dont even know what on earth I would do with all the vibrant colours. I did buy a single eyeshadow called ‘poison plum’ which would be a great crease colour and maybe even a subtle contour shade for darker skin tones.
Last year at Make-up Forever I bought the HD foundation which my sister took over and loved more then myself as I fell out of love with. So I repurchased for my sister and bought two foundations for my mum and one for a friend. Its a good thing I knew what shades I was getting as getting in close proximity to swatch was near to impossible and the sellers seemed to be catering to the needs of customers who just joined after me. It was all very chaotic so I was glad to get away from there. The foundations were £19.87 each.
The girls at Velour Lashes were so friendly and helpful which made the lash stand even more appealing to me. Finally I can purchase a pair because last year, I mistook the price to be £40 instead of £14 for a pair which scared me right off without double checking! Now that would have been steep. I picked up the ‘complete me’ set which are more dense on the outer corners and less so on the inner parts. You can get up to 25 applications of these real mink lashes in the same condition as brand new, so I am beyond excited to try these.
Last year I was very happy with my Inglot rainbow eyeshadows so I knew I had to get some more. This was either going to be on a bigger scale or a small scale with everyday colours. I went with the second option. I bought a quad magnetic case for £5 and four eyeshadows for £3 each. I got the shades 399, 450, 421 and 402. All of these have a pearl finish which are AMAZING!!
I didn’t want to go too crazy at Crown Brush as the prices tend to be very similar to online, but I loved the thin angle definers so bought four, and extra double ended one with a smoolie and the C139 crease brush. This all came up to under £20.
I went lash crazy at Nigel’s Beauty Emporium as I had regrets last year as I felt I didn’t buy enough. This year I bought 15 lashes for £20. I mainly went for Whispy’s, D-Whispy’s, #217, 747s, 307, 43 and #367. I also got a white duo glue for £5.
Overall this year was a successful shopping trip at Imats and possibly a lot better than last year. No more makeup for me… who am I kidding? More pictures can be seen on my instagram @mintyessence.
Did you go to London Imats this year?