I had the best Sunday in ages last weekend. I decided to take a trip to London and attend Glamour magazine's beauty festival.
Whilst flicking through Glamour magazine last month (which I buy religiously every month) I noticed they were promoting their #GlamourBeautyFest and it intrigued me. I read the full article on what was happening at the event and by the end I was looking where I could book tickets!
I've never been to an event of this nature before, but with a talk from Jim Chapman, Estee Lalonde, Fleur Da Force and Alex Steinherr, and a whole host of brands from the beauty world attending I didn't want it to be a case of FOMO!
The event it's self was held in the Saatchi gallery in Chelsea. Which I had been to previously to help behind the scenes for a fashion show for Look magazine, so I was ok with were to go (I like to think I have a good sense of direction, but sometime's I still get lost!).
As I didn't have a close female companion to take with me (though I think my sister will kill me when I say this!) I decided to take my ever faithful husband Dan with me. He's very patient so ideal to tag along and he also wanted to hear the talk from the vloggers as he is interested in how to improve his youtube channel.
We had originally planned to go up first thing in the morning, the day of the event, but realised with works on the train line, we'd be on a journey twice as long as normal, thus having to get up super early!
Dan, after my recommendation of The Grosvenor Hotel at Victoria being right at the train station, so easy to find, Dan booked a room for the night before.
So I finished work early on Saturday, packed my bag and headed off on the train to London. I had previously picked up a new paper back called 'The bucket list to mend a broken heart'. The reason I wanted to read it, is a bit vain, but the main character is called Abi and the story is set in Portsmouth, which is figuratively just down the road!
Anyway I digress. I read the book for the whole journey and at about 6:30pm arrived at London Victoria. We found the hotel by not even leaving the train station as there is an entrance in the train station inside to it!
We booked in, went up to our room on the top floor and I remarked to Dan 'Oh have we got a pent house suite?!' and the answer was sadly no. Never mind, the room was still more than adequate.
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Hotel room, room 605 |
bathroom looks old and worn, like you can tell lots of people have used it before (obvs in a hotel room that will happen, but I prefer to not be able to tell if that makes any sense!).
We then headed off in search for some food. We ended up back in Victoria station (tourists we are not!) and had a KFC!
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Fancy Bose speaker |
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Complimentary toiletries |
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Just my cup of tea! |
I wasn't sure what to wear to such an event and after much deliberation the weeks before I was umming and ahhing. I end up wearing my black denim dungaree dress from Primark, with my stripey Topshop jumper underneath, with black tights and my black ankle platform boots from New Look. Bordering more on casual but I think it looked passable.
We left the hotel room, checked out and headed off in the direction of the event. After a minor wrong turn we found the venue in good time and waited outside. As we where queuing our paper tickets were scanned and we were given a red wrist band to wear.
After a short wait we were directed to a room where the talk was being held. Inside the room was rows of white benches for the audience, with a white stage set up with white chairs for the guest speakers. After about ten minutes, once all the audience was seated Jim Chapman came out and introduced himself. He was then followed out by Fleur, Estee and Alex.
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Estee Lalonde |
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Host with the most, Jim Chapman |
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Alex, Estee, Fleur and Jim |
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Alex, Estee, Fleur and Jim chin wagging! |
It's a shame I didn't film it, but I wasn't sure if that would be ok, but I did take some photo's if that suffices in any way!
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This way |
After about 50 minutes the talk ended and we exited the room and were free to look around the rest of the venue. There are three floors to the venue with different brands in each one with stylists on hand
to offer hair tutorials and make up advice. In one room was a stall (if that's the right word!) selling a goody bag. I love a goody bag I do! This one was from Glamour itself and it didn't take much to convince me to buy it!
Included was a years subscription to Glamour magazine, physical and digital copies, along with a t-shirt, mug and make up bag especially designed for the event and also a few other goodies inside the bag, such as hair bands and a necklace! All for £29! And it came in a lovely silver foil tote :)
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I could Benefit from this! |
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I'm at your mercy, Laura Mercier! |
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Liz Earle stand |
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NARS stand |
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OGX hair |
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OGX hair products |
By that point I was happy to leave as there was ques for each brand to have your makeup or hair done and my patience is not good at the best of times so Dan and myself headed off to Mayfair.
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Kate Spade stationery at Peter Jones |
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Never truer words said- note pad from Peter Jones |
With not much else in the area to do or go we continued to walk as we knew that Oxford Street wasn't too far away.
It ended up feeling like the other side of London by the time we found Oxford Street as we ended up going around the houses and getting a bit lost! Dan was eager to have a pit stop so I left him with a cold drink in Marks and Spencer's cafe whilst I had about half an hour to look around Oxford Street.
Oxford Street, half an hour! Those words shouldn't be in a sentence together, unless it's to add, not possible!
I was keen to find Forever 21 as all the other shops I can visit more local branches to me, but this is the nearest Forever 21 I can get to. After going the wrong direction in Oxford Street, I found Forever 21 and had the biggest dash around ever. I ended up purchasing a beige and black large stripe jersey dress, black leggings for all of £4 and a white sweater with 'Don't know, don't care' written on the front in gold foil.
I then found Dan outside Marks and Spencer's and we headed back towards the hotel for our afternoon tea.
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Primark in Oxford Street- didn't brave it! |
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Iconic Selfridges |
By this point I was famished and tired, as we were still carrying the goody bags from the morning (oh hard life Abbie!) and I was relieved to get to the venue to sit down for some food.
The afternoon tea was fine, pretty much standard, with finger sandwiches, pasteries and scones with jam and cream. We followed this with a cup of tea. So civilised and British!
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Afternoon tea :) |
Luckily we didn't have to wait too long and we got seats together on the train. I was so tired by this point from all the walking and lack of sleep, so I was happy to finally sit down for a couple of hours. The train was going via Hove on the way back so took about half an hour longer, plus a bus for the final part of the journey as there was works on the line.
And finally I was home. A cup of tea was in order and as was looking through my goody bags, which you can see in my previus blog post.
A long but eventful day. I would recommend the Glamour Beauty Festival if you love your make up brands and looking to do something a bit different.
Thank you for reading this ramble of a post. I hope you enjoyed it and be sure to look out for my next blog post about today's blogger meet up in Brighton!
Take care, love,
2 comments
Wow, looks like an absolutely amazing event! I'd not heard of it until now, thanks for sharing :) x
ReplyDeleteHolly ∣ Closingwinter
Hi Holly, it was fab! I really enjoyed it and I still haven't tried all the stuff in my goody bag! xx
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