Howdy there folks! I am finally going to do my part two rundown from the CosmoProf North America convention that I went to last week. You can see my photo spam from the event with all the products and collections coming out soon here on
Part 1. This is the real spiel, the lowdown on what really happened and just how spectacular it really was.
I went to the conference with my beautiful older sister
Clarrisa. She went to attend some skincare seminars for her business. We got to stay in the beautiful Mandalay Bay hotel where the conference was being held and got a slick rental car to cruise around in courtesy of her company. The flight there was not very fun though, I hate to fly! It makes me sick-o.
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| Clarrisa and me on a tram |
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| our hotel! |
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| Me and Jen (the Polishaholic) grabbing some grub |
The first day is when I met up with a couple bloggers I know and strolled around the show floor like mad women. I was lucky enough to get to meet a few of the faces of some of my favorite brands.
Katie Cazorla from the reality show
Nail Files, was at the
Nubar booth with Noubar himself, promoting her line of polishes by Nubar called
The Painted Nail, like her salon. Let me just tell you that this woman ROCKS!! She is a huge ball of energy and smiles and jokes and just happiness. It is so infectious being around someone like that, I loved meeting her. She is so tiny and beautiful, just like a blingy Barbie! She showed us her new polishes that recently launched and they are all gorgeous, I NEED THEM ALL!
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| Me, Katie, Katherine (Manicure Addict), and Jen (The Polishaholic) |
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| Katie chatting about her polishes |
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| Katie making me LOL, you know she used to be a comedienne! |
I also wandered into the OPI meeting room (even though I didn't have an appointment) with fellow blogger
Jen and we got to meet
Suzi! Holy wow, it was awesome. She IS OPI, guys. She was very nice and sweet. We also got a peek of new OPI collections that are on the horizon, visit
Jen's blog to see them, I didn't manage to take any photos of them, boo.
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| Me and Suzi, courtesy of Jen |
That night we went out to dinner with Katie Cazorla and a huge group of bloggers, some of my favorite ladies were there! We went to a Russian restaurant (i.e. tons of vodka) called The Red Square where stuff was expensivo, yikes, but it was fab. I just wish we'd have all played musical chairs throughout the night so we could've talked to everyone haha! Omg, I really cannot reiterate how much I LOVE Katie, she's beyond words.
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| Blogger Dinner with Katie Cazorla |
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| The Red Square restaurant |
After a crazy long dinner, my feet and head were killing me even though I would've loved to hit the town with some of the girls like Maria and Kisten from
Polish Pauper, I had to call it a night. The next day we all (the bloggers + some new ones like Temptalia (EEK! awesome), BellaSugar and A Girl's Gotta Spa) had a breakfast meeting with
Deborah Lippmann! It turned out to not be a "breakfast" but just a gab session where Deborah talked and we all just listened with stars in our eyes. If I could've I would've listened to her for hours, she really is an awesome woman. She told us all about the new Fall polishes that have just been released, how she names colors, and how she created some of them. One of the most interesting things she mentioned was that by naming a polish a song title as opposed to a color name, gives the consumer a chance to see the polish as some unique to them. She creates all her polishes to go on in two thin coats, so ones that may take four coats to get opaque weren't necessarily designed to be that way, it's the way YOU see it, ya know? Everyone see color differently and everyone has their own preference of how to wear polish. Cool huh? Or as Deborah would say "SICK!" ;)
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| Deborah Lippmann |
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| Me, Deborah and Clarrisa |
After that we had a heck of a time navigating around the show floor again, as the previous day had already done some damage to my poor feets! We visited a couple booths I hadn't made it to the previous day, like China Glaze, Color Club, and Orly/SpaRitual. Got mucho info on what is coming up with those brands. I took many photos and posted them on my first rundown of CP
here.
Edited: I completely forgot to put up the picture of Zoya Reyzis, the head of
Zoya nail polish! OOPS! I didn't get a meeting with her but a lot of other girls did and they said it was great. She was so funny when we were taking the picture, making sure that it was taken "not including the waist" haha!
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| Me and Zoya |
Then me and Clarissa decided we needed to soak up some sun, so we headed out the pool! It was way fun, the Mandalay has a big wave pool and a lazy river which was really nice because it was freaking HOT. And if you know me at all, I DO NOT do hot haha. Lots of lemonade and quick dips in the pool helped keep me cool. P.S. the sand on their "beach" was so GD hot I know I freaking burned my feet on it, like almost blistered!
Guess the sun didn't agree with me too much, because after a shower and change of clothes, I was not feeling great, a giant migraine had crept up on me. My sister decided to go shopping for a while and left me to rest in our hotel room. I was so very sad, but because of my migraine I missed going out for dinner that night with the girls and the brand manager for
Jesse's Girl Cosmetics. They picked everyone up in a huge limo and took them to dinner at a nice steakhouse. I am told it was a great time and they even got to meet YouTube beauty guru
Julie G.! I am still bummed I missed it :( You can see some photos of the event on Maria's page
here and on Gia's page
here.
Later that evening, like way later, I started feeling better and was able to go out with Clarrisa to get some dinner. We went to the Rio casino because everyone had raved about their buffet to us, and of course, we had to pig out a little. It ended up not being that great, and it was 15 minutes til closing when we paid, which they neglected to tell us, so it was the tail end of all the food and we had to rush. :/ Not cool. Although, the Rio is home of the Chippendale's show so we poked our head in there and took a quick look see ;)
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| Sexy! |
The next day we met up with some of the girls in the CosmoProf press room to say our goodbyes. It makes me sad that I don't get to see all my girls all the time! I really love them all so much, they're wonderful ladies. I wish I'd have gotten more time with them all. Thanks to Krystal from
Polish Galore who organized our little get-togethers with Katie and Deborah!
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| Kimmi from The Plastic Diaries, me, and Krystal from Polish Galore |
Whew, I'm sure I'm leaving out tons but I just can't process it all right now haha. Let me know if you have any questions. It was a fabulous experience and I learned a lot and had a great time. I don't know if I'll go next year, but it's a possibility :)
