China Glaze Holiday 2010 Swatches

Though there were plenty of shades from the China Glaze Holiday 2010 collection that I wanted, I only picked up 2.


Sugar Plums, Little Drummer Boy


Little Drummer Boy
A gorgeous navy shade. 2 coats.


Sugar Plums
This is a beautiful plum shimmer with subtle sparkles throughout. I'm obsessed with colours like this right now for both the nails and the lips!

Both of these applied wonderfully in 2 coats.

Did you pick up anything from the China Glaze Holiday 2010 collection?

IMATS Toronto 2010 Haul!

Here it is, my haul from IMATS!


I did the most damage at Make Up For Ever. I am disappointed that they weren't selling their eye shadows individually, I had made a list of all the ones I wanted to get. Instead, they were selling 4 different premade palettes of 10 eye shadows. I ended up getting one of them. A few colours were shadows on my list but unfortunately, the famous #92 wasn't included in the palette I picked. I also got their HD Foundation, an HD Primer (the green one), a Rouge Artist Intense lipstick and 2 Aqua Creams.



My next stop was the Face Atelier booth. I knew I had to pick up some of their Ultra Foundation, I've been hearing rave reviews about it for ages. I also bought the Ultra Sheer in Champagne - this seems like a similar product to MAC Strobe Cream, it'll be great to give some extra glow and highlight. The Ultra Camouflage Duet, Ultra Loose Powder and #4 foundation brush also came home with me.



I've been wanting to try Embryolisse products for ages and was excited to visit their booth and pick up some products. I got the popular Lait-Creme Concentre, Rich Moisturising Cream, Exfoliating Care Cream and Smoothing Eye Contour Care.


Look at all the samples they gave with my purchase!



My one unexpected purchase of the day was from the Stila booth. When I heard they were giving 40% off their products, I couldn't resist picking up the #33 One Step Complexion Brush.

So far, I've used the Embroylisse Lait-Creme Concentre and Face Atelier Ultra Foundation a few times and really like them so far, but will wait until I've been using them a bit longer to give a review.

I went to IMATS with a mental list of all the brands I wanted to purchase things from, and I pretty much stuck to my list. I am kicking myself for not getting some OCC Lip Tars though. I tried to convince myself that I didn't need any, but the more swatches I see of all the gorgeous colours, the more I wish I would have picked some up! There's always next year, or maybe I'll cave and order a couple from the website at some point.

Stay tuned for reviews of some of these products coming up!

IMATS Recap!

Last weekend was the International Makeup Artist Trade Show in Toronto. I attended on Saturday. It was my first year going, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I did hear that Make Up For Ever was going to be 40% off so I decided it was a good idea to get there early and hopefully avoid crazy crowds.


I got there right at opening and as you can see, it was still quite crowded. I even made up a list of what I wanted to get before going in hopes of being in and out of there quickly. I was disappointed to find out that they were not selling their eye shadows individually, only in pre picked palettes of 10.

I ran into Enrica pretty soon after I arrived and we browsed the booths together until it was time for Kandee Johnson's Q&A session. We were hoping to run into some other Toronto Beauty Bloggers there, but it was hard to find anyone because it was so crowded. We were lucky to get the last couple of seats available.


YouTube Guru Kandee Johnson

Kandee spoke about how she got started and answered audience questions about things ranging from getting into the industry, to air brushing and she gave makeup tips and tricks along the way.

Next, we went to a MAC presentation by Nadine Luke.






Nadine is MAC's Director of Makeup Artistry. She's the artist that did the famous Pamela Anderson Viva Glam ad campaign. She talked about the Fall and Winter trends, and also demonstrated some techniques on a model.

There was an Alice in Wonderland themed student competition and awards show going on, and I was able to get pictures of many of the entries.












The winner!

It's absolutely amazing how great everyone looked!


Body painting


Enrica with one of the fabulous models.

I had so much fun, I'm already looking forward to next year.

Stay tuned for my IMATS haul post!