What a great day it was - met up with an old friend that I don't see often enough, had lunch at a lovely pub on the River Thames and then on to the Beauty Bash!!! it would have been brilliant to have been picked out of the draw for free tickets but I don't begrudge paying for my ticket as I've paid far more for a day out and not enjoyed it half as much.
My friend and I both had different goodie bags. Hers included the nail varnish Porchester Sq from Nails Inc so she was well chuffed. Mine was pretty similar to Dips & Marina's but instead of having the ABC wipes it had a 450 ml tub of SBC Super Fruits body scrub - smells lovely.
Both of us commented on how different people looked in real life versus on screen. Have to say that close up, there were some skincare presenters whose skin looked quite poor and they didn't look a particularly good advert for their product but everyone seemed far slimmer than they look on the telly and everyone was exceptionally friendly.
The make up artist on the Laura Geller stand was lovely and we chatted for ages. Asked her why Laura always did the TSV presentations on a fully made up model and didn't start with clean skin like Stacey from YBF so you could get a lesson in how to apply the products. She said that it was because to make the make up look good, Laura needed 30 minutes to do each model properly and my friend commented that Laura always says her products are quick to use though, perfect for brushing on as you run out the door and the make up artist said that that amount of coverage just wouldn't show on the tv. We said that surely if Stacey could do it then Laura could? She said that she would feed the comments back to Laura. When we visited the YBF stand and told Stacey that we'd been teasing the Laura Geller girls and saying that they should present like her she roared with laughter and said she was surprised they didn't tell us to get lost (actually her language was a little more ripe than that!!!). She was an absolute hoot, a really nice lady to chat to.
Abbey from Ultrasun was really nice too. They are planning to bring out the shimmer in factor 30, she hopes will be out by the end of the year. Their main TSV will be early April and will include supersizes.
The Leighton Denny girls were good fun. Nina was sporting a rather lurid yellow nail varnish but they had the next TSV there and she painted each of my nails with the colours and I teased her that I'd be applying for her job as the hand model - as we compared my pork sausage stubbs with her elegant long fingers I think she was in no doubt that her job was safe. TSV includes two really lovely summery shades that will look great on tanned toes - a bright coral and a bright pink, also there will be a lilac, and two metallic shades - gold and mauve, a top coat and a pretty bag all under £30.
A new product coming soon is Imedeen which are vitamin tablets that you take once a day and it works on increasing/keeping your collagen levels up which the lady says will keep your skin looking far younger than just using a cream which only works on the surface of the skin and doesn't penetrate lower. She was a fabulous advert for the product, aged 51 she looked like she was in her late 30's. Got a month's supply sample so will definitely be trying that one out.
The lady on the Judith Williams stand was very funny and said doing the QVC shows was brilliant fun but very hard work. She said when you see them on for a 5/10 minute presentation, they've actually been at the studio prepping for 5 hours!!!!
The Liz Earle stand was packed and everyone was fighting to talk to Caroline! Tried their new bath and body range. Three different flavours: bergamot & ginger - very nice, fresh and zingy, Jasmine and something (sorry can't remember) - which was okay and Vanilla & Saffron which I thought smelt like biscuits and reminded me of the cookie flavoured candles that Yankee sell.
As we've purchased tickets now, I hope the Daily Mail send an email out when next year's go on sale, although I'll probably regret saying that when I'm bombarded with emails from DM flogging cruises, stairlifts and whatever else but would definitely recommend a visit if you can make it next year.
