Sydney IMATS 2011 & ABBW

Over the weekend, I've actually participated in the first ever Australian Beauty Blogger Weekend 2011 and I'm just SO excited to share with you guys the wonderful experience!

I have to thank Jacie (http://www.youvegotnail.com/) and Kimmi (http://theplasticdiaries.com/) SO much for putting in so much time and effort to organise this event, and also a big thank you to all the sponsors of the event!

The very first event of the ABBW was IMATS! A make-up artist trade show in the early morning is just perfect, I tell ya!

Tezza and Alice and myself headed to Novotel first to register and pick up our name badges and a lovely gift from Garnier and proceeded to wait outside the Hall for everyone to gather!

Heading inside, there stood many many many make-up stands and I could tell you that I was extremely excited to see Make-Up Forever and Ben Nye there! However, I'm actually quite disappointed with the MUFE stand as there were only fewer store people and the long wait to get served was just..... Bleh!

And Pursebuzz's class!

And later on, we actually got to meet Elessa! She is gorgeous and so sweet too! She gave us a heart-warming hug and a bow on me head :)

I actually spent around $200 at IMATS and I will do a seperate haul post for you! I also met Pearl and I was also looking forward to meeting Dommique and Melinda, but I missed them at some point at IMATS sadly! I saw Ailing there too!

After IMATS, we headed back to Novotel for some bloggers' event.

We then had a break and waited outside till we collected our goodie bags from Kimmi and Jacie!!

After that, we headed to the Establishment for Dinner, but Tezza had to leave because she felt quite sick. Everyone was dressed up in dresses, heels and all... only Alice and I who were still in the same clothes as we live quite far away from the place and didn't bring a change of clothes! *cries

We felt so casual and left out to be honest! :'(

Heading upstairs before dinner, it was an event hosted by Maxted Thomas PR which stood many beauty and haircare stands such as Burts Bee, Nivea, Remington, ORLY and some fragrance stops too! We were allowed to collect products so I am looking super excited to try the Burts Bee products I picked up!

Amanda couldn't attend earlier in the day, but she made it to the later event so yay! I actually didn't recognise her when she approached me... because Alice wasn't next to me at the time and I'm extremely bad with faces! Woops!

And that was the end of Day 1 for me, as I had to leave early.... my house got broken into while I was at ABBW! So I had to leave before dinner started to see if Mummy was okay at home.... She's okay though and everything at home has settled down. I was quite upset that I couldn't be there for dinner though, and the fact that I bursted into tears and I felt like I ruined the mood for anyone who saw me tearing up at the event! :'( Sorry guys!

Day 2 of ABBW

Day 2 of ABBW started off with breakfast at Novotel which was followed by a keynote speaker session with Alpha-H! I've heard so much great things about Alpha-H and to get to know their brand more, it was just SO interesting! We also received a Liquid Gold goodie pack which I'm extremely excited to try out too!!

After that is lunch break and then Face Of Australia's Masterclass which I was super duper excited for! I've been desperate to meet Tina who is the Brand Manager of FOA!

Lining up outside and ready for FOA's Masterclass!

FOA's Goodie bag!!

Learning how to contour face shapes...

I actually promised to do a post on contouring and highlighting face shapes for quite a while now... Sorry guys!

A snapshot with Tina and Alice! She is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo pretty x1012323! Hahahhaha! Tezza, Alice and Amanda knew so much I was excited to meet Tina!!!

And the day finished off with a keynote speaker session by Bahar Etniman, founder and editor of RESCU who gave us many tips of what to do and what NOT to do. During that last session, I got sick because Novotel decided to blast their air-conditioner on full blast or something along the lines of that!

My ABBW weekend ended like that... lotsa goodie bags, a mindful of professional blogging tips of what to do and NOT to do, a handful of business cards and a valuable experience to remember!

I also forgot to mention that I've met a few bloggers who I've always tweeted and I feel so bad because they had to approach the girls and I! I'm extremely sorry, but I just couldn't fight against my shyness and I'm so bad with faces that I wouldn't recognise anyone unless they'd mention their Twitter handle or blog's URL. *sigh

I hope everyone enjoyed their time at ABBW and I promise I'll man up next year! I only gave out 10 of my 250 business cards! *cry*