Hey Y'all!
I am beyond excited to be workin on this blog right now!
I was invited to NailPro Pasadena by NailPro Magazine to be a VIP blogger for the day on Sunday and it was awesome! It was just a quick day trip for me, I went with my mom as we were allowed a plus 1. I was really excited to share the experience with her because she's been my bestfriend my whole life and always supported me in everythin I do!
We hit the road at 4 am to make sure we got there by 9 when it opened. The trip up there was pretty fun! The roads were pretty clear and the drive was smooth and we got there early and grabbed some GREAT food gol, Mcdonalds haha!
When I arrived at the convention center, there was a small line formin in the buildin. I then got sent to the will call booth to check in and get my "press" badge! And meet the NailPro Mag crew. I got pictures of me and my nails taken by Armando, who is the nicest photographer ever! We took "red carpet" pics infront of the NailPro backdrop, which I loved! It was fun to pretend to be a "celeb" for a day! HeHe! NailPro even posted my nails on their instagram! Everythin was so excitin!
Armando
Liz and Sarah
So then we waited around in the lobby for the doors to open and while I was waitin I met up with
@DenisseLove! She is so sweet and it was so great to meet her!
Then the doors opened at 9 and we went inside to walk the tradeshow! It was definitely nail heaven gol. There were over 50 vendors there sellin all their products from nail polish to acrylics/gels and even jewelry!
The first 500 people in the door and the bloggers got a blue NailPro goodie bag with some nail polish and the new issue of NailIt Mag!
Even though it didn't seem that big in the end it was still a nice overwhelmin feelin for me walkin into the room! I haven't been to a beauty convention yet and so this was pretty excitin for me! I'm not only just a blogger but also a nailtech so that made it even more special!
I didn't know where to start so I just picked an aisle and started takin pics and video of all the booths.
I knew of most of the companies that were there but some were new to me as well.
I just loved the way this nail foil display looked. It reminded me of a gumball machine.
Orly had a nice appealin display. I loved this shot of all their polishes! So pretty!
IBD had a nice big display. I use their UV topcoat on my clients and I really like it.
LECHAT had a beautiful display. I love that background on their front counter. They had lots of polish and tons of glitters.
Morgan Taylor was featurin all their Cinderella stuff, which I really wanted! Cinderella is my absolute fave!
Essie's display was gorgeous! I just loved the crispness of it.
Young nails had pretty large display, which I was super happy about as I'm makin the switch to use their products for my clients!
There was a huge crowd around the corner of the their booth and so I squeezed in to see Greg Salo givin a demo for 3D flowers. It was cool to see him in person.
Super excited to make my First Young Nails purchase!
Then there was a Mr. Nailart booth that had lots of different brands and art things. There was this super cute OPI snowglobe that spins around! I loved it!
They also had a GIANT bottle of OPI polish!
I wanted it sooooooooooooo bad!!!!!
Then there was Ever Glaze extended wear polish by China Glaze and their Gelaze gel polish.
I thought these gel/regular polish matchin duos for tips and toes were cute.
Also took a fun pic of all the China Glaze polish. There were 3 sides of the booth covered in polish. I picked up 9 bottles from them as they were in a great sale! Don't get me wrong I love CG, obviously I bought some, but I was little unimpressed with their booth as a whole.
Then I stopped at Gel Manicure 2 where they had this awesome stampin kit with 3 giant plates plus a couple stampers and 3 gel polishes in one kit! I only really liked one of the plates for my style but it was a great deal for someone startin with stampin.
Then the gal at the booth showed us a little demo of their new pure organics mani/pedi soak. It's a powder like substance at first, you can see it to the right of the picture with the little scoop in it. Then she put a scoop into the bowl and poured water on it and started stirrin it with her hands and it quickly became this fluffy gel like substance. She let us feel it and it to me it was like those little beads you put in your flower vases that hold all the water in. She said that's what you can use to soak your clients hands and feet in for mani/pedi's and I didn't get the whole story but I think she said they have salts that breakdown the product to dispose of.
Also I have to say they were my favorite booth there, purely because they were the most friendly and nicest I ran across all day. Not to say other booths weren't nice, but some of them weren't too friendly at all. Gel Mani 2 was great. The moment I walked up I was offered a free pink gel mani 2 cloth bag along with a lanyard as well. Greeted with a friendly smile and noticed they were happy to answer all their customers questions along with givin us the fun demo of their new products.
Another of my favorite booths was this jewelry booth! I coudln't find a company name anywhere tho. But they had tons of nail polish and nailtech inspired jewelry! I ended up gettin a polish necklace, which I'll have in my haul video soon!
My last stop for the day was Cuccio. I liked their booth as well. Their polish was on sale for $2 each! I probably could've bought a million but I just bought 2 from neutral set that were absolutely beautiful.
That was it for the inside. I went back to the lobby to talk to checkout and pick up my blue goodie bag and that's where I met Sarah Emick. She's the one who invited me to the convention and I've emailed her several time for stuff for NailIt and so it was really awesome to actually meet her in person!
Overall I had an amazin time! I am still tryin to go over it all in my head. It was such a quick day trip I was even tryin to figure out if it happened in the first place gol! I know to some people this might seem like a small thing or no big deal but to me it was a huge deal to be invited by NailPro! I felt so good and valued. I sometimes have a tough time thinkin with "Why Me?" about myself, but I'm learnin to trust myself more and know that I'm worth so much more, so this event was a big part of that growth for me and I truly appreciate it!
Thank you so much to NailPro Magazine and all that you did for me!
I ended up leavin the convention earlier than I planned so we had a little extra time to checkout some more places around the area before we headed home. My mom and I decided to see if there were any nail supply places and we ended up goin to Nail Supply House.
It was so overwhelmin! There were about 10 more aisles of polish both sides just like this! You could spend hours there and probably never look at every polish. I wish I could've stayed a little longer but unfortunately I started not feelin good. I was doin good all day until we got here. I think it was just the combination of still gettin over my illness and not havin lunch yet that took me down. But I got a couple color club polishes that I really wanted and looked around as much as I could before we headed back on the road home.
On the road home we stopped at a place called Tommy's. It was a little burger joint and I swear it looked just like an IN N Out inside. Gol and basically the food was the same except the burgers all came with chili on them. I opted not to have chili as spicy foods don't agree with my sinuses right now because of the infection I had. But the food was good and I'd never been there before so that was kinda fun and then we hopped back on the road all the way home!
And now here I am writin this blog!
It was all just so excitin and an experience I'll never forget!
Hope y'all enjoyed this little peek into the convention.
Thanks to NailPro and everyone who has been supportin me through my crazy passion!
If You wanna see my Vlog of the convention click here:
http://youtu.be/FrMVqCkEeKU
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~Maags
