Haul: IMATS London 2012

It's a haul, and I wonder if Renate, Marie and Lene Christin will be happy now? Today was spent at Alexandra Palace and IMATS, and I had a wonderful and exciting time there. Not only did I do some damage to my bank account, but I saw a lot of fascinating creations makeup-wise. I was a little disappointed that I didn't spot any YouTube gurus apart from Koren and a girl I don't remember the name of, but maybe tomorrow. There was a lot of buzz everywhere, and it ended up being quite exhausting.

Hunting for Treasure

My first target was the Inglot booth, of course. I was so afraid of finding a totally packed booth without any room at all for me, I actually made a backup plan of going to Westfield London to get my Inglot fix there instead. Addict much? But even if it was indeed packed with people I managed to get my hands on all the 30 eyeshadows I had on my list, plus three of the new rainbow eyeshadows (making a total of 33 eyeshadows and four of the Freedom System palettes). An enormous thank you to Øyvind who turned over just about every single eyeshadow there to find the ones on my list. After finding most of them.. the nice lady at the register told me that I could just give her the list, and she'd put them directly into a bag for me. Well, at least it was fun looking through them all! I won't go into details about the colors I chose now, but I promise to post pictures of my new palettes next weekend. She didn't put them into the palettes, so I have to organize them myself. Hurrah! Organizing a palette is half the fun.

The next booth on my list was BeautySoClean, a brand I hadn't heard about until recently, to pick up some of their cosmetic sanitizer mist. I don't know about you, but I've missed having a way of cleaning my eyeshadows ever since I started collection them, and spraying them with regular alcohol can often make them rock hard. I don't wanna risk destroying my precious eyeshadows, so I thought I'd give this a chance. I also purchased a box of cosmetic sanitizer wipes (for lipsticks and the likes of it), and two travel size mists.

I've been eyeing the brush set from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics (still loving the name!), but I never felt like I could afford them. Well, today I decided to splurge and got the complete set. Cruelty-free! The woman at the booth was really nice, and I think it was my most pleasant experience of the day. So much that I had to ask if I could take a picture with her, and with David - the founder of OCC! He said he really liked my tattoos, and we like compliments, don't we? It certainly made my day! I would have picked up some of their lip tars, but I felt like I had already spent enough money.. so I decided to leave them for now.

After visiting the boots listed above I didn't have much more on my list. I had a few brands on there I wanted to visit if it wasn't too crowded, but somehow I stumbled upon ProChart - offering face charts! I've wanted face charts for a long time, so I picked up a stack of the A4 ones and also a stack of their eye charts, so I can play with composing looks on paper. Fun! They also have me two marshmallows on a stick, covered in chocolate with pink "sprinkles", as a gift. Such a cute little treat! What can I say, I'm easy to please.

I have a lot of pictures to share with you as well, but I'm not sure if I'll have the time to edit and upload them while in London. If I don't, I'll have them up when we get back! Now it's snowing like crazy outside, so I'm quite anxious to look out the window tomorrow. We're used to this kind of weather, coming from Norway and all, but people here seem worried. My camera's recharging, I've removed my makeup - I guess it's time to crawl into bed again, so I'm ready for another day of IMATS tomorrow. Oh, and if I seem displeased.. let me assure you I'm not. I'm loving London so far, and I had an awesome time today, I'm just completely worn out!

Photos © Shamini Thevarajah '12