Sephoria: Better than Beautycon? Or Total Bust?
Let me take a moment to say life has been full steam ahead for at least a month now. My professional and personal life has taken the front seat and unfortunately my career aspirations outside of my normal 9-5 have taken a back seat. That of course is inclusive of my blog.
Friday morning I dragged myself out of bed at 5am, which truth be told is normal to any other day of the week but usually I'm dashing off to 5:30am pilates, but Friday I woke up early to check some things off my to-do list that I didn't get around to the night prior. I'm realizing that I have to start getting creative with making time for such things.
Thursday night I got home late from an appointment and immediately launched into getting things ready for the following day which by the time that was over I was exhausted and ready for bed. however, that to-do list still had some unchecked items.
I decided to give myself some much needed rest by going to bed early and agreeing to wake up early to compromise. Like I said, MAKING time for accomplishing things that I can't seem to get around to during the day.
The point of this mini rant is to say it's been much too long since I've MADE time to blog. So here I am, blogging about an event that I went to close to three weeks ago, Sephoria.
Better late than never, right?
On Sunday, October 21 I went to the first annual Sephoria with my best friend and a college girlfriend of hers. All of us VERY excited to partake in this first ever day-long makeup extravaganza, we headed to the Majestic Downtown early Sunday morning. I will say, from the outside looking in, it wasn't the most premium location for a brand of this caliber to host something.
Nevertheless, we were there and we were AMPED!
The check in process was not the best. It was very unclear what line we were supposed to be standing in and we didn't get let inside until close to 30 minutes after it said they would start letting people in. Once we made it beyond the gates for the official check in, it was all outside, uncovered and extremely hot and uncomfortable.
We made our way to the front of the line and unfortunately my bestie Katie had purchased the wrong ticket so we went over to the Customer Services area to try and get that remedied. As we were standing there waiting I got a glimpse of some of the HORRENDOUS customer service and was immediately turned off from Sephoria.
Finally we successfully checked in and wandered over to check out the brands featured in the outside space. La Mer and Gucci were my favorite. La Mer built a life sized bottle of their infamous moisturizer that you were able to walk through and see a variety of installations featuring some of their newest product and had the opportunity to sample them all.
Gucci's space in honor of their perfume, Bloom, was just stunning. I honestly wish my apartment looked like that! It reminded me of old England so you know I was obsessed with it.
From there we ventured inside to where the REAL party was. Given the fact that we were pretty disappointed by our initial introduction to Sephoria, I was not expecting a lot. Boy was I wrong!
First of all the space itself was incredible. It's this old, historic, HUGE building in Downtown Los Angeles where the options are just limitless for buildouts. It looks like somewhere you could host a really incredible New Year's Eve party, something out of Gossip Girl. I'm really hoping that painted an accurate picture for you because I know it did for me.
We signed up to attend a Master Class hosted by Meghan Markle's wedding makeup artist, Daniel Martin, upon entry so we made our way downstairs to grab our seats. Despite some technical difficulties, it was really cool to get some tips and tricks from him and hear about some new products that I've personally never used but as a Dior Makeup ambassador he always has in his toolkit.
From there it was time to explore! With three different floors there was PLENTY to see. As per usual with things like this it was honestly a little overwhelming. However we established a gameplan and began our day.
Sephoria featured all my favorite beauty brands who built beautiful, interactive and photo-worthy booths. Not to mention the fact that there were PLENTY of samples everywhere you turned.
Tatcha had an incredible, serene space filled with hundreds of beautiful, fresh flowers and a clean scent to match. It was great to get a quick demo of the product they were featuring too especially since I've actually never used their skincare. (BUT I've been wanting to - hey Tatcha, if you're looking for guinea pigs or even new bloggers, I'm your girl).
Jo Malone London had an incredible floral display in their space as well, in addition to a London inspired phonebooth. Ugh, I get it, I need to get back to London, will you stop reminding me?!
Lipstories, a brand I am absolutely obsessed with, gave consumers the opportunity to customize their own lip story for $8. While I didn't customize my own that day, I thought it was such a great idea and a really unique takeaway for consumers.
Fenty Beauty had a life-sized compact in their brand space filled with gold confetti. The perfect boomerang moment.
Having experienced Beautycon, I would say I was very impressed by Sephoria - ESPECIALLY considering this was the first ever. The space it was hosted in was incredible, it never felt crowded or jam packed with people and I don't think I ever stood in line for more than five to ten minutes. Not to mention the fact that the brands who were there SHOWED up. Every single space was more beautiful than the last.
There were a few things however that I think could use improvement.
The check in process was a hot mess and the individuals representing the brand during the check-in process were not a good representation of Sephora. That was an immediate turnoff, as I mentioned. Food was extremely difficult to find. We had to leave my apartment early that Sunday morning to make it downtown in time so we didn't have time to stop for coffee or eat prior. It took the majority of the morning to realize where the food was not to mention the fact that we had to PAY for any food we wanted. Considering how expensive these tickets were just to get into Sephoria (and get an amazing gift bag of course), I thought it was a little ridiculous to make me pay however much money for my almonds and energy bites.
However, given that this was the first annual Sephoria, I would say my overall consensus would be that I was impressed and would definitely go back. Honestly, I just hope this doesn't blow up to the point that Beautycon has because I thoroughly enjoyed not having to stand in line for every single experience.
Maybe I should say the event was horrible so people don't come out of the woodworks to attend Sephoria next year...I'm not about that overcrowded line life people!
In that case, don't go, it was horrible😉
(Originally published November 10, 2018)