Adventures in Leeds – Bloggers Meet up: Photos Galore

There are not many bloggers events organised in the north of England: Fact! So when there is one, with an opportunity for  cheeky boogie and drinks afterwards, it would be rude not to attend, right? Last Saturday, I had the pleasure to attend a big bloggers' meet up in Leeds, meet up organised by the lovely Ray @RayWhoisShe and Tor @tornumber9.

I was, as usual incredibly nervous about attending. I always dread this moment when my blogger friends and acquaintances who never seen in my real life realise that I have an incredibly kind camera and notice the big gap between my flattering angle posy blog photos and the reality. So I gave the activities of the day a miss and arrived late afternoon, when the sun had gone down a little bit. Did it help? A little bit but not much. I can't believe how nervous I was. I felt really self conscious, I felt so much older than everyone else, but the lovely warm welcome from Ray and my partners in crime Ellie and Cat, and the flowing wine really helped a lot with the nerves.


I had planned this day in my head for so long. I had imagined I would have lost 10 pounds of weight for the event, that I would be wearing some lovely French manicure and the most outrageous evening eye makeup. In the end, I turned up at my fattest point ever in my life, minimal makeup (no eyeshadow whatsoever and just some king kong lashes and foundation), and wearing some tracksuit bottoms as I don't have many daywear nice clothes to wear which suit my new fuller figure.


Aaanyway, enough about my insecurities. Let's have a look at some photos, shall we?



Gorgeous girlies:  Ellie (@missy_ellie_uk) and Clare (@bigbeautyblog) 


 

Clare and myself




This is Cat (@perfectpolished) and her friend Dave/Davide/Jean Jacques




The lovely Carla (@carlito86) and Sinead (@daintydollymix)





Sinead (@daintydollymix), her new shoes and Catherine (@perfectpolished)




Adorable Lauren (@laurensdressing)











I forgot the names but this is @sparklyvodka in the middle and Tor on the right x













The coolest RayRay @RayWhoisShe






Change of clothes and getting ready to go out. I have tried to take pictures of my eye makeup but failed at capturing the glitter on my eyes. Lipstick and a bit of bronzer was applied after photo. I need to go on bronzer and blusher classes for dummies and learn once and for all.









Photo of the gang before going out in town.







How fabulous is Ellie’s hair!! (far left)




































I had such such such a lovely time. It was so nice to be able to meet bloggers in real life!

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From Drab to Fab ... Aussie style!

Last Wednesday, I was invited to a big pampering event organised by Aussie Hair Care where I had the chance to a team of 3 professionals: A fashion stylist, a hair stylist and a makeup artist (see my post on the whole event here) Amber was the Aussie Haircare stylist and I had the chance to have a personalised session with her. I was so lucky: Not only I had the chance to get my hair done, but I was able to discover some new products, see how she used them to style my hair, learn on how to do it myself, and had a go at doing it.


BEFORE THE TRANSFORMATION…


I should point out that straight away my hair styling skills are very basic. Other than the very rare straightening for special occasions, I almost invariably let my hair dry naturally as I’ve always been scared to damage it with the heat.In fact, I should just point out that I worry about every little thing: heat damage when styling hair, worried Amber was going to show me a some fancy hairstyle which would be too difficult to replicate at home and also I was scared my hair would become all sticky, stiff, heavy from the hairstyle. Amber worked her magic and you could not shut me up: ‘check me out’ as I was cringingly (is that even a word) and annoyingly giggling across the room and proudly parading my locks in front of my 6 fellow bloggers also invited to the special. To give you an idea of the transformation, a before and after photo.





Before (on the left) is picture of my hair left to dry naturally. The hair  still looks a bit shiny but in reality it was a dry mess, the layers was all over the place, grey hair was fiercely peeking through. The last time I had a haircut was at least 6 months ago, and a colour was overdue. I was so self conscious of my hair that it gave me a kick to have a good 1.5 inch trimmed to freshen the layers and the ends before the event.

For the colour, I used a ‘semi permanent’ home colouring product bought at half price or less.com. (Country Colors, in shade 58, Canyon Red) My hair is super super dark, so this colour would only be noticeable under strong artificial and natural lighting. I really liked the result, but soon I am going to need to use a proper permanent colour done at the hairdresser’s as I really need more lasting coverage for my greys.

 

And this is the result with the hair styled by Amber:


 

To achieve this flicked out voluminous look, Amber used mainly 3 tools:
- Aussie Luscious Long leave in conditioner on the ends
- Then a generous spray of Aussie ‘Volume & Gloss’ also focused on the ends
- and a pair of Babyliss Tone curling irons. No messing around with rollers having to stay there for ages in your hair.


I was even able to try it on myself and hold the curling object and give it a go:
- Spray ‘‘Volume & Gloss’ on  locks of hair,
- roll it (from the end onwards towards myself) onto the babyliss, count to 4 or something like that,
- then gently remove the curl and voilà





Result: Bouncy curls just on the ends giving me the mane of a sexy goddess and just volume all way around. I hope this will not sound too smug, and cringy but I felt like a million dollars. I am not sure the stylist was ready for such a extreme reaction of happiness: What amazed me the most was how easy it is to do as well. Well, I need to get one of those curling irons next!

No hint of sickly elnett perfume in sight, The Volume & Gloss just smells like freshly aussie shampooed hair, and not stiff either. Could it be because of the ‘kelp’ ingredient they were talking about? 


The cherry on the cake? What, there’s more? Yep.
As if this event was not special enough, I was given a generous goodie bag with my very own Volume and Gloss and 2 other new products I’ve never tried before and I can’t wait to try them out.

How has my hair ever looked and felt that good? No.
Can I resist the temptation to post a massive close up of my hair? Sorry I can’t :P 

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Rescued by the A-Team…

How would feel if you were invited to an exclusive pampering evening, where you could consult, on a one to one basis: a fashion stylist, a hair stylist and a makeup artist all under one roof? Pretty excited right? This is how I felt too, when I was invited to Aussie Haircare ‘Rescue’ pampering event, last Wednesday in Leeds. Yet, despite being uber excited at such amazing opportunity, I couldn’t help but feeling more petrified than anything else. As the day was coming closer, I started to get more and more anxious. I had never been to a beauty blogger’s event before and so nervous to meet other beauty bloggers in real life. Fine and dandy blogging ‘hidden at home’, posting  flattering makeup photos of yourself, carefully chosen between hundreds of cast offs. Meeting members of blogosphere in real life was a pretty scary prospect.

Could the anxiety get worse?
Yes it could …

The last time I had a haircut was around Christmas, grey hair peeking through my homemade semi permanent colour. As for my layers, there were part of a big mass of dry hay. Most of all, I was feeling super self conscious about my age, feeling so much older than my fellow bloggers. In a bid to look and feel better about myself, I embarked on a heavy duty exfoliation (crystal clear micro-dermabrasion done at the salon) an long overdue hair trim and a home colour in the space of 2 days. An over zealous beautician, a fatal non recommended hot bath later, and probably contact with the chemical of my hair dye made my skin even worse, and as sensitive as if I had waxed my whole face. My skin was red all over and started to peel badly around the mouth and the last thing I wanted to meet a makeup artist examining every pore and contour of my face. As if it could not get any worse, worrying about it at night prevented me to sleep at night properly for 2 days before, and I was sporting the biggest eye bags ever. I felt like a old and pale grandma who could not even indulge a bit of fake tan and risk to make the skin even worse.

So there I was, last Wednesday, arriving to Leeds, feeling and looking worse for wear. Taxi refusing to give me a lift because my hotel was apparently too close sent me over the edge and there I was with my woolly hat trying to protect my hair from a shower outside and crying my eyes out for the whole twitterland to see because I could not find ‘the headrow’ and was lost in the middle of Leeds. A few celebratory tears as I finally found my hotel, and it was time to regain composure and pretend I was cool, calm and collected.
A massive hug from Emma from Aussie Haircare on arrival and a welcome champagne cocktail from Bartender Ian and my anxiety levels went down to 10% and I could not have hoped for a more fabulous evening.





So who was there?
Myself and 6 other bloggers (Sinead, Carla, Catherine, Briony-Lou, Phoebe and Daisy) had been invited to the most gorgeous venue: a penthouse apartment offering the most breathtaking panoramic views of Leeds, as the sun was setting over the city.  I dread to imagine how much it would have cost to hire this apartment for the pampering evening: wow! And pampered we were! While foxy (but already spoken for) bartender concocted us yummy cocktails throughout the night, we were treated to a fancy finger buffet as we were chatting away and getting to know each other. A few minutes later, I even felt silly to have worried about the event so much: the girls were so friendly and the whole evening felt so relaxed and went so smoothly.

My nerves had nearly all gone then and it was finally time to meet the rest of the aussie team individually and pick their brains and expertise: Lisa the boss, Steven the fashion stylist, Amber the hair stylist and Cassie the makeup artist.





Steven the stylist went through with me some clothes I had brought over for the occasion and I felt so unimaginably lucky to be able to talk with a professional about my body shape, clothes and accessories to make the best of it. The best bit about it was he was not affiliated with any clothing company and not trying to sell me particular clothes or trying to get me into some silly and outrageous outfits.

Time to meet Amber the hair stylist. My hair makeover was a very special experience for me. I realise this post is getting very long so I wanted to devote a post of its own. Click here to see my hair makeover step by step :)

And last but not least, I was super lucky to meet Cassie, the makeup artist. Now if you have been reading about my blog is mainly about experimenting and having fun with makeup so you can imagine how excited I was. Cassie was very nice to me and reassured me straight from the start that she could concentrate mainly on eyes and lips and that made me feel so much better as all around my chin was lizardy dry. ‘What makeup would you like’, she asked. I was craving from tips and techniques on how to achieve a daytime but interesting smoky look. Everytime I had been trying to do a daytime look, it either ended drag (I’m not afraid of colours and I like to pack it on) with heavy cut crease or just bland and boring. And this is what Cassie achieved on me.






So nicely blended, so sophisticated and not a hint of drag in sight, and all this with affordable products from Max Factor which is totally my alley. Just remembering my time makes me feel all fuzzy. I was able to ask questions about the brushes she uses (again, super affordable, they were all from crown) from advice on droopy heavy lids, eyeshadow placement to ‘lift the eye’, how to make smaller eyes bigger etc…


 


Cassie (@cassiemakeup on twitter) wrote down all the products she used on me, on my ‘consultation’ sheet: On the eyes,  Max Factor“420 supernova pearls” powder eyeshadow) mixed ”colour precision” liquid eyeshadow in coffee.  The lips were divine and it was a mix of 2 glosses, one of them being ‘Glowing Sepia 600’ which, if my memory served me right had the most divine cocoa chocolatey smell. I just wished I could go back in time and see the bit when she put the blusher cos I really suck at it. I need to buy the tiny kabuki brush (super handy for travelling) she used to buff in  it as I generally tend to have a heavy hand with makeup.






It was soooooonice to meet in the flesh other blogger girlies, and so cool to have personalised tips and tricks on hair (click here to see my hair makeover step by step) makeup and fashion from the A-team, the Aussie team. Thank you so much guys!

 





 

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