01Jul 2012

Travelling to LA for IMATS 2012

By Sandra D + 2 Beauty, MAKEUP, OTHER Beauty, brushes, eye lashes, eye shadow, IMATS Permalink 0

On June 22nd I flew out to Los Angeles for 4 days, mainly to attend the International Makeup Artist Trade Show (IMATS) in Pasadena, California and do some sight-seeing.

My first IMATS experience was a year ago in Toronto. See my post on that here.

For general information on IMATS click here.

Pasadena Convention Centre

OOTD: Lace dress from H&M, Q Purse, Sam Edelman Wedges (not shown)
Jewelry: Michael Kors watch, Derng rose gold bracelets, YSL replica ring

IMATS is held once a year in Toronto, Vancouver, LA, New York, Sydney & London. The annual show attracts everyone from students, industry professionals, makeup artists and vendors. As well as there being many exhibitors with a number of trade show displays to showcase, there is always a student competition, free classes as well as product and special effects demonstrations. Not to mention all the freebies, which range from Custom Water bottles which are actually very handy as it can get pretty hot in there, to free make up.

I’ve always heard that the LA venue is larger and has many more exhibitors and media then the others do. This year NYX hosted the Face Awards and flew in their top 6 finalists for the competition that was hosted by Perez Hilton. So, I had to go check it out for myself!

Inside IMATS

There was such amazing special effect makeup being done this year!

The show exhibitors that I was most excited to check out this trip were Sigma, bDellium, Lit Cosmetics and Inglot. I was a bit dissapointed when I found out Sigma had sold out of their Kabuki line in the first 2 hours, but they were sweet enough to provide me and others with an online discount code to use. I also wanted to pick up some NYX Matte Lip Creams, some more brushes at bDellium, the Lit glitter base and the Inglot rainbow shadows.

The ladies at the Beauty Army booth were amazing!. I’ve been tweeting them since their US launch and have been dying for their subscription service to come to Canada!

I enjoyed watching the very talented Camila and Tiffany do makeovers at the Sigma booth and also had the opportunity to meet them and other amazing people. Check out my surprisingly small IMATS haul below.

MakeupbyCamila

MakeupbyTiffanyD

IMATS Haul
(not including the 5 rainbow INGLOT shadow compact I am already using – review on that soon)

On the day of the show, I met up with fellow Canadians and good buddies Jessica from Beautizine, Stacey, Pascale & Rica We had dinner and did some local shopping. I also ran into sweetie Steph that evening, who was there with her super cool mom and sister. My friend Mary, who moved from Chicago to San Diego was also there with her friend Rita, so I FINALLY got to meet both of them in person as well!!

Beautiful palm trees and amazing weather during the day

The next day, Jessica, Rica, Stacey, Pascale and I had breakfast at the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) and took the metro to do more shopping at the Beverly Centre. We also had a lovely dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. If you don’t already subscribe to these amazing and talented ladies, you need to go check out their blogs/channels! I was flying out the next morning, so I didn’t get a chance to visit Hollywood with the girls the next day but I felt like I was there, since Rica took hundreds of pictures. xoxo Sandra