The magic's in the makeup - IMATS Toronto 2010

So you've read all about my IMATS London experience here. Now it's time for IMATS Toronto! It's another long one, apparently, despite a Journalism degree, I am incapable of editing and type the way I speak.

It was a totally different experience for me, in London I was 'media' so was going in a more official capacity I suppose. I was soaking it all in for the article and eager to catch a couple of seminars and talks and as I mentioned, I managed to see David Klasfeld, Terry Barber and Alex Box. I was by myself (although me being me, I had accrued a couple of companions by the end of the day!) and it was kind of a more educational day for me, I wasn't sure what to expect and went with the flow of the day.

This time, however I was with Best Friend Tia, I had a much better idea of what to expect and what I was looking for and shopping was the main priority! If I had been by myself I probably would have tried to catch a couple of seminars but I wasn't too too disappointed.

We were staying at the Radisson which couldn't have been more perfect, it was literally next door to the venue. On the hotel shuttle from the airport, guess who we bumped into! None other than Mr Koren, aka Enkore Makeup and Miss Elessa aka Pursebuzz! I had met Koren in London very briefly, not that I expected him to remember! They had both come off flights and I imagine the last thing they wanted to do was make small talk with us, but they were both lovely and very friendly when we saw them again on the Saturday.

So we were up bright and early on the Saturday and headed over to the venue about 8.30 ish after a vital breakfast at Tim Hortons. Tia and I already knew basically what we wanted and by the time we had waited in line to get our wristbands, were eager to start spending money!

The first booth we headed to, as I remembered how popular and quickly sold out they were in London, was Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics to pick up my obsession, the Lip Tars. Tia had never heard of them before and I pretty much waxed lyrical about them, 'No seriously, Tia, you don't understand how good they are, no seriously, like they are so amazing, you will never want to use anything else, seriously though, you don't understand!'. I had pretty much bigged up Lip Tars because I love them so much! I picked up a few new colours, as well as a new Feathered, the white one, because mine is running out. Tia also picked up a few including Momento, I wish I got that one, it's so gorgeous! Next time! I was helped by the man himself, the creator of OCC, David Klasfeld. He is again, so nice and said that he remembered me from London, which was very sweet! I am building up my collection of Lip Tars, I used them on a couple of Prom Make-ups I did this summer and they went down very well! It's so great when a smaller company creates such a fab product that far exceeds anything from the huge powerhouse brands. Judging by the crowds around the OCC booth, I'm mos' def' not the only one who's addicted.

Our next stop was Make Up For Ever, which was 40 percent off. Um, amazing. The system however was not so amazing. Basically you wrote down what you wanted, handed it to one of the girls at the booth, they then bagged it up and you had to go round to a separate table, wait for your name to be called and pay. The problem was that the sheer number of customers meant that the wait to pay was rather long and people were getting frustrated. I can see that in principle it could have been a good idea but in reality it would have been far easier to just give your money to the girl who bagged your goodies. Anyway so we were there for rather a long time but I have to say a big thank you to the lovely girl from MUFE who gave me the last glitter no. 6 and literally held it in her hand even while helping other people, whilst I was deciding what else I wanted. Thank you! Despite the wait, it was totally worth it. I love MUFE and 40 percent off is pretty damn good!

After that we hit up NYX. I was very excited about that as I was under the impression that it couldn't be bought in stores in Canada. Apparently I've been living under a rock as you can buy nyx at Rexall/Pharmaplus. Cannot believe I only just found that out. Anyway we picked up a few essentials (!) and moved on. We had a quick look at the museum section, which was, as in London, very impressive. I will never cease to be amazed by the amazing special effects and prosthetics. It truly is art. After wandering around, picking up more goodies, I made my way to Face Atelier. I was lucky enough to have a chat with the founder, Debbie Bondar who is fab. I also finally picked up a full size bottle of the amazing foundation! I'm definitely interested in trying some of their other products which I've heard great things about. I love that they're a Canadian company too!

I picked up a few other things but my next post will be an IMATS haul. I feel like I didn't get too much but the things I got, I love!

Here are a couple of my, as to be expected, terrible pictures. To be honest I only brought out my camera for 2 mins. I needed both hands for shopping!

It was a fab day, so glad I went. Definitely want to try and get to Pasadena next year!

Speak soon,
Love Sophie xx