IMATS London 2014

This weekend played host to the annual IMATS (international makeup artists trade show) in Central London. A three day show packed full of makeup brands, demonstrations and talks by top artists, it's a beauty lover's dream! This year was my first year attending the show, and despite many hours spent reading up reviews of past years, I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

I arrived bright and early Saturday morning with my shopping partner Gemma, from Flutter and Sparkle, and pretty much as soon as we were through the doors we made a bee line for the NARS stand, as last year they had some amazing discounts on products. This year was no different, with some lines at 30% off and an amazing variety of gifts sets, each of which was £15. I went a bit crazy (see tomorrow's haul for the evidence!), but it seemed a bit rude not to...

Sheenie, Laura and Gemma

Gemma and Jade

Peering through my purchases...

As we made our way around the other stands, it was great to see some amazing body painting and special effects transformations happening. There was everything from zombies to faerie type creatures being created, and because we arrived so early in the day, we were able to see the transformations as they progressed throughout the day.

At 11.30, Gemma, Laura (from Laura Lou Makeup) and I sat down to listen to a talk by senior MAC artist Pablo Rodriguez, who lead us through four key makeup looks for AW14. This was one of my favourite parts of the day - it's not often you get to see how high fashion/editorial makeup looks are created, and it will be interesting to see how these pass down to the high street over the next few months.

Over the course of the day I did a lot of shopping - some brands had discounts of anything between 10-40% off their usual retail prices, which was great (this was often more if you held a Pro card). It was also nice to see brands such as Makeup Forever, Sugarpill, Inglot, OCC and Lime Crime that aren't always the easiest to find in the UK. There were a few brands missing that I'd love to have seen there - Illamasqua for one - and for the life of me, I couldn't work out why people were queuing up for over an hour to get to the NYX stand (Their products are great, but an hour?!)!

I would definitely love to go along again next year and see more of the talks - these were definitely one of the things for me that made it into a complete experience, rather than just a discounted shopping opportunity.

I'll be posting my haul post tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled for that. In the mean time, here are some of my favourite photos of the day...

The finished look

The finished look

Were you at IMATS this year?