Olympia Beauty

So finally, as requested, here is my post about the Olymipa Beauty show I attended on Sunday.  I described it in my previous posts (one of them) but for those of you that aren’t aware, Olympia Beauty is a trade beauty wholesale show held at Olympia London.  I managed to wangle a ticket through my friend Jo who is a beautician, and I was massively excited to attend because everything there was sold at trade price, meaning CHEAP NAIL VARNISH FOR ME!

Like a total spaz I could barely sleep on Saturday night as I was so excited.  Jo and I go up early, grabbed our oyster cards and managed (somehow) to get to the show by 11.30am.  It opened at 11 and it was MANIC when we first turned up, we couldn’t believe it!  It was worth the queue for the ticket printing machine though, because when I walked through the big open doors and saw the biggest OPI stand I have ever seen in my life I nearly cried!

LOOK AT ALL THE BOTTLES

I was hoping OPI were going to be showcasing the new Skyfall collection and hopefully letting us pre-order it – you can imagine how much of a total meltdown I had when I saw it was THERE TO BUY, 10 days before it’s official UK release date!  I spent about 30 minutes browsing the extensive nail vanish collections and picked up The Living Daylights, The World is Not Enough and Casino Royale from the Skyfall collection.  I also grabbed I Just Spotted The Lizard from the Spiderman collection, because I don’t own any polishes like that and I thought it was lovely.  It’s one of those colours that looks a bit like oil, where it’s blue but when you tilt the bottle it goes a greeny yellow colour?  Heart!  I then went and had a look at the back of the stall that housed all the other beauty bits you would need.  All the manicure and pedicure creams, tools etc.  I grabbed myself some OPI toe separators (they were like 60p a pack?) and an awesome product called Correct & Clean Up.  Basically a pen that is flat on one edge, so if like me you are rubbish at painting your nails without getting it all over your fingers, this tool is the right shape to remove the polish from around your nail, and not accidentally rubbing it off the nail too!  (P.S please excuse the picture of the nail polish, I know it’s like a 5 year old took it with a disposable camera BUT I took that at 1am this morning as it’s the only time I had to do it!  Forgive mee!)

Casino Royale, Just Spotted The Lizard, The World is Not Enough & The Living Daylights

I got a few other bits and bobs from a random wholesale nail polish store.  I grabbed a job lot of orange sticks as you can never have too many, a few decent buffers and nail files and some triangular nail polish guides (These come in SO useful for nail art it’s ridiculous!)  I also grabbed some nail decorations which were so cheap.  They came in a little box containing 4 designs; stars, balls, bigger but flat circles and small strips – they had these in silver and gold but I went with gold as I prefer that colour so much more on nail art!  I also got a little tub of brush on nail glue as that always comes in handy!

As Jo is in the trade she needed to get some bits, so next we went to an awesome stall called Roo Beauty.  It sells Beauty trolleys, bags, cases and tool belts for makeup brushes, nail polishes etc.  Jo LOVES leopard print and saw they had an entire leopard print range so definitely wanted to go and buy a new beauty case.  I wasn’t even looking but the nail polish cases were so cute and were massively discounted for the show so were only £10!  I bought one as I figured if I am travelling somewhere and need to take a selection of nail polish with me (for those indecisive moments) it’s a really handy case to have – look how cute it is!

Next we hit up Louella Belle, which is the UK distributor for Essie & Seche.  I got massively excited by the sheer size of the Essie section but when I actually looked at each colour I thought “I already own a colour like that” about pretty much everything, so left empty handed L Sad times for me, good times for my credit card company!  I then went and had a look at Seche, the creators of Seche Vite, probably the best top coat I have ever used in my life!  It’s thick, it dries SO QUICKLY, it makes nails super shiny and it also makes my polish last for days without chipping.  Seche have produced a line of nail polish that is supposed to be every bit as good as the top coat.  That is a strong claim to make as the top coat is so so so brilliant, but if it’s true then Seche will soon be one of the top contenders for popular professional nail polish, mark my words!

After having a walk around and looking at all the other stalls (I ummed and ahhed over Konad for ages but decided against it – so expensive and the designs aren’t even that nice?) I came across China Glaze.  This polish is all over the blogs and people rave about it, but I had never used it before.  They had some acid bright tropical colours that I fell in love with so I decided to pop my china glaze cherry and buy these two.  Haven’t tried them out yet, but i’ll do swatches of them soon J The names are Beach Cruise-r (the purple) and Love’s a Beach (the pink).

Lastly, I went back to Louella Belle and grabbed some Ardell lashes.  I have used these lashes before and I liked them but the glue that came in the packet was rubbish!  For a start it was in a little paper tube that you ripped the top off and it went everywhere!  I preferred the glue with Eyelure so always stuck to them (excuse the pun).  When I saw they were selling the Lash Adhesive in black I decided to get some of that to tackle the glue problem – my friend Jo swears by this and admittedly it’s so much easier applying black glue to your lashes instead of the white glue and waiting for the colour to fade.  I LOVE the lashes I got and can’t wait to use them - I know they are all pretty similar but I love big, wispy fluttery eyelashes – easier to bat your lashes at the lads ;)

Did any of you attend the Beauty show?  If so what bargains did you pick up? x