Hello lovelies,
I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend. I was at Brendan Courtney’s, The Style Show today in Cork. I had a lovely day, although at the start I wasn’t all that impressed. Let me explain….
When we arrived at the hotel, we were offered a complimentary glass of wine or a free cup of tea or coffee, which was a lovely touch I thought. Then we spent ten minutes walking through three small rooms/areas, in search for the main exhibition hall, only to find that we had seen it all!!! There weren’t that many stands to be honest, which was disappointing. Benefit had a stand with a great range of products to buy and test, as was skincare brand Avéne. I was really interested in the Avéne products, but unfortunately none of them were on sale at the show. They had a few pots and tubes of products that you could squirt and test out, but had no sachets for interested customers to try out. They did however, tell you what stores in Cork you could buy their products (which I will definitely be going into, for a more in-depth look!).
In terms of fashion, there were three of four jewellery/accessory stands and a few clothing boutiques who had clothes on sale, with 10-20% discount off of the stock on display. I spotted a lovely chunky, glossy black chronograph watch that I was tempted to buy, at one of the stands. It was 25 euro, which is pretty reasonable I think. In the end, the Sis ended up buying if for me for Christmas, which is brill!! The only thing is I have to wait another few weeks yet, until I can wear it 
Perfectil nails were offering a free mini manicure to show goers but the appointment slots were booked up so quick. I visited the stand at 12.30 (the doors opened at 12), and the next available appointment was at 4.15!!!! Benefit also had a stand where you could get your brows done for something like 17 euro. I didn’t bother with this though, as the queue was a mile long, and I wanted to get a good seat at the fashion show.
So the exhibition part of the show was okay overall. The fashion show on the other hand was ah-ma-zing!!!!! Well worth the 15 euro it cost for the ticket. Brendan Courtney MC’ed the event, and was an absolute scream. I swear, I was in stitches laughing at what he had said. Before the fashion show started, Brendan, and his Kurt from Glee look-a-like assistant, gave away loads of spot prizes to people in the audience who asked him fashion and beauty questions (some of the prizes were the new Benefit sets for Christmas!!!!) . There was also a hair stylist from a local hair salon in Cork and the head make-up artist for Benefit on stage, who did fab make-overs on two willing volunteers from the crowd.
Brendan provided great fashion and make-up tips, when answering the audiences questions, as well as asking the make-up artist and hair stylist to give their opinions too. The fashion show itself was a great production-and had lots of lovely offering from both local shops and boutiques as well as bigger department stores and shops, such as Awear and Debenhams.
Brendan’s Off The Rails style book was on sale at the show at a huge reduction. The book normally retails at 16.99euro, but if you bought it at the show, you only payed 5euro. I ended up buying the book, as it looks like a good read and was great value.
The fashion show ended up being over two hours long, and as a result I missed my 4.15pm nail appointment. I wouldn’t mind, but I left the show as fast as possible, to head down to the nail stand, but I was too late
Everyone got a goodie bag at the end, even though the queue’s for them were ridiculously long!!! I persevered though, and insisted on waiting to get my goodie bag (my poor Sis though-she has the patience of a saint for putting up with me). The goodie bag contained some lovely Lindt chocolate truffle sweets and a bar of their chocolate, a copy of this month’s Social and Personal magazine, a little sample of Benefit’s You Rebel tinted moisturiser and a little sample of Benefit’s Crescent Row Perfume, a small tube of Radox Smoothie Shower gel, as well as other money off vouchers.
I had a lovely day and would definitely recommend going-Brendan Courtney is hilarious!!! On a final note, for all you Off The Rails junkies (myself included), Brendan announced at the show that Off The Rails is going be running for an hour slot soon!!!! Bring on the style and fashion 
What were you up to for the weekend?? Have you gone to any of the Style Show events???
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