And The Bells Are Ringing Out….For A Festive Xposé Live??? July 23, 2010

News on the grapevine has revealed that given the success of this year’s Xposé Live shows in Cork and Dublin, that there will be a festive Xposé Live from the 19^th to the 21^st of November in the RDS in Dublin. No news, as of yet, if the festive show is going to head south yet.

Xpose Live Comes to the Rebel County June 26, 2010

I am really looking forward the Xpose Live show-I saw a few snippets of it on the TV and it looked great. Will let ye know how I get on. Has anyone gone to it in Dublin last month and if so, was it any good??

UPDATE

(Sorry it has taken so long to get this review up  )

I was really impressed with Xpose Live. Though the venue was small (The Silversprings in Cork)-well much smaller than the RDS at any rate, there was still quite a lot of vendors present. So, here’s the low down:

Beauty

Make-up

Though there wasn’t a huge amount of make-up stands, with the ones present, I was quite impressed. There was a great stand that had all Bourjois make-up and had an excellent offer of 2 items for 5euro or five (YES-I said five) items for a bargain-tastic 10euro. I may have indulged in this offer-what self-respecting beauty hound wouldn’t?

The stand that I was most impressed with was the GOSH stand. Any three gosh products (with the exception of the primer which was 10euro) for 10 euro. This included foundations and other make-up bits (blushes, shadows, lipsticks, eye liners, etc) and make-up brushes. I picked up two Gosh pencil eye liners in petrol blue and lime green shades as well as a pink lipstick. They were such a bargain as most GOSH products start at 10euro plus anyway.

The disadvantage with this stands however, was that there were no testers available so it was a bit of a luck-dip regarding colours and you really were relying on the colour on the packaging, which I know from experience isn’t always a great way of selecting make-up.

Smashbox were also present, with makeup-artists on hand to advise or do your make-up and were offering a respectable 10% off of all their products (If it was a 3-for-10euro offer, like GOSH, I may have ended up purchasing the lot!!).

Fragrance

There was one perfume stand selling celeb perfumes. While it was a good deal (five or so full-sized perfumes for 30-40 euro), I’ve smelled more fragrant bottles of alcohol. On another note, I’d hadn’t heard of half of the ‘celebrities’ that put their names the perfumes.  Even if I had heard of them, I still wouldn’t have been interested. I never buy celeb perfumes as I see them as money-making schemes for celebs who have plenty of money in the first place (a rant for another perhaps…..)

Fashion

There was quite a lot of fashion represented there from shops and boutiques around the country offering 10 to 20% discounts off of their clothing. Other stands had rails of clothes, where everything on that rail was 20, 30, 40euro, etc. To be honest, the clothes stands didn’t interest me much the que’s for the changing runs were extremely long and the changing rooms were temporary constructions of cloth cubicles in the middle of the function room!!!! As a result, I decided to pass on the clothes, as I never buy something without trying it on.

There was a few jewellery and accessory stands also offering small discounts of 10 or 20% off. They hadn’t anything that I hadn’t seen before, so I passed on these also.

The Fashion Show

The fashion show, aside from the bargain makeup stands was one of the best things about the show. Karen and Ashling from the show opened the show, looking oh so glamorous and waif-like in person (whoever said the camera adds ten pounds obviously hasn’t met Karen Koster) for 11am on a Sunday. The show began with a dancing crew/troup? (I’m not too sure on the lingo these days ) rocking it up on stage, before the models came out. The same dancers also provided entertainment during the interval of the show also.

The styling of the clothes was amazing, with some very imaginative themes being used-one was Alice in Wonderland. Think hearts and spades, puffy skirts, ankle socks worn with strappy sandals and large pocket watches. I don’t even like the Alice in Wonderland story, and I was well impressed! One of the models had a Brittany moment, where she came out, and the clothes were the secondary focus, with a large and REAL snake wrapped around her neck. I got a bit worried, as the snake started slithering south by the time she reached the end of the runway….

With regards the clothes, there were offerings from all major department and clothes stores, e.g. BT’s, Debenhams, Awear, Oasis, etc., as well as offerings from boutiques around the country. The only negative about the fashion show, was that there was only two rows of seats around the runway, which resulted in the rest of us not lucky enough to get a seat (ahem, me) standing for the hour-long show.

Fashion, Make-Up and Hair Master Classes

After each fashion, there were master classes run by stylists, hairdressers and make-up artists demonstrating how to get certain looks and sharing their tricks of the trade, which I quite enjoyed.

Celebrities

Sadly, I didn’t spot many celebs, seeing as I went to the last day of the event. The most famous people I spotted were the lovely Xpose girls and guy and Breffney Morgan from the Apprentice and Celebrity Salon.

Competitions

On the day there loads of companies giving away prizes-“Would I like to win a spa weekend for myself and my friend?”, “Yes, yes I would. How do I enter?” J Sadly, I didn’t win anything on the day-oh well….

Goodie Bag

The goodie bag wasn’t anything to write home about. It contained no beauty products (sob), or full-sized items if you exclude the bag of Taytos and Go-ahead bar. It mainly contained discount vouchers and samples from sponsors or vendors present at the show, i.e. Lyons tea-bags, and seven Well Woman vitamin tablets.  I think that the goodie bag from the ‘Glow Feel Good Days’ set the bar so high that it has spoiled me for all other goodie bags!

The most vital question-Would I go again?

A resounding yes!!!! I had a great time, and think that for 20euro, it was great value. The discounts available far outweigh the cost of the ticket, and that’s not even factoring in the fashion show.

Were any readers at the show in Cork? What did ye think?