‘Take a deep breath Oma’……. These were the words that I spoke to myself as I got ready to head out for the last day of Beauty Business Week. I had such a really busy week attending the last 2days of the Beauty Business Week and keeping up with my other commitments but I was not going to miss this day for anything in the world.
Fast forward to a few hours later, I got to the venue of the event. Sat in with the speakers who were very early, awaiting the participants for their master class. We spent a great deal of time catching up on the blogging world, tech talks and business in general.
Kaylah joined in later and discussed the topic of the day with the speakers while I headed to House of Tara’s booth to get my makeup done.
All this time, the organisers were getting the hall redesigned to suit the concept of the day which was to have a lipstick garden, courtesy Beauty Bar by Essenza. Every seat had a globe with a lipstick in it for the guest. I got a Lancome lipstick but, I haven’t tried it yet. When I do, I will share a swatch video with you.
The highlight of the day was the panel of Beauty and Fashion with Tewa Onasanya, Deola Adebiyi, Nnenna Okoye and Ezinne Alfa. They discussed a lot on the beauty and the fashion industry as an editor, a beauty retailer and as bloggers.
During the session, they touched on creating content and how brands receive feedback. They made it very clear that just because a product worked for their skin, does not mean that it cuts across all skin types. Thus, it was important for brands to realise that just because it dd not work for one blogger, does not mean that it is bad. It just means that they should try other beauty bloggers. However, if they do get the same reaction from a few others, they need to go back and work on their products. There was also the talk on brands reaching out to the media and getting them involved in the publicity of their products. The editor of Exquisite Magazine, Tewa Onasanya mentioned how she got lots of products in her mail while in England but in Nigeria, some brands expect the editors and bloggers to buy the product and still give them placements in their publications, which shouldn’t be so. However, Ezinne Alfa of Beauty in Lagos emphasized the need for bloggers to realise that no one owes them anything. They need to put in the work before expecting brands to give them products. It became clear that as bloggers, you need to have some money to invest in creating content.
Most exciting was the debate of who is a fashionista and who is a fashion icon. That is a debate we will like to throw open to you. The most impressive answer gets a dress made from Veba fabric and tickets to the Africa Fashion Week Nigeria (AFWN) 2017. Entries close on the 28th of May, 2017.
After the session was a fashion show by Toproyal Creations, a dance performance by Rose and special renditions by Jazz Atta.
The founder of World PR Media and the initiator of Beauty Business Week, Tayo Afolabi, gave the closing remarks where she revealed that the Shea initiative which was inspired by the Ooni of Ife was an on-going project. She also called on brands that need investment in the packaging of their products to reach out to World PR for a meeting on the 29th of May, 2017.
These 3 days were amazingly beautiful and quite interesting. I am so glad that I was a part of it and you can already tell as I gushed a lot about it in the little clip I made and posted on Beauty Business Week, SoTectonic and on my personal Instagram page.
Did I mention that I had a mini photo session with Kaylah Oniwo and Moyo? I guess you already saw that. Kaylah did a full post on it and her words were all too kind. Click HERE to read all she said and then view the amazing images I captured using #MYSAMSUNGGALAXYS8.
Mercedes-Benz World PR Beauty Business Week was a success and I am indeed happy that I accepted the request to be a part of the team and contribute my skills. I will not trade it for anything in the world as I look forward to the very next edition. If you attended any of the classes, please leave a comment below and share your experience with me so that others can know what they missed.
On that note, it’s time to insert my little sign-out but first, Shop My Look!
Skirt fabric by Veba (386 Muritala Mohammed Way, Yaba, Lagos.)
Shoes by Ethnik by Owolabi
Hair by ST Hair & Beauty (@sthairandbeauty)
Makeup by House of Tara
Hair Styling by Oma *smiles*. Let me know if you want a 59 seconds tutorial.
All images were shot with Samsung Galaxy S8