I'd never been to an event like this before, but from reading other people's blog posts about the previous Elle events in Harvey Nichols in London, Leeds, Birmingham and Edinburgh, I was quite excited. It's a shame that I left disappointed. Yes there were cocktails and canapes, but as I'm on a weight loss challenge at the moment I had to stick to a glass of OJ and resist the canapes. But where were the demonstrations? I was there for almost 2 out of the 3 hours and in that time there was just one proper demonstration, a makeover by Shu Uemura. All the counters were offering make-overs, but as I hate other people doing my makeup, I decided to resist. I did have a hand and arm massage from Jo Malone which was really lovely and has made me really want the orange blossom scent from the range. But other than that, there was little else going on. At the Nails Inc counter, you still had to pay for a manicure; I would've thought for a special event like this they would have been free.
If you've ever been to Harvey Nicks in Bristol, you'll know that it is very small. There isn't a huge number of beauty counters, so it was actually quite difficult to spend two hours looking at all the products, even for a beauty addict like me! Some of the counters had loads of extra staff who weren't doing a lot, whereas others had only one member of staff who was busy and harried (Chanel).
I eventually couldn't resist the hard sell any longer, and got out my credit card (I know I'm supposed to be on a spending diet...). I bought 3 Nails Inc polishes for £20, but got £15 off from my ticket price. I then spotted a little shelf of Butter London polishes. I'd not seen these in the flesh before, but I'd been craving All Hail McQueen, so I bought that for £10. I also bought two tubes of Sexy Mother Pucker lip gloss from Soap & Glory. I then decided to buy Chanel Intimitable Intense Mascara... Whoops!
What I was sorely disappointed in was the lack of swag. I entered a Laura Mercier competition, but other than that, there were no freebies at all. Where was the promised goodie bag??!! That's half the reason for going! There also didn't seem to be any Elle staff on hand, or if there were, they didn't identify themselves. When I bought my Chanel mascara, the Chanel lady was busy carrying out another make-over, so a different member of Harvey Nicks staff served me. She asked me if I wanted a bag for my mascara - come on, it's Chanel! Of course I want a bag for that!!! She also didn't give me any free samples. I'd seen the proper Chanel lady filling up her customers bags with freebies! So I left with nothing that I hadn't paid for. It was a poor show from both Harvey Nicks and Elle.
Anyway, after my rant, here's my haul:
Nails Inc polish in St John's Wood
Nails Inc polish in Neal Street
Nails Inc polish in Duke Street
Butter London polish in All Hail McQueen
Sexy Mother Pucker by Soap and Glory
Inimitable Intense Mascara by Chanel.
By the way, one of the Nails Inc polishes (Duke Street) and one of the Soap & Glory glosses will be part of a forthcoming 100 followers giveaway I have planned.
Thanks for reading! xx
