#BLFW Thursday 26th March 2015

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to share with you my experiences of this season's Bloggers Love Hub #BLFW. I shared with you my experiences of the Gossip Girl Gifting Event in this vlog. It did't go to plan & I know a number of people were hurt & upset by this & some of the events that followed. Including one of my very good friends.

I originally thought that the Gossip Girl event would be my last for a while as I will begin to come off my medication on Tuesday. So when I got the email about  the two main events & noticed that one coincided with my hospital appointment in London I decided to make the most of the train fare & go along.

I knew these two events had a lot riding on them to restore people's faith in the Bloggers Love brand & I have to say, they didn't disappoint! 

Please don't judge my photography - I'd had 31 injections in my head, 3 of these in each shoulder so I wasn't brilliant at holding the camera steady!

I met up with Beth from Cow Heart Girl - I'd seen on Twitter that it was her first blogging event & suggested meeting up. It's always nice to meet another individual illness sufferer & Beth was so lovely! I've definitely made myself a new friend! 

As we entered the first part of the studio there were some yummy looking sweets & though I couldn't partake because of my allergies, they were a nice touch to come in to.

The first brand Beth & I spoke to were Magnitone. We had both spoken to their beauty expert, Gina Akers on Twitter earlier that day & were very excited to find out more about the brand.

Gina gave us a brilliant demonstration of how intense a clean the brush achieves with the use of long wearing makeup & a normal cleanser in conjunction with the brush. I was very surprised by how soft the bristles were - I'd never imagined that something that removes so much dirt could be so soft!

You can really see how much dirt the brush has picked up!

From here we moved on to skincare brand Exuviance. I have to give an extra special mention to these lovely ladies, who not only gifted me one of their Gentle Cleansing Cremes, but were so patient & understanding of my need to read ingredients. I'm looking forward to trying this cleanser & reporting back to you!

We bumped in to Aneela from Little Li at the Comb stand & she told us all about the brand. If you haven't heard of them, Comb is an app where you can take a photo of something you love, be it a pattern, colour, etc. You upload it to Comb & can then search for a specific item of clothing (a skirt for example) with that feature & purchase it through the app.

Comb had a sefie stick for us to take photos with & they printed out polaroids for us all! I've loved the idea of having a polaroid camera ever since I first saw one. The drawback to them is that if you take a naff photo you've lost some expensive film! I'll definitely be looking in to getting one of the printers - being able to take a pic, view it & then print it out - who wouldn't!

We went over to lip care brand #LipGlam who had some amazing looking lip balms to show us. Aneela had already told us great things about them, so we were really excited to learn more!

I've put the lip balm on whilst writing this post as my lips were feeling awfully dry & so far I'm very impressed! Keep your eyes peeled for a full review!

Lingerie brand edge o' beyond had some stunning items to show us! They were expensive, but you get what you pay for with these garments in the quality & luxury of each piece. 

We had a nice chat with the lovely people from Mink&Stone, who showed us their ingenious website for designing your own jewellery! You choose the item you want (necklace, bracelet, etc.), choose the materials you want (wood, crystal, beads, etc.) & then design! Your finished product is then shipped to you.

Beth had a go at designing a necklace.

We headed next to accessories brand Snoody Do, who had some beautiful winter hats, gloves & scarves to show us.

This hat was my favourite piece & Beth loved the mittens!

I then met fellow Essex beauty, Jess. Jess is the owner of fashion brand Masquerade Girl, a brand she created when struggling to find something to wear on a night out. Most of Jess' pieces are bandeaux, slimming the figure beautifully. All embellishments are hand sewn by Jess herself & she can custom make to a client's specific taste. As well as occasion wear, Jess has branched out into everyday clothing & is recently begun working with swimwear.

Unfortunately I had missed the first fashion show as I didn't know where it was, but I managed to stumble upon it in time to see Kryptik Rose showcasing their S/S15 collection.

I bumped in to YouTuber Rhianne, who was working as one of the official event YouTubers, earlier in the evening. We had met at the end of the Gossip Girl event & it was great to catch up! I enjoyed snapping some pics of her on the sly!

I didn't take any pictures of the Umberto Giannini stand unfortunately, as I was becoming fatigued (sorry UG!). So I'll describe it to you instead! To the left was a table with a display of their Curl Friends Create A Curl Scrunching Jelly, which I believe is new. To the right was a pop up hair consultation, where bloggers could ask questions about hair styling & get their hair done. I spoke to the lovely lady on the display table, as I didn't want anyone going near my hair just after having my Botox treatment. She loved my hair & was kind enough to give me 2(!) of the jelly's to try. It was perfect timing as I'm looking for a good styling product. Really excited to give these a go!

Then there was the cat! I first noticed him (pretty sure it was a Tom cat because of the shape of his head) whilst I was talking to Jess. He was wandering round quite happily & no one seemed to know anything about him! If you know his story please let me know!

I hope you liked my overview of Thursday's #BLFW!

Did you attend either of the #BLFW events?

What were your favourite parts?

Tania Xx