#LeedsBloggerMeetUp2012

So as some of you might remember, last weekend I spent the afternoon on Saturday in Leeds with a lovely group of ladies at the #LeedsBloggerMeetUp2012. I’d never been to one of these meet ups before – I’ve met bloggers a few times, such as at the IFB Crystals and Crumpets event in London, the Newcastle Fashion Week Chamilia event, and Matalan’s day out at Aintree, but these were all organised by companies. But this was an event created by bloggers, for bloggers to get to know one another. And we happened to be sponsored by some absolutely fantastic companies, and received some amazing gift bags (unfortunately I haven’t got any pictures of mine but pop over to the hashtag of the day on Twitter here to see some of the other girls’ pictures). The day was organised by the brilliant Ray and Tor (who you can see above), who must have put so much hard work and effort into making the day possible, so thank you so much to them!




We were treated to a couple of fantastic talks on Xen-Tan by Amy  and an up and coming company Wild created by Valerie, who explained to us how she started up her business and got to where she is today, beginning to sell products made from naturally sourced African oils. She also explained to us a little about each different oil and how they would suit different skin types before we got a chance to sniff and test them ourselves, and I can truthfully tell you that they were lovely, and with such pretty packaging, I’m certain I’ll be back to buy some soon!
The Xen-Tan talk from Amy also included a new product, Glam Glow, which is a ‘Hollywood’ mud face mask, apparently used by lots of celebrities, particularly on tired, hungover skin! She explained to us about all the different types of fake tan they sell and how they cater towards what women specifically want in a fake tan (smell, no patchiness etc.). Now I’m not a big fake tan user (you can probably tell!) – I’ve had one spray tan in my life (and was laughed at by my friends because we had to go to the theatre while I was still ‘developing’ and a deep orange brown!), and I’ve used gradual developers occasionally, and the proper stuff I think twice. And particularly over the last few years, I haven’t used them. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever fake tanned while having this blog! So I was really interested to hear about these – and they actually do smell nice too! The dark lotion smelled of almonds, another of cucumber. We were given a few small samples of these in our goodie bags, so I’m excited to give them a go, plus the Glam Glow mask!

And while we’re at it, I thought you might like a sneak peek of my outfit – not that sneaky because it pretty much shows it all, but oh well! The rest will be coming as a scheduled post while I’m away, and I’m also planning to add all the links of the girls from the meet up and the sponsors to that post (if I have time!) so look out for that =)