My Fashion Night Out in New York

Imagine you're walking down 5th Avenue in New York City...the glitz, the glamor, the fashion, all enticing you to spend, spend spend! That was my experience this past Thursday on Fashion Night Out. I was a good girl though, living on a budget.

I did however want to share the experience with you, although it's a bit late. I wanted to tell you about it before I got into the details of my Total Beauty Tour.

This past Thursday's Fashion Night Out in NYC was truly a fashion diva's night of excitement. People were swarming the stores looking for that special deal, new product or freebie. Since I'm working off a newly created budget, a list minute shopping spree wasn't exactly in the plans. So I focused on the "freebies" and the taking of my own personal inventory. By that, I mean collecting info. in the form of photos, of all the items I intend to buy.

I wanted to share some of what I discovered at the participating stores I visited at this year's Fashion Night Out. My first stop was Sephora, where I received a complimentary airbrush makeover with the new TEMPTU Airbrush Makeup System (only available at Sephora). I absolutely love how easy the technique is and how it makes the skin look almost flawless. It virtually eliminates the need for concealer! Unfortunately for me, I had a make up application the day before that caused my skin to react. However, the airbrushing results were stunning, none the less. Here are videos I had taken of me getting the makeover:

TEMPTU is surprisingly only $225. Two makeup pods are $55 and last approximately 4 months with daily use.

Next stop on Fashion Night Out was Tiffany & Co. What I love about Tiffany is that they cater to almost any wallet size. There's something for just about anyone.

To add to their class and style, Tiffany & Co. celebrated Fashion Night Out by giving away complimentary iced tea, iced coffee, and these little cakes designed like a signature Tiffany box:

Tiffany also had a candy station where the "sweet at heart" assembled bags of assorted candy in the signature Tiffany colors, blue and white. I'm the biggest candy lover so I didn't realize that I hadn't photographed my candy bag before I ate everything in it...

After Tiffany & Co., I stopped by Channel, Coach and Henri Bendel. Coach had 2 artists available to design a $180 canvas bag with custom artwork. One of the artists specialized in graffiti. Here's a pic of one of the bags he finished:

Now, I may get backlash for this next statement but whatever...If I spent $180 on a bag, I don't want ANYONE coloring in on it! Besides, I save that job for my son. Enough said.

At Chanel's people were designing their own signature handbags for a couple hundred dollars. I didn't stay long.

Henri Bendel had a number of cool things going on including stations to create your own designer bangle, designer sandals and fragrances. There was also a raffle going on where 3 prizes were raffled off: a beauty box, dinner for 2 and I think dance lessons. . . yeah

Oh, how I wanted that beauty box! Bendel offers some very fashionable and unique items. Here are just a couple that caught my eye:

Aren't these the cutest rhinestone earphone covers?

I just love fashion costume jewelry!

So that was my experience with Fashion Night Out 2009. Of course the exclusive events were reserved for the rich and famous but I had fun on my scale.

I'd love to hear from you. Give me your thoughts on the stores, prices and events I mentioned! I think I'll budget in a shopping spree for 2010!

In a couple of days I'll go into the details of the stops I made on the beauty tour last week so check back!

Explore The Total Beauty Experience - Day 1

The last few days have been amazing! I attended Total Beauty's annual blog summit.  It's Fashion Week in NYC and Thursday was Fashion Night Out so that added to the festivities and excitement.

Normally, I don't get all caught up in the glitz and glamor, downplaying things and keeping it mostly natural.  However, how could one not get caught up in all the beauty, skin care, fragrance and style :-)

I wanted to share all of the events, photos and a special video I had done of me getting my face air brushed at Sephora.  NOW I know how the models look so darn flawless. It's fake LOL.

Before I get down to sharing (which will take place in a number of posts), I wanted to give a big hearty THANK YOU to Total Beauty for making the beauty tour and informative seminars possible.  I can not express my gratitude enough. I got to meet some amazing people in the beauty industry who I may never have crossed paths with.

During our Total Beauty tour in New York City, I had the pleasure of visiting and going behind the scenes with Victoria's Secret Beauty, Chanel, Tractenberg & Company (a large PR firm), Kiehl's, Molton Brown, Warren Tricomi (at the Plaza Hotel in NYC), and the infamous L'Oreal.

I have to give big props to Victoria's Secret and L'Oreal.  They really took care of us.  I can't even do them justice by giving them a little honorable mention so I will share with you separately about my time with them and some of the others that help shape our world of beauty.  Over the week or so, I will share in defined detail the wonderful things that I experienced on Wednesday and Thursday.  In the meantime, here's an overview:

Wednesday (traveled most of the day via tour bus):

• Met up with Total Beauty team and  received a nice tote bag (to the right) filled with some nice goodies (chocolate...yippee!, water, pretzels, a travel coffee mug, signature notebook and pen)
  
  
• Breakfast and new product previews (yet to be released!...coming for the Holidays) at Victoria's Secret headquarters. They were very generous to us bloggers and I can't wait to share this one with you in a day or so. Hint: 1,000 Wishes
  
  
• Visited Chanel Boutique in Soho and received a sneak peak of some of their latest skin care offerings. Chanel sent us on our way with a nice little signature bag that contained one of their nude nail color polish and some of the new skin care samples
  
  
• Visited Tractenberg & Co. to preview products from 22 of the brands they provide PR for. They also provided lunch. This was a very busy site as there were so many products to view.  I am not going to share them all with you because some were not nearly as impressive as others.  Over the next few days, I am going to give you my opinion on the products I sampled and were impressed with.
  
  
• Visited Kiehl's (signature skin care store around since 1851!) and received an overview of new products and some generous samples and a full size jar of their body cream (very luxurious and decadent...more on this in a future post)
  
  
• Visit to Molton Brown for a preview of some of their new products and a snack of mini cupcakes
  
  
• Visited Warren Tricomi at the Plaza Hotel for introductions to some of their product offerings.  This place is truly classy. I was introduced to a number of product lines.  3 or 4 of them left a really good impression on me and I will share that in a few days as well.  I also met up with one of the buyers and she requested that I get her some samples of my Blended Naturals line!! I can't wait to share this one for you. Imagine li'l ole me at The Plaza!
  
  
• Night ended with dinner at TAO, a hot spot in NYC. Dinner was delicious and a raffle was conducted of which two lucky ladies won a video cam and an I Touch. Here are some photos from dinner:

That's it for today. I'll give you Thursday's dish tomorrow and more over the week.  Check back daily. I plan to give it you the entire tour in bite size chunks!