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Last weekend was Gen Beauty NYC 2017 and I attended for the first time. For those who don’t know, Gen Beauty is hosted and founded by ipsy. It’s a huge beauty expo where brands, content creators, and beauty lovers come together to enjoy all things glamorous! Some brands give out free products, some sell products at a discount and some simply are sharing their newest releases. The best part of Gen Beauty is the swag bag, though. For the cost of your ticket, everyone gets a jam-packed goodie bag filled with tons of full size and deluxe sample sized products from the brands at the event. If you want to see me use some of the products I got in my Gen Beauty Swag Bag 2017 plus hear more tips about Gen Beauty, then keep reading…
I purchased my ticket on Labor Day weekend and got it on sale for $89 + tax. Early Bird prices are also $89, but the normal price this past year was $159. Lesson learned: DEFINITELY get the early bird ticket price because I don’t know if I’d say it was worth it paying full price.
I gave away a LOT of products off the bat in my bag because I either owned them already or tried them myself. Examples include Benefit High Brow, Make Up For Ever Smoothing Primer, Lancome Monsieur Big and some random deluxe samples. But overall, I calculated the approximate value of the bag to be $414. Considering I paid $89ish for my ticket, I didn’t do too bad. This doesn’t even count the free goodies brands may have been giving out at their booths ON TOP of what they put in the bag.
By far, the top product I tried at Gen Beauty 2017 was IGK’s Girls Club pink wash out hairspray! It’s brand new and I was lucky enough to have one of the founders, Leo (works out of Miami) apply it to my hair. If you follow on Snap or IG, you got to see it last weekend. I’m definitely getting the full size during the upcoming Sephora VIB sale in November.
Second had to be my favorite fragrance brand, DefineMe. They’re currently only sold at Ulta.com, but you better be ready to expect big things from this indie company. Their fragrances are just beautiful! Even cooler, you can custom blend/combine their fragrance oils to get a unique scent. I personally am obsessed with Delphine and Clara.
Of course, I couldn’t use EVERYTHING in the bag of $414 of products, but I picked out my top, can’t-wait-to-try picks and used them here.
What do you think? Would you go to Gen Beauty in 2018? I’m still on the fence but at least if I go next time, I’m going to be prepared to pay the early bird price for sure!
-Steffanie
