Expo Exposé: Beauty Convention Thread

[danielledanielle]

Hey 👋🏽 

So, Sephoria has a special place in my heart 🫶🏽, but.. sometimes the heart wants what it wants...

 

I posted some Hauls from this year's "The Makeup Show" (which is also happening in September) and Ulta had its first bout, Ulta Beauty World.  Thought this would be a good place to share our thoughts, any tea and feedback on these conventions. 

(Pop ups also welcomed - feel free to share dates and experiences on those, too)

Feel free to post photos, upcoming events and impressions.  Give me all the tea ☕ 

 

Also check out:

Sephoria 2024 Atlanta, Georgia 

The SEPHORiA Diaries 2023 

[itsfi]

Not gonna lie, having SEPHORiA 2026 in Los Angeles again was very convenient for me. It's a quick flight.✈️ The heat wave / heat advisory ♨️ presented its share of challenges, but being born and raised in California, I'm more familiar with it than say, hurricane watches or tropical storm advisories. Also, we were allowed to have a bottle of water 🌊 with us while waiting in line and it was made clear that we'd have to pitch it before we headed inside the venue. It's like having water with you when going to the airport - you can have it and be drinking from it, but you gotta toss it before you go through the TSA checkpoint. And once inside, refreshers were available, in the form of coffee and water, at various parts of the venue. 👍

I particularly appreciated La Croix's partnership with Sephora again this year, and again providing and continually replenishing throughout the entirety of the event (a thousnd thank you's!!), their flavored sparkling water. I also want to say that for myself, I appreciated the "pure" non-fruity flavored / non-sparkling water as well. Don't get me wrong, I love sparkling water and sparkling fruit infused water but I'm a fan of plain water too. So helpful to have that available at a SEPHORiA event, even more so at this one when temperatures were much more toasty than usual for this time of year. Thank you, La Croix! Thank you, Sephora!

While I love photos - looking at them, taking them, studying them - it seems as I did very little of that this week; at least, as far as SEPHORiA goes. Sorry, folks. 😣 Will do better next time. Note to self ... Self, 

But here's what we do have ... 

At the Pat McGrath Labs booth. The new PAT McGRATH LABS Lip Sculpt + Shade Lipstick and Lip Liner Contour Duo were on display, along with a photo of the various duos on different models. Chris McMillan whose eponoymous hair care line (which he shared with me that he spent his entire life working on it) recently launched at Sephora. 

I attended the Pat McGrath masterclass on the second day of the event (Session 3). Loved seeing her and her team put the products to work on 3 different models with 3 different skin tones. The session lasted about 40/45 minutes. The masterclass ended at about 1:45pm and while I understand that they wanted us to get out of the venue with our swag bags quickly, I would have liked to have had the last 15 minutes to go to a few more booths, or, at least had the option to do so, particularly given that the session (as opposed to the session + the time it takes to get out and pick up your swag bag) was stated as ending at 2pm. Like I said, I can see that there is reason to move things along but at the same time, it's not unreasonable to expect that the event closes / ends at 2pm and the picking up of the swag bag at the end of the event occurs after the event has come to a close. 

I went to two different sessions this year. I went to almost every booth present, and that was moving at a leisured pace. I'm sure I could have made it to all the booths and to the masterclass going at it at a leisured pace as there were moments, quite a few of them, where I spent just talking with folks from BIC as well as having longer, extended conversations with brand founders or brand reps, both those who've I've met/talked with before and those I was meeting for the first time. 

For Session 3, I had VIP tickets. Compared to the VIP lounge at past SEPHORiAs, this one had more brands inside the lounge. There was a Starbucks bar when you first entered the lounge, which I appreciated as my cold brew hit the spot! And for the sweet tooths among us, some cake pops.

When I saw Eadem on the brand list, I knew I had to go to their booth first, and I did - the ladies there were sweet and engaging and so fun. I shared with them my first experience with their first product EADEM Milk Marvel Dark Spot Serum with Niacinamide and Vitamin C 1 oz/ 30 mL #and how that started my love affair with the brand. #They were very humble and appreciative of the love for their products. Girls, Eadem is gonna get a ton of love; your stuff is amazing!! ❤️

ciele had a game where you spun a wheel to determine the category for the question they would ask you. Some questions were specific to the brand and others were more general in nature. The brand rep saw the look of hesitation on my face when she noted that I'd have to answer a question and shared that I'd be fine & had nothing to worry about because "they're not hard." 🙂 That put me more at ease and, turns out, she was right. 

Saie was also present in the VIP Lounge, as was Manicurist and Chris McMillan.

[danielledanielle]

@itsfi , so when I popped up at Ciele, I answered my BFs question and then was told I'd be given a difficult one 🤷🏽‍♀️ 😂, but it wasn't that bad.  I really like the trivia, love to see it come back.

I was rewarded with minis of ciele blush & PROTECT SPF 50+ liquid blush Berri and ciele blush & PROTECT SPF 50+ liquid blush June

[itsfi]

@danielledanielle, 👍🏻 

[greeneyedgirl107]

@itsfi so happy you got to attend!

[itsfi]

@greeneyedgirl107, thank you; it was great to catch up with folks. 

[danielledanielle]

Sephoria LaLaland Synopsis 

Okay, so it wasn't like that exactly

Let's get this 🐘 out of the way, but I think the swag bag from the regular ticket was okay, but full of a lot of sample sizes vs travel sizes. (Search for the bag, and you'll see).   For myself, these are easier to go through, so it's not a deal breaker, but someone trying these out in the first time at that ticket price? C'mon.  The VIP bag was 🤌🏽🤌🏽A lot of Full Sizes and newer products! The newer products are great, like I appreciate getting to try what I saw at Sephora vs just getting the brands already known products.

I didn't go to the fireside chats, but liked that they were open to everyone.  I wish there was a mini lounge available to everyone, because a little sit break would've been nice.

I did wish it was somewhere else, but didn't mind a warmer climate.  Would've been great without the heatwave 🥵 but honestly, they did their best.  They let us have water in line and had a sizeable tent.  Plus inside there was iced coffee from Starbucks and Paula's Choice , which I took advantage of more so second go round.  They also had energy drinks from Alani Nu and seltzer from LaCroix.

I really enjoyed the Masterclass.  Luckily, I have a lot of the palettes she used on the models, so it was refreshing to see how I could reuse them.  She also went into ways to apply your base, which I did this morning (worked in with fingers, then went in with a brush and I something I did prior ✨ validation ✨ for setting the sides of my face with PAT McGRATH LABS Skin Fetish: Glass 001 Legendary Glow Setting Spray 3.38 fl oz/100 mL )

Also, Pat picked the right crew, they worked together REAAAALLLLLLY well, which made it that much more enjoyable.  I do wish there was a goodie for the class for everyone.  Like, I get your brand had a bit of a time recently, but you could've dropped some older stock...or minis. That would've cinched it for me.  The giveaway was 3 motherships were up for grabs and Pat would sign it, which was good... But the last sale at the direct site went on for months.  Any of that stock couldn't be a gift?  I would take just a lip liner 🤷🏽‍♀️

Timewise.  Not enough IMO.  I think by the time you get in, you're already down 10 minutes if you're not at the front.  Andi feel like they were well organized, it's just impossible to get through everything in 3-4 hours and enjoy the experience fully.  I wish this was extended by an hour for both tiers, like they still shutdown the booths so you could do the fireside chat or a masterclass and not miss out.  Or, have a separate area for games,/goodies/photo ops like Summer Fridays and LaCroix had.

Was happy to see the return of Merch! But, kind of confused on the offering.  There was barely any Sephora branded merch (a water bottle and I think something else, neither appealing to me).  Did love that SKYLAR Pomegranate Princess Eau de Parfum Travel Spray 0.33 oz/10 mL eau de parfum spray was available!  Would've like to see a larger offering, for example a Sephoria sweat set, or the puffy tote that's in the Reward Bazaar but in a fun color like the hallway entrance

The booths this year were better than 2024 imo, but still a little on the conventional side.  I feel like Sincerely Yours had the best booth (dole whip!), followed by Topicals, Summer Fridays, BORNTOSTANDOUT and Touchland.  

I know...I didn't say Fenty. 🙃. It was good.  Fun games, but the line got crazy early and nothing holds a candle IMO to their Merry Go Round Gloss Bomb display.

[missjeanie]

Well BIC'ers... Did anyone get tickets to Ulta Beauty World?  I know a few of us were waiting for the link before 9am CT today but never made it past the online queue.  Hoping to hear we have some members who managed to snag tickets!

[WinglessOne]

@missjeanie  I didn’t bother trying, mostly because I figured my chances would be extremely low. My social media feeds have been dotted with lots of ticked-off Ulta customers who didn’t get tickets, so I’m extra glad I sat the whole thing out.

I do feel for the folks who missed out, especially those who were stuck in hours-long queue purgatory. That sounds like the kind of backend glitchiness I’d expect from Ulta (though to their credit, their site’s consistently worked much better since they’ve cleared some of their redesign bugs over the last year or two). 🤦‍♀️ I’ve seen some people claim Ulta rigged the ticket buyflow code to allow only certain people to get tickets, but nah, I looked at their screenshots of code and they just look like a typical “first come, first served” type of buyflow. Eh, I don’t work for Ulta so I can’t say what they may or may not have actually done behind the scenes. I highly doubt this specific conspiracy theory though.

Today an anti-Ulta Facebook group hit my feed. It was kinda weird seeing so many people say “let’s all take our business to Sephora instead” because of UBW tickets, considering how this year’s Sephoria ticket sale was handled. Like, tell me you didn’t try to get Sephoria tickets without telling me. 😂 To be fair, I didn’t hear of Sephoria shoppers getting stuck in queue for hours. (I didn’t try to get those tickets either.) So a small win for Sephora, I guess. But also, I suppose more people are simply used to Sephoria quickly selling out since that convention’s existed longer than UBW, hence fewer complaints (that I’ve seen) about Sephoria sellout than UBW sellout. Though I did see some very angry Rouge members complaining.

And I’ll stop rambling now. 😅

[danielledanielle]

Not a ramble at all @WinglessOne , it's kind of odd honestly how both of these events went down.  And it's odd that people don't watch the competition, even though the watch each other.  What's weird is no one is benchmarking each other because it's straight up hubris.  They know they will sell out, even if the experience is crappy for long time users.  It goes right in hand with the getting more "first time buyers" since previous shoppers are "too transactional" strategy we've seen Sephora (and so many other places) do.

[WinglessOne]

@danielledanielle  The whole “too transactional” customer strategy still cracks me up. I mean, the only customers who really aren’t transactional are wealthy enough to shop regularly at Hermes, Louis Vuitton, etc. These are shoppers who genuinely don’t worry about monetary transactions on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis. Sure, there’s some psychology behind that; there are wealthy folks out there who actively mother-hen their money. But I’ve never fully understood why Sephora (and any other retailer using this strategy) tries to split money-conscious shoppers from folks who ~appreciate experiences~ when there’s lots of overlap there.

Anyway, I hope UBW goes well this year. Lots of angry people wanna see if it’s full of influencers only, or if non-influencers actually attend, because they’re convinced Ulta rigged ticket sales to exclude regular folks. I still doubt that’s true but hey, I don’t work for Ulta and have no personal skin in this game since I didn’t even try to get a ticket. If UBW gets lots of negative reviews/press/reaction, Ulta might have trouble selling all tickets next year. Or maybe not, since plenty of people will still probably wanna go to next year’s event (if it happens)—but since this is only UBW’s second year, they’re still kinda in a proving ground period. That’s different from Sephoria which is, what, 7 or 8 years old now? (Some folks might subtract the couple virtual-only years.) I’ll be surprised if Sephoria ever fails to sell out. 

[missjeanie]

@WinglessOne @danielledanielle I've also seen a lot of the negativity towards UTLA with regards to this on my social media.  I don't believe people saying it was an influencer only event either.  I've got to think that Ulta set aside X number of tickets that never made it to the ticket queue for those people.  A lot of the complaining going on really makes me think that people aren't actually reasoning out why they didn't get a ticket and just trying to make it Ulta's fault no matter how far fetched it seems to me.  People demanding extra days be added or that they take over a larger footprint of the convention center to people saying they're going to picket the event and make life hard for those setting up or attending.  

I did see a few influencers I recognized last year, but I'm sure the majority of people attending were just like me, a beauty lover who enjoyed getting to attend an experience. 

I do think Ulta had amazing social media buy in after the expo last year and that likely lead to the 'virality' of this years ticket stampede. The number of people who are mad at Ulta who didn't even know about Sephoria tells me they aren't there for the experience.  The number of people I saw before ticket launch for UBW talking about getting loans or not paying a bill or how to use an after pay type of situation to pay for tickets in order to 'get free stuff' was wild.  I really wonder what kind of atmosphere they'll have there this year compared to last. 

[WinglessOne]

@missjeanie  Yep, Ulta posted (on Instagram IIRC) that they‘d basically split available tickets into two batches: one small batch set aside (separate from the public buyflow) for influencers, and one large batch for everyone else. Seems logical and industry standard to me. 🤷‍♀️ I have to wonder how many complainers also yell at music, theater, and sports venues (or performers/teams) that reserve batches of tickets for special/influential guests and end up selling out general public tickets for performances/games*. Or if they’ve ever even tried to buy tickets for a very popular event before. Picketing UBW and demanding Ulta (and brand participants) magically expand their available floor space or add extra days seems very… ugh, I don’t wanna say “entitled” but the only other word springing to mind is “delusional.” And again, I do feel bad for folks who wound up stuck in the sales queue; if that happened, then that’s on Ulta. It may not have prevented ticket sales (the queue might’ve glitched out once all tickets were sold), but it’s a bad experience nonetheless. Quite different from claims of Ulta rigging the buyflow though.

*Excluding instances of actual seller misconduct, like letting scalpers buy in bulk because the seller had no anti-bot protocols in place. And I dunno, maybe whatever the heck Swifties were mad at Ticketmaster for… eh, I don’t listen to or keep up with Taylor Swift… something about her shows selling out too fast, which spotlit Ticketmaster’s alleged monopoly. I don’t recall if TM was legally found to have done anything wrong though. 

And yeah, a lotta folks did seem to want UBW tickets solely because of social media posts they saw of last year’s freebies frenzy. I’m with you on attending something like this for the experience of talking with brand reps, tutorials/masterclasses, maybe meeting some brand founders, trying testers of products not normally found in-store, etc. Freebies are just the cherry on top of the main dessert I actually paid for. Something tells me UBW free stuff might be reduced this year, and then people will complain they didn’t get suitcases full of freebies like last year’s attendees—as if participating brands are obligated to give away so much product. 🙄

I’m still glad you got to do UBW last year and had a good time! 

[missjeanie]

@WinglessOne We're very much on the same page!  

[danielledanielle]

If anyone did @missjeanie , they should play lotto or enter something today...

[missjeanie]

I noticed a few of the Rouge Reward Sephoria Tickets are still available on the US side.  

My 'girl math' tells me that 2500 points are worth 100$ (based off rouge reward value), so the 12500 points for this would have this reward valued at 500$. Two tickets means 250$ per ticket, which is high compared to the original early bird price, but since everything is sold out... Not a horrible deal!

[danielledanielle]

Tickets for Ulta Beauty World go on sale next week 9am CST for Thursday , April 16.  There's also a masterclass happening April 15.  Shout-out to @missjeanie @itsfi for the info

[missjeanie]

@danielledanielle It feels like there's more social media buzz about UBW this year, I wonder if part of that is due to Sephoria selling out so fast?

[danielledanielle]

That and the UBW posts where people were just leaving with wagons... 👀@missjeanie 

[missjeanie]

@danielledanielle lol we used a flatbed cart last year at UBW... mind you it was for 3 of us!  The online chatter I'm seeing also has a ton of people who are flat out saying they're just going to get freebies.  Mind you I think a lot of them think that each brand has a mini store set up and that they get to pick what all the samples are.  It'll be interesting to see how it differs this year compared to last (assuming I can get a ticket)

[itsfi]

For Rouge members interested in SEPHORiA 2026 Los Angeles, CA …