A Wren Says

Day 1 of Sephoria. I  think this event might be cursed. Hoping to attend last year’s event in New York, I learned that the first day was canceled due to flooding after heavy rain. There was a risk that the same might happen in Atlanta. Sephoria, essentially Sephora’s beauty convention, was supposed to be two days filled with brand activations in the makeup, skincare, haircare, and fragrance lines. However, Hurricane Helene’s storm path through Georgia almost canceled the show. I had a ticket for the second session of the day, starting in the evening. The rain had cleared up by then, but the day’s events were pushed back an hour to ensure safe passage for everyone on the roads. I am pretty sure the first session was cancelled.

I got to the site roughly 5:45, with doors opening at 6 PM. There were already people in line. Once 6 hit, the line started moving ,and we went fairly quickly through.

I noticed that they took the clear bags only policy seriously, as there was a set of abandoned purses and belt bags as I wound through the line. I mean either abandon your $30 bag or forfeit your $135 ticket to the event and all the value that came with it. I would have probably done the same. Luckily, I thought to only bring my phone and wallet and wear pants with pockets.

The time slot that I had was only three hours. Once I got inside there were already lines at many of the booths. The Charlotte Tilbury line was intimidating. I chose to hop around to booths that had little wait time. I went to the YSL Beauty spot, listened to a silent disco headphones, but was too shy to dance. Those assisting at the booth helped me so I finally learned where to place blush for my face shape and colors that work for my skin tone.

In the Next Big Thing section, there were many up and coming brands. At each of the booths, or most of them, the founders were there. I had an extensive conversation with the founder of Ami Cole on how the brand came to be and my own vision for myself. The founder of Brown Girl Jane talked to me about here favorite scents for different occasions. I would say that it was wild to me that people were coming to get the free stuff from the booths but didn’t realize what the actual founder, early stage entrepreneur was there. There was no better time to ask questions and get to know the products better.

At Valentino beauty they demoed their new Spike Valentino lipsticks. Nars focused on their creamy satin explicit lipsticks. Maison Margiela had a Parisian café scene to showcase their new fragrance. Dr. Dennis Gross was at his booth giving one one skin consultations. At the Forvr Mood booth, Jackie Aina and her husband and cofounder, Dennis, were meeting with people. She is just as gorgeous in person by the way.

And of course there was many more.

The three hours flew by. With the number of people there and all the lines, I didn’t make it to all of the booths. I was also hungry and dehydrated because there was no food inside. When the event closed at 9 I was glad to head out to rest and get something eat, but I had a lot more left to see Day 2.