Tuesday, May 7, 2013

My Adventures in Europe - Part 2

This past week I flew 2800 miles to NYC just to smell my latest lip gloss.  It is crazy the things I have to do!  But I want everything to be perfect just for you:).  The fragrance in the pre-production samples was WAY too strong...taking the lip gloss from yummy vanilla baked goods to smelling like burnt brown sugar.  Ugh!  So I traipsed across the country to be on site and literally smell the batch as they added fragrance by minute percentages.  It took the entire day to get it right!  Shocking how finicky fragrance can be.  I literally had 6 beakers full of lip gloss in front of me with different strengths of vanilla...and it is all about picking the right one.  There were a few other stops along the way, but now I am back in California and couldn't be happier about it!

...Until I decided to try a new eyeshadow pencil formula this morning for my fall collection in 2014.  Disaster!!!!!!!!  I looked like a drag queen.  No joke.  Usually I try to save my efforts, but no matter what I tried, it just got worse.  It was finally clear that I had to start over.  I'm texting Jamie (my marketing guru, shade-naming extraordinaire) as this is happening.  


With no extra minutes to spare, I had to totally start over making me super late to work.  But such is a day in the beauty life!  John Maly is used to these outrageous excuses by now:).  He just stares at me as I am explaining and shakes his head like he totally doesn't get it...but whatever.

And now on to the reason I decided to write today in the first place.  I figured I should continue my tale of my experiences in Europe.  Hmm...where was I?

Oh yeah...I just fell down the stairs with my luggage.  Ouch.  So I was haggard and about to have a break down when I finally met Stephanie Sandoval (our International Sales girl that speaks fluent Italian).  I felt like a pouty child by the time I finally found her, but she took care of everything and we arrived in Florence.  We spent two days there while we acclimated to the time difference and we were on a mission to find all things gorgeous leather.  Stephanie had lists of gifts to buy, but I was just shopping for me:).  Retail is like therapy to me.  Seriously.  I tried to stay awake the entire first day by shopping and sightseeing.  As it got dark, I was really dragging.  And then I found the most wonderful leather shop that sold handmade custom journals.  I'm talking CUSTOM STAMPED LEATHER.  Absolutely beautiful!  I perked right up and started shopping.  Not that I ever write in a journal...it is hard enough to blog.  But I just loved them.  I found these amazing mini size journals for all of nieces.  Can't wait to gift them to my gorgeous sweethearts.


We shopped the leather markets in the rain, but I loved it.  My goal was to find an amazing leather purse to invest in.  Mission accomplished!  I seriously love this bag.  Supposedly it is a direct knock-off of one of the latest Prada designs.  It is lovely.  We also visited all the main sites in Florence.  My favorite was the museum of all things Gucci. Even the cookies were shaped in GG.  I snapped a few pics illegally...but I wanted you all to see.



Alas, it all ended too soon as we grabbed a train to Bologna to setup for the show.  Cosmoprof Bologna is the world's largest beauty trade show.  Absolutely incredible!  Love this picture of John.  Stay tuned for stories from the show.



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