Beauty Bloggers Secrets Party: Cologne

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to win a trip to Cologne to attend the Beauty Bloggers Secrets party.  I won it through Mary from Strikeapose, who was one of four bloggers who were invited by Essence to design a makeup pallet, and this month it made it into the permanent collection!

We arrived early in the morning and were whisked off to the hotel in the centre of the city.  The hotel was the gorgeous Artotel Cologne by Park Plaza Cologne close to the city centre with amazing reviews over the river.  We had arrived a few hours early so myself and my travel partner Lissa decided to check out the local area.  We had a great walk along the river bank and stumbled across a delicious food market where we had lunch before heading back to get changed for the first part of the party.

We were greeted at reception with some very refreshing smoothies before heading to the function room, where each of the four bloggers had their tables set up.  We were then invited to sit with each blogger in turn while they explained their palettes to us and we got our own set to take home!  I am so happy to report that the four bloggers were so down to earth and friendly, they certainly deserve all their success!  I loved hearing how and why they chose to design their individual pallets and the nail polishes they chose to go with them.  We got a full set of them, and the most gorgeous pastel makeup brushes to take home.  Soon it was time to get changed for the evening entertainment.

After a refresh we headed down to the patio for a BBQ.  There was so much food and gorgeous alcohol-free cocktails, all topped off with an ice cream bar that I got very excited about!  By the time we were done it was time to move on to the second part of the night, where we were greeted with a table full of Essence makeup.  We were then given our own empty palette and allowed to go wild choosing which products to fill it.  I went straight for the highlighters and creme blushes before finishing up with some eyeshadows, I’m quite impressed with how mine turned out.  We were also given lots of glitter and gems to decorate them with.  I stuck with the simple idea of doing my initials, I’m not the most artistic person.

Soon it was time for the party.  We had been told nothing other than that we should wear white or neon (more on my outfit in a later post), we had suspected that maybe there was a UV theme and we were correct.  A UV disco complete with neon makeup, sweets and a photo booth.  We danced the night away and had a good chat and a laugh before the night was through.

It was a long day, and a lot of fun, made even better by the amazing bloggers I’m lucky enough to call friends that I shared it with.  I stayed an extra night to see more of Cologne, so stay tuned for more of my weekend in this German city, coming soon!