1 Day...2 Events! (picture heavy)

Two weekends ago we decided to attend a few events that were going on over and luckily for us we could kill two birds with one stone so we attended both the Health, Home and Garden 2012 Expo as well as the Beauty and Health Care Expo 2012. Expos such as these are a great way of finding out what the Jamaican market has to offer as it relates to health and beauty of course, and as Jamaican beauty and fashion bloggers we figured these expos would be right up our alley.

Health, Home and Garden Expo 2012

Admission: JMD$500 for adults
Venue: National Arena
Date of event: Rescheduled to November 9 - 11, 2012 because of Hurricane Sandy

Overview:
This event was not exactly our cup of tea as it was more geared towards home improvement, gardening, furniture and home decor, and companies which manufactured or sold specialty home related items. Now don't get us wrong it was a fantastic event, well executed and very organized. The floor plan allowed you to walk around with ease and besides the huge array of home/house related booths there were also banks, insurance companies, health test booths, etc. There were also live demonstrations, giveways, discounts and free sampling from Lasco and other food booths. When we own our own homes then we can appreciate this event even more, but it was great to see the wide variety of home decor items and companies that are in Jamaica, you actually don't need to go shopping outside of Jamaica if you're looking for unique pieces because it's all here! It was interesting to see how fashion actually inspires home decor as well. Our favourite booths were Matahari, they had gorgeous, but very expensive home decor items and also Custom Furnishing and Joinery Limited they have exquisitely made custom furniture/cabinetry/closets...virtually anything!

Shannon & I at the Flow booth

Matahari

Custom Furnishing and Joinery Ltd.

Beauty and Healthcare Expo 2012

Admission: FREE
Venue: Pegasus Hotel
Date of event: November 11, 2012

Overview:
*Kiss Teet* (as we say in Jamaica). Where do we start? We were expecting a whole lot more from this even quite honestly and we were not impressed to say the least. The booths showcased the typical hair products that you would normally find in beauty supply stores in and around Jamaica and the prices of the products were not reduced at all, for us an expo should showcase products at a cheaper/discounted price and honey these prices were not cheap. It was a bit crowded and when we initially arrived we were greeted by a very loud person performing on stage... ah boy! Apart from a very crowded L'oreal booth, we did not see any other makeup retail booths and there were not many locally made natural hair and beauty products being showcased besides Tropic Isle (manufacturers of Jamaican black castor oil products). We were hoping that it would have been more of a learning expo, but it was simply a showcase of products...with hardly any samples of these products and, how do you classify this as a beauty expo when it seemed to be more centered around hair and hair care products, what about makeup, nail care, etc? The highlight of the night however was meeting Youtube guru JamaicanMakeupArtist at the Motions booth and receiving some free goodies (which we cannot mention *wink*).

Hope you enjoyed!
Debbie & Shannon