Well the big day has come and gone and I can’t wait to share all of the highlights, videos and pics with you Stars! A Day Of Beauty 2016 sponsored by Dollar General was a HUGE success!!  The theme for this year was “Beauty From The Inside Out”, which is also the recurring theme in the latest issue of Beauty Cents Magazine.  Check out the Fall 2016 issue!!  You may see somebody familiar in there. 

In select Dollar General stores nationwide starting July 25th!

The event included product previews from major brands found in DG stores, celebrity guests, live demos, live entertainment, giveaways, a beauty lounge, mascots, photo opps, loads of samples and even charging stations to keep your devices ready for action.  

BRUNCH WITH DOLLAR GENERAL

The day got off to a great start with a delicious brunch at the Hilton, Downtown Nashville.  The room was filled with some of the best beauty influencer’s nationwide as well as brand managers, marketing directors, vendors, volunteers and representatives from Dollar General.

I’m always ready to eat and socialize. Grub time!

I know this looks like a serious conversation…but really we were just cracking jokes about Pokemon, while Melissa Watkins of FabGlance.com made her case about how serious the app is.

It gave us a chance to unwind, break the ice, network a bit and prepare for the details of the day.  After our delicious meal we spent some time getting silly fooling around with the social app Boomerang and taking dope selfies in the best lighting ever!

Just a bunch of beauty bloggers playing with their phones and talking social media….nothing to see here lol.

I had a great time catching up with some of my Nashville colleagues including my blogger team from Nashville Creatives.  It was a mini reunion with bloggers/vloggers that I worked with at last years event as well as an opportunity to meet some of my favorite beauty influencers that I’ve been following for years. I finally got to meet them in person!

This is my height challenged but tall hearted buddy, Wine’ing Momma. Her hair color is GEORGEOUS!!! If you ever need your color done and you’re in the Nashville area, hit up Amber at Lucy Bell Salon in Smyrna.

I got a photo opp with Kim Kimble, who was so chill and sweet, by the way. She was so patient posing with all of us and speaking with DG customers throughout the day.   I really love it when celeb’s are down to earth and approachable.

Yes, me and Beyonce’s hair stylist. Did I mention she styles Bey’s hair? Oh, ’cause I just want you to be aware that she’s fab and does great hair things for multi millionaire’s 🙂

Pre-Event

After brunch, it was off to Music City Center less than a block away, to meet up with the vendors and check out their product offerings for the day before the door opened.   There were way too many products to highlight in this post so I concentrated on 2 of the brands and their most popular products, so I could tell you all about them without feeling overwhelmed.  There were health and beauty products GALORE! Oh but don’t worry, I have a lot of photos and info to fill you in on the other brands that were there, including some of my favorites.  

⇓ In the meantime, check out my promo video I did during the event for Dollar General. ⇓

Ok let me show you the brands I covered for the day and a few of their Star products!

Cantu Beauty

First of all, let me tell you, the Cantu booth was poppin’ alllllll day!  Not only were they one of booths with fabulous live demos, but they were one of a handful of booths to offer a generous amount of full-sized bottles of their products.  That’s one of the things I noticed a bit different this year.  Even though as a blogger I received products GALORE, I did notice that a lot of the brands were offering sample packs or small-sized products to the general public.  Most of the larger sized products were used for display purposes only.  But not at Cantu!

The live hair demos were a very popular attraction as well as having Cantu Ambassadors and beauty vloggers, Maria Antionette and Melissa Chanel manning the booth along with Nashville beauty influencer, Tiffany Perkins of Tiff & Coco.   They were very generous and informative about what their products could do for a variety of textures.  Plus, I’m such a fan of live demos as I’m sure a lot of consumers are.  We like to see exactly how we can use the products and how they can make our beauty routines easier.

Two products that Cantu fans have been raving about are their shea butter Leave-In Conditioning repair cream and Cantu’s shea butter Coconut Curling Cream.  You can find both of these products in Dollar General stores.

Luster’s 

Of course most of you may already be familiar with Luster’s classic pink oil moisturizer.  But today, I spent some time at the Luster’s booth learning all about their new products that are getting a lot of buzz. Two products I want to highlight for you are their new Shea Butter/Coconut Oil Edge Smoother Gel and their Shea Butter/Coconut Oil Silkening Sheen Spray which you can find at Dollar General.

The edge gel claims to have lasting hold, great shine and to be non-flaking while the sheen spray is said to give moisturize and nourish dry hair, adding shine.  It’s also supposed to be a lightweight spray.

I’m a big fan of products that add those finishing touches to perfect a style.   I will be trying both of these products out soon since I will be heat styling in between protective styles for the next few months.

L.A. Colors Matte Lippy Lineup – They had some really pretty fall colors to show off.  I’m a big berry lippy fan.

L.A. Colors Shadow Palettes with popping colors!

People really enjoyed posing with the Ampro Mascot!

V.I.P. winners of the 92Q contest got treated to fabulous gift bags and beauty treatments in the DG Beauty Lounge as well as personal meet and greets.

Beauty Influencers Panel with Celebrity Stylist Kim Kimble and top beauty bloggers/vloggers. From L to R: Kim Kimble, Rachel Odem of Rachel O Beauty, Jenelle Stewart of KinkyCurlyCoilyMe, Dr. Nina Hervey of BeautifulBrownBabyDoll, News Channel 5 Anchor – Vicki Yates

Celebrity Stylist Larry Sims

Ok, let me break down the awesomeness of this next pic.  Yeah your girl is in it, but do you see this man right here? His name is Larry Sims. Larry is an artist. Larry is a hair genie.  I mean the man has been in the entertainment and beauty industry since I was….well let’s not go there.  Do the names Lupita Nyong’o, Gabrielle Union, J Lo, Sanaa Lathan, Jurnee Smollett, Tracee Ellis-Ross, Uzo Aduba, Mary J. Blige, Zendaya mean anything to you?  Well Larry has styled them ALL and then some!  

I’m just putting it out there in the atmosphere, that one day Larry Sims is going to style my hair for editorial and it is gonna be everything I hoped it would be. 

Man listen…Larry Sims has been in the beauty industry for a loooong time. I have so much respect for this man. I just could not pass up an opportunity to chat hair with him. This is his 2nd time at A Day Of Beauty. He was there working with the Smooth n Shine brand doing live hair demos on DG customers. He’s not at all serious….I have another pic of him smiling lol.

There was way too much media to show you guys in one post, so if you wanna see more event pics, videos (including my FB live recap I did with the DG marketing team) and product shots check out my next post! Part II – A Day Of Beauty Event Recap (coming soon)

In the meantime, you can check out my beauty haul below.  Stars, this is only a portion of what I have and I know brands are going to send me even more in the mail in the next few weeks.  Whew!! It’s a lot!   But family and friends always get blessed from my beauty hauls anyway so I’m sure I’ll get cleared out soon LOL!!

I grabbed all of my Dollar General health essentials like cold compresses, lip balm, cold medicines, bandages, hydrocortisone cream, facial bars and even a DG beauty branded beauty blending sponge. Also pictured here is a nice gift card and beauty business book that was included in our blogger gift bags from DG. I’m in love with this book!!!

Did you know that DG carried all of these brands? Yup! You can find Wet n Wild , Black Opal, LA Colors , Shea Moisture, Bella Curls, Creme of Nature and many more.

Feel free to share any pics you want and let me know if you have question or comments about anything you’ve seen so far.  Be sure to check out my Part II post because there’s some awesome stuff in there!   Make sure you sign up for my newsletter or posts so you can stay in the loop on future giveaways and my other shenanigans.  

Grab your copy of Beauty Cents at select Dollar General stores starting July 25th!  In the meantime you can also check out www.beautycentsmag.com

Can You Spot Any Of Your Favorite Products or People In My Pics?

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Candice S.

Founder, Editor-in-Chief of Women's Lifestyle Blog, Naturally Stellar | Beauty Writer and Content Creator | I left corporate life 7+ years ago, to pursue my goal of becoming a writer. Boom!! I did that! Now I'm an accomplished writer and boss babe running a successful blog business. You should hire me! #RockStarMoms

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