Event Report : Soiree with Wardah (Blogger Gathering)

Hey guys, here are the string of event reports coming your way *LOL*.

First of all is this Soiree with one of the most famous Indonesian brand (best known for their Halal products), Wardah ^^.

With my fellow beauty bloggers (and celebgrams?) that presents that day

First of all, let me praise on them for making the invitation so personal, they seem to edit the picture invitation one by one :

I can't remember the last time a brand make this kind of personal invitation (if ever), usually they'd address us by name in the e-mail and then just a generic attachment invitation with the details. Wonder if this what took them so long to send out the invitation, some of us got it the day before the event (even though we've heard of this event long before). I actually scored the invite from Devita/Kathy who submitted my data to them, and the event was supposed to go down the week before, i have no idea why it was changed to the next week.

Before we start with the event report, i have some constructive criticism for Wardah's event organizer team. I know they never really had an event with Surabaya Beauty Blogger before so maybe they were still confused on what to do, etc and later on they clarified that the invitation sending was handled by their Wardah Beauty Agents (who are university students so they probably had other things they're busy with), but it was quite chaotic *LOL*. It took forever for them to respond to out e-mails/Wassap, we never knew if the event was still a go or cancelled, and some of us never got the confirmation after they RSVP-ed-which is very confusing and worrying for us since we're so used to brand PRs being very fast in responding our enquiries.

Not only that, some of my fellow bloggers actually was informed by their team at Make Over event that they were going to be invited-but they ended up not getting any invitation. That's... frankly, very insulting. I'm sure Wardah's team didn't mean to make us feel bad or anything, they were probably just got mixed up themselves-but i hope this will be a valuable lesson for them in the future ^^.

I'd like to inform Wardah (and other brands) who are interested in having us (Surabaya Beauty Bloggers) in an event. If you're confused on how many of us (who are a part of the group) are there and the datas needed, you need to only approach one of us and ask for help. We'd love to pass your invitation to the others so you can sit back and then send out the invitation after you got the proper data, wouldn't that make your job easier? Don't worry, we don't see each other as competitions (except for some misguided souls who need to be kicked out anyway *LOLOLOL*), so if you want to pick out the people (say, you have exclusive invitations for only 5 of us) then of course you need to send out to invite to the individuals one by one, but if you have slots for 20 of us-then we'd gladly help and be present as a community.

Just trying to be helpful, since the whole invitation thingy kept us worried and confused for probably a whole week *LOL*.

Back to the event.

I was super sick the night before and during another event i drank some strong coffee-it was strong enough to overpower my flu medication and i couldn't sleep well-so i was running a bit late that afternoon. When i arrived, some of my fellow beauty bloggers were already there. The event was held at this new cafe quite close to my home called Cailano, it's super pretty (had a photo shoot with Nessya there later, the photos turned out awesome *happy*, i will do a special post for it)-all white and clean and simple...

Staffs from Wardah and *wince* SBO

The two long tables provided for us were already set with Wardah's products for us to play with, individual goodie box (coz it didn't come in a bag, geddit? LOL) and catalogue

The yellow products are also their new products (other than the star of the day, their Lip Creams)

C-Defense Serum

Love the texture and how soft it made my skin felt afterwards. I think it should smell citrusy, but my nose is completely blocked and i couldn't smell a single things. I couldn't taste food either, much to my annoyance!

DD Cream, so interesting. One of the products that i would love to try out in the future

Wardah's Eyeshadows

And Blush On

Of course, as i mentioned earlier, the star product of the day was Wardah's Lip Cream, it's only been available for a few months and it's already a big hit among beauty lovers. Keeps on getting out of stock everywhere! They first launched 3 colors, then followed with another 3-BUT even the testers ran out so we could only play with the 3 first colors in the Soiree.

Yep, all the reds you see in this photo are the exact same shade

The swatches of the lip creams. Sorry, the photo a bit blurry, i didn't realize it at that time...

Ms. Nindy from Wardah welcoming us and explaining a bit about this Soiree. According to her, it was held to get to know us better-as an introduction and hopefully the beginning for more collaborations with us in the future. The hope is mutual ^^. It was also to get us to know some of their products, especially the Lip Creams *obviously*. We all know that it's the latest craze in the beauty world! Apparently Wardah is planning to have 18 colors in their collection, WOW!

Bloggers immediately in action :D

They also provided lunch for us. The baked potato looks so nice and i usually am a huge fan of baked potato (this one's so soft and melty and creamy!) but unfortunately i couldn't taste a thing thanks to the bad flu! I told Sabsab to gobble it down anyway so we wouldn't starve

Now, i don't know what it is with SBO and me, but we really got off on the wrong foot and never get righted ever since. It began with the Make Over event (FYI, i feel relaxed about mentioning Make Over here because it's within the same mother company as Wardah. I wouldn't be doing it if it's a competitor brand!) and the history repeated itself here.

So for the next segment, Wardah's team wanted one representative from each table to go to the front and do a make over to two of their WBA (Wardah Beauty Agent which i already mentioned in the beginning). It took Ms. Nindy minutes to coax people to come forward. Like typical beauty bloggers (me firmly included, Kathy definitely exluded coz we all know she's quite an attention ho LOLOLOLOL), we all pretty much tried to hide under the tables or something hahahaha. But as usual too, the others were pointing their fingers at me and egging me on.

It went on and on. To a point where i feel bad for them so i said OKAY OKAY. Then they asked us to prepare the products to be used on the models. It  also went on for a few more minutes. So it's not like it's all happening within 1-2 minutes, there were PLENTY of time for them to change their minds or ask for something specific. But not until i was standing for a full 3-5 minutes after choosing the colors, i was told that they wanted one beauty blogger and one celebgram to do the challenge. And there were like what, 2 celebgrams presents? LOL.

I need to stress that i didn't want to do the challenge in the first place, but i am a good sport. When people are asking me to do it and it would be humiliating for them if nobody agrees, i decided that i should. But not to be rejected when i already so graciously said yes and was all ready to do it! Call me being overly sensitive or "mad with the needs to be treated like a queen", whatever. I just felt stupid, okay? It was so unnecessary. They should've made it clear from the beginning, and if it's already half way done like that, they should not be drawing their request like that. It's frankly, disrespectful. I'm so sorry, but the reason "for taping purposes" just doesn't cut it for me. Next time SBO is around, i would refuse vehemently to to take part in any of the activities. Period.

The celebgram and beauty blogger representatives and their models

Anyway, i have nothing against Wardah (although i cannot say the same about SBO) so don't worry okay, i won't like, be mean when reviewing their products or whatever. LOL. Speaking of which, here's the goodie box :

We got the Lip Cream and their Eye & Lips remover to remove it haha

I will be reviewing them of course. It's just a matter of when *LOL*

The event was brief and simple, Wardah was also quite accomodating to the fact that we had another event to attend next (which i will be writing about next).

Til then!

#Pink