"I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave"...
This sentence from a popular song is exactly how I feel. Yes I know in context what he was referring to is soo far off, but it really explains my feelings towards Beauty Africa this year. It's been an exciting, eventful, inspiring and overwhelming three days! And in the same breath it's been hard work, especially with a booth.
Beauty Africa is the largest beauty convention in Nigeria! Their aim is to provide business owners direct access to brands and also on the flip side, said brands are looking to connect with distributors/resellers (local business owners). So it's the perfect platform to connect with like-minded individuals who are actually looking to meet and establish business relationships with one another. Not every beauty business owner can afford to travel abroad to meet with brands, not to mention even trying to establish some form of remote communication with them via email. And then if you manage to get in contact with them, you then have to start the process of 'selling' yourself. Beauty Africa brings these international brands right here to you, basically granting you free direct access to them. Yes, I know we should support our own homegrown brands and I will forever be pro #BuyNigerian, but I also don't feel as a business owner you shouldn't allow yourself explore international brands too... there should be a balance. Speaking of #BuyNigerian we also had our indigenous brands and businesses like Nectar Beauty Hub, Bath Kandy, Ajali Cosmetics, Amali Cosmetics, BMPro, BNatural Spa, Oasis Medspa and a lot more repping hard! It's also a great platform to meet international investors looking to take our local brands into the international market.
For beauty enthusiasts and consumers, there were also vendors in there to satisfy your retail needs.
All in all, despite the economic situation, Beauty Africa Exhibition 2016 was a huge success, I got to witness firsthand all 3 days and I cannot wait to see what they have in store, next year.
The last day of the conferences kicked off with Mimi Marwa of HappyDevas, her session got a bit emotional when she started to speak about what had been going on, in her home state of Adamawa, with the Boko Haram attacks. How the attacks had been happening way before the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, and how she and her community of activists saw an opportunity, through the campaign, to ring the alarm and raise awareness. But she soon pepped up, finished her session with a resounding applause from the participants, and proceeded to offer henna art designs to them. There were also live demonstrations from Wondrous Carter-Brown, Rhema Akabuogu & Dave Sucre. The winner of the of the Nail Art Competition was also announced which set the entire hall off, with loud cheering. A lot was going on at the BeautyInLagos booth today, but I managed to sneak away and capture some of the action for you guys.
This sentence from a popular song is exactly how I feel. Yes I know in context what he was referring to is soo far off, but it really explains my feelings towards Beauty Africa this year. It's been an exciting, eventful, inspiring and overwhelming three days! And in the same breath it's been hard work, especially with a booth.
Beauty Africa is the largest beauty convention in Nigeria! Their aim is to provide business owners direct access to brands and also on the flip side, said brands are looking to connect with distributors/resellers (local business owners). So it's the perfect platform to connect with like-minded individuals who are actually looking to meet and establish business relationships with one another. Not every beauty business owner can afford to travel abroad to meet with brands, not to mention even trying to establish some form of remote communication with them via email. And then if you manage to get in contact with them, you then have to start the process of 'selling' yourself. Beauty Africa brings these international brands right here to you, basically granting you free direct access to them. Yes, I know we should support our own homegrown brands and I will forever be pro #BuyNigerian, but I also don't feel as a business owner you shouldn't allow yourself explore international brands too... there should be a balance. Speaking of #BuyNigerian we also had our indigenous brands and businesses like Nectar Beauty Hub, Bath Kandy, Ajali Cosmetics, Amali Cosmetics, BMPro, BNatural Spa, Oasis Medspa and a lot more repping hard! It's also a great platform to meet international investors looking to take our local brands into the international market.
For beauty enthusiasts and consumers, there were also vendors in there to satisfy your retail needs.
All in all, despite the economic situation, Beauty Africa Exhibition 2016 was a huge success, I got to witness firsthand all 3 days and I cannot wait to see what they have in store, next year.
The last day of the conferences kicked off with Mimi Marwa of HappyDevas, her session got a bit emotional when she started to speak about what had been going on, in her home state of Adamawa, with the Boko Haram attacks. How the attacks had been happening way before the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, and how she and her community of activists saw an opportunity, through the campaign, to ring the alarm and raise awareness. But she soon pepped up, finished her session with a resounding applause from the participants, and proceeded to offer henna art designs to them. There were also live demonstrations from Wondrous Carter-Brown, Rhema Akabuogu & Dave Sucre. The winner of the of the Nail Art Competition was also announced which set the entire hall off, with loud cheering. A lot was going on at the BeautyInLagos booth today, but I managed to sneak away and capture some of the action for you guys.
That's it for Beauty Africa this year, I was also recording a Vlog every single day, so keep an eye on my Youtube page for that! I will be sure to let you all know when it goes live!
Again, thanks a lot to everyone that came out to support BiL at our booth. Also a HUGE thank you goes out to Wow Nails, SavvyChic Hair & Beauty Salon, Spa Pampering At Home, Scratch and Social, Lacquer and Lace and Lola Maja for successfully BEAUTIFYING Lagos with BiL!
Ez xxX
