I love makeup. I started wearing blue eye shadow, sparkly pink blush and hot pink lipstick for dance recitals at the tender age of 3, and began wearing makeup every day in 7th grade, after a girl in my art class gently suggested some foundation would make my insane acne a bit less noticeable. SInce my mom wanted me to know how to apply makeup the right way, she took me to the Clinique counter at the mall… and I had what I believe to be my first-ever department store makeover.

Since then, I’ve had my makeup done who knows how many times — mainly at department store makeup counters — and observed the results of many of my friends getting their makeup done by professionals (or alleged professionals). I’ve also put makeup on other people (male and female) on many occasions, starting with middle school makeovers for my friends, graduating to stage makeup for the casts of most of the plays and musicals I was in during high school, and even working at an Estee Lauder counter for a brief period of time.

The results have varied. While I’ve had some great experiences, and found my wedding makeup look (from Lancome) after makeovers at several other counters, I’ve also had some really bad experiences. One of the worst was last year, when I heard that the Pentagon City Nordstrom was having a bunch of regional and national makeup artists in for the annual spring beauty trend show, and I booked an appointment. Suffice to say that when I met up with Toby afterward, he looked at me, made a face, and said, “Your makeup looks much better when you do it yourself.” Womp womp.

This year, I was looking for something a bit better, and I wanted to go to the runway portion of the event, which I missed last year. They had shows at both Nordstroms in San Diego, but I chose the one in La Jolla, at Nordstrom UTC, because it is a bit closer to our house.

I had to wake up much earlier on a Saturday morning than I would ever chose to, but I got to Nordstrom to stand in line outside with all my fellow makeup devotees (some of them stood in line for an hour to make sure they were in the front row!) and snagged a pretty decent seat. They had provided cute little breakfasty foods like yogurt-granola parfait cups and mini spinach quiches, but unfortunately they didn’t have any hot tea — just coffee.

The runway show part was really fun, because most of the skincare and cosmetics brands had a representative come out and talk about their products, plus they had models in cute spring clothes who were made up with the spring looks they were discussing. And there were tons of really awesome prizes, though I didn’t win any.

There were also two male models, and I don’t know if there was alcohol in that coffee or what, but some of the ladies were shrieking and carrying on like they were at a Chippendale’s show! It was pretty hilarious.

Afterward, everyone hurried downstairs to buy some of the products for themselves, or to have free facials or snag free gifts that many of the brands were offering. It was a madhouse, but a very fun madhouse.

I ended up buying several items from Lancome — my go-to cosmetics brand — but tried to hold off on buying too many things, since I had an appointment scheduled with a local Dior makeup artist named (what else?) Christian.

Obviously I wasn’t going to go to a spring beauty trend show makeup-less, but I tried to keep things relatively simple so it wouldn’t be too hard to remove. Christian put a lot more eye-makeup on me than I would normally wear with that bright of a lipstick (I learned long ago that most makeup artists’ idea of a “natural” look is considerably more dramatic than the average person’s), but I thought it looked good, albeit a bit fancy for a Saturday morning. Toby liked it, too, and even the woman at Corner Bakery complimented me.

I ended up buying a lot of the products, though I exchanged the foundation and powder for a different color later. That wasn’t a huge concern, though, since matching foundation to my skin is notoriously difficult. And you can always return and exchange makeup to the department store cosmetics counters, even if you’ve already used it a few times. But overall, I thought the event was super fun, and the makeover part was definitely much better than my experience last year.

So, have y’all ever been to an event like that? Have you ever had your makeup done? Am I the only one who can’t make it through the first floor of a department store without smudges of lipstick and eyeliner all over the back of my hands? Let me know in the comments! 🙂