Toronto ON, November 6 – I recently attended IMATS in Toronto for Auxiliary Magazine. For those of you who are unfamiliar, IMATS is a makeup trade show for makeup artists, models, and photographers. I’ve been to IMATS before and I have to say that 2010 has been the best! This year was very organized, a lot of exhibitors, and not to mention, a great Alice In Wonderland themed runway show. I was very impressed with the number of exhibitors and deals that were available! Some companies in attendance were Yaby, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics, Naked Cosmetics, Crown Brush, Kryolan, and Make Up For Ever, just to name a few.
I only attended on Saturday. I got there around 11:30am and already the place was jam packed full of eager artists ready to learn, buy, and see this wonderful trade show. It was very exciting to see some of the speakers and educators who attended, such as Tom Savini, Kandee Johnson, Eve Pearl, and EnKore Makeup’s Koren Zander. I spent a lot of time at the OCC (Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics) booth, and in my opinion, they were one of the best exhibitors there. I got a lot of their wonderful Lip Tars (check out Purple Reign featuring OCC’s Lip Tar in the Oct/Nov 2010 Issue) some nail polish, and a few loose color concentrates. They are just amazing and I couldn’t thank them enough for the samples they gave us! I really appreciate it! I also spent a lot of time at the Yaby, Kryolan, Make Up For Ever, and Temptu exhibits.
This year featured a lot of airbrushing demonstrations and Temptu was one of the companies who showed me how to airbrush foundation on a client. (Check out the Malice Aforethought beauty editorial featuring Temptu in the Oct/Nov 2010 Issue.) Kett was also present along with Distribution Dinair, which are amongst some of the biggest companies in airbrushing. If artists were looking
for brush deals, they needed to look no further than Crown Brush this year. Some of the best brushes I have ever purchased were from Crown Brush and the sheer amount of people at their booth was just insane! You practically had to fight your way in to get to even see their products.
Most companies this year did not offer a pro discount sign-up, but with the already discounted prices, it really didn’t matter for the show. Everything seemed to be at least 20% to 40% off already, which lead to a lot of great deals in the end. IMATS also offered a lot of great seminars, which took place all day. I was able to catch some special effects demonstrations, hear about the trends of the runway for Fall/Winter 2010, and watch the student competition beauty/fantasy awards show, which was the highlight of the day. This year the theme was Alice in Wonderland. Seven great makeup artists and seven beautiful models took the stage in a competition for best makeup.
Overall, IMATS was really amazing this year, I got a lot of insight of what’s to come in 2011. As a makeup artist myself, there’s so much to see and learn, and with makeup you can never stop learning. I love what I do for a living and to see hundreds of people gathered for something so creative and challenging is just amazing. So much goes into getting that final product, whether it’s for film or photography. Not many people realize that it takes a lot of work! IMATS also does trade shows in NYC, London, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Sydney. Go to www.imats.net for more info!
– Rachel Mazurek
