I was really excited for BeautyCon. I love makeup. I love art. I generally love gatherings that bring people together who are passionate about the same things in different ways. I honestly thought BeautyCon was about this. It most certainly was not. It was a scam. I cannot begin to articulate how absolutely disheartening, disillusioned, and disappointed I felt when I stepped into that sad convention center (if you could call it that) and witnessed what I did. Where do I start? Where? I’m genuinely at a lost. You know what? Let me start from the beginning. I found out about BeautyCon through social media, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. It was pretty much everywhere. All the YouTubers I followed were going. A lot of the ones I consider talented and genuine individuals were associating themselves with this con so I thought to myself, “Wow! This must really be something else!”. Actually, before I continue, I’d like to abundantly clear that I am not a novice con goer; I’ve gone to many cons and know what cons should look like. There’s a sort of protocol, a look, an aesthetic, an overall feel to a con, if you will. BeautyCon Dallas did not meet any of these requirements.

We arrived at the location and it was some garage in the sketchiest part of downtown Dallas. It did not have any signs. I mean none whatsoever letting you know you arrived at BeautyCon. We had to ask a guard, us being from Dallas, us knowing we had arrived at the location because we wanted to make sure we were there, people who plan cons know that people will be coming from out of town to their event. Wouldn’t you want to I don’t know… actually guide them? Maybe put a sign up at the entrance? At least at the entrance! Anyway, parking was an additional 10 dollars. We had general admission tickets by the way, we paid 25 plus tax which came to about 27 dollars each plus the 10 for parking.  

Now, you had to make your way to the main building. Thing is, it’s like I said before. They didn’t have any kind of promotion or people working for BeautyCon in the area. This general location had a lot of stuff going about. There was an aquarium in the same vicinity and a job fair so there was a lot happening. It was an absolute mess. I had to stop a guard after 10 minutes of walking around to ask which line I had to get into because I didn’t know where I was going. She was kind enough to tell me where I had to go. Even after that, I was still excited about BeautyCon. However, I was noticing a lot of people leaving. It was only 11 am. BeautyCon started at 10:30 for general admission. Why were people leaving? I was starting to worry. 

As I approached the BeautyCon entrance, there was no line and I was still very excited. I had heard great things. The Internet was abuzz with only great news expectations about it so what else could I be? Finally, my friends and I present our tickets and have no problems getting in, but then we’re inside, and we are scandalized. It’s just bad. It’s so bad. There was absolutely no effort put into it. They have these sad chrome lettered balloons that spell out BEAUTYCON in big bold letters being held down by sand bags. There were empty cardboard boxes that once held those QVC samples they were giving out EVERYWHERE. They had inflatable plastic furniture, a riding bull and haystacks to sit on because obviously, it’s Texas let’s go with stereotypes, let’s come to a state, and pretty much make fun of them, right? That’s a thing we do. There was hardly any lighting. They had maybe about 10 booths? It was barren And lines! Lines upon lines, upon lines, upon lines! They were endless! I know that you had panels and a few YouTubers were coming. I was able to spot a few but I didn’t get to see much of them. They were usually taken away to the their designated spot and surrounded by their fans in seconds.

After about 45 minutes, I walked out feeling not only sad and disillusioned. I was not the only one. I met a lot of other women like myself outside of the con who felt the same way. They didn’t pay for this. They weren’t sold this. I know local makeup artists that work really hard and love they’re art So did the rest of us. We shared our information outside of BeautyCon. How sad. How ironic. To these makeup artist, I am their subject, student, and friend. I am a blogger and makeup enthusiast. I went to BeautyCon hoping to find others like me. I found others disappointed what they found at BeautyCon and found them walking away. They did not stay to build conversations with other women. Because they are not cash cows you can belittle and make to wait in a line to buy NYX products, QVC products, or any of your BFF crap scams, BeautyCon. You sold lies. 

Here’s a few pictures of what I managed to capture:

If you’re looking for makeup artists who are local to the Dallas area and are fabulous I know two absolutely fantastic ones who take pride in what they do and have an excellent amount of talent. LaDonna in particular offers classes that I have personally taken and they are AMAZIIIIING! 

Makeup Art by Vivienne 

 LaDonna Stein Makeup Artist

Lastly, I hate giving negative reviews to anything. If you take look at my blog. I tend to be really very positive. However, I do pride myself on honesty. BeautyCon was dishonest. I feel lied to. I feel cheated. I feel bad for so many of those parents who took their teens who don’t know any better and look up to those YouTubers who know better and signed up for this anyway. Money has the power to do both good and bad things.  I watched Cinderella two nights ago and I know that you can’t always be innocent and pure but you can always try to be good.