My Pout Picks!

Last weekend I headed into Edinburgh once again for a lovely afternoon with two of my best blogging friends Laura and Jade. We went along to the Pout event at the Corn Exchange, which I mentioned in one of my previous posts. The wesbite describes Pout as ''A ladies lifestyle show featuring, fashion, beauty and leisure time for aspirational women from Edinburgh and the surrounding areas.'' We were greeted with a goodie bag and a snazzy cocktail, and then we headed off to explore! So I thought I'd just do a wee recap of some of my favourite exhibitors from this year! In no particular order, I really enjoyed...

I've written about Appointedd before here, and I really enjoyed chatting to the lovely Leah Hutcheon (founder of the company) again at Pout. Appointedd is an online salon booking portal, with lots of salons to choose from in the Glasgow and Aberdeen area. Leah also gave a great talk on using websites and apps to better organise your time, which she gave alongside Cally from...

If you enjoy a bit of online shopping and haven't heard of Malzee yet, get over to the website now and check it out! Mallzee is essentially an online shopping social network with a huge number of amazing stores including French Connection, Urban Outfitters and House of Fraser to choose from. More on this coming in a post soon as I was lucky enough to go along to their launch party on Tuesday night!

I absolutely loved seeing Joanne McGillvray's beautiful collection in the flesh, having seen so much about this up and coming Scottish designer online recently. Her clothes are stunning - there were a pair of printed trousers which the lovely Joanne herself was actually wearing that I almost had to be dragged away from. Lucky I had a sneaky purchase from the following company to ease the pain ;)

I couldn't resist buying one of the adorable cake pops from Cake Cetera! Well, who could? It's a cross between a cupcake and a lollipop for crying out loud, this is something we all ought to try once in our lives! The whole range of products, including their gorgeous cupcake bouquets were lovely and an inventive twist on the now ubiquitous cupcake!

If you missed it, I did a whole post on some of the lovely Granny Sally's products that I was lucky enough to test out recently, so go and check that out here! I love these natural products, and such cute packaging is always a bonus!

These were just a few of my favourites! Others included Odyssey Boutique (a lingerie and swimwear boutique which also offers a range of specialist beauty treatments including waxing and nails), the Scottish Wildlife Trust (got to be kind to our furry and feathered friends) and obviously the i-On and Snapshot photobooths... neither of which we managed to resist!

Thanks so much to Pout for inviting us along! We had a lovely afternoon :)


*Disclaimer: We were invited along to the event in a blogging capacity which was really lovely of the Pout team, but the opinions in this post are all very much my own :)

Appointedd Launch - Edinburgh, August 2013

On Monday 12th of August I was lucky enough to attend the launch of Appointedd, a new and exciting business venture in the hair and beauty industry. The launch was a breakfast at the lovely Hotel Missoni in Edinburgh, with a mix of bloggers and industry professionals attending and plenty tea, coffee and pastries to keep us going!

The concept of Appointedd is pretty straightforward - it's a hair and beauty treatment booking site which salons can list their business on, and clients (old and new) can book an appointment for whatever treatment they desire with just the click of a button. The company is led by Leah Hutcheon, a former magazine editor who turned losing her job into an opportunity to launch her own business when she approached Entrepreneurial Spark (the Scottish business start up accelarator) with her idea. Two years later, Appointedd is here, and Leah has worked incredibly hard to get her business off the ground.

The event itself was an interesting format. After meeting my lovely blogging pals Iona and Jade for a quick trip to Cafe Nero, we headed off to Hotel Missoni where we met up with Gillian, Lynne and Laura for half an hour of chatting with Leah, enjoying a cup of tea and having a little nosey at the website (which I've included a little screenshot of at the start of this post!). The turn out was excellent, with us bloggers outnumbered by lots of industry professionals, which was great to see - it shows what potential a business like this really has. We were then led into another room where we were greeted with lots of lovely pastries, more tea and coffee and a more professional set up, projector and all. Leah welcomed us to the event and gave us a bit of insight into the background of the business, her own professional background and shared some of her hopes for the future of Appointedd. This was followed by a really interesting presentation by James from the company Social For Salons (via Skype from China - the wonders of technology!). Hearing some of the stats on how social media should be being embraced by the hair and beauty industry was a highlight of the event.

These presentations were followed by a panel discussions, with five industry professionals answering questions posed by Leah, and by the audience. This was a good opportunity for people who are currently working in the hair and beauty industry to give us their thoughts on the site, and on the industry itself. Everyone seemed really positive and encouraging, which was brilliant to see for Leah and the team.

I had a great morning at the Appointedd launch, and would definitely recommend checking out the website (which I've linked below!)! It's so useful to have lots of salon options all in the one place, especially if you are new to the area and feeling a bit lost in terms of finding a good new salon! Thanks so much to Leah and everyone at Appointedd and Social for Salons, we had a great time and wish you all the best with the future of the business!

http://appointedd.com/