Induction Week

My first day at uni...

#SELFIE

I can honestly say that I loved my first week of uni! We did things that I wasn't expecting & also didn't quite understand why we were doing some of the things but it was still brilliant. The whole purpose of it all was to get everyone talking and just generally make friends & feel comfortable with our peers. 

Needless to say, it worked well & I've met some amazing people through doing it! 

Finding the Location

One of our first 'getting to know each other & the area' tasks was to go around Southampton city center and find the three locations that we were told to find. This included;

The Mayflower Theater 

West Quay Shopping Center

Southampton City Art Gallery

I've been coming to and from Southampton my whole life, so it's like a second home to me. So this task was an easy one! I went to each place with my friend Jay and once there, we had to take a selfie to prove we did the task. Trying to get some of these selfie pictures were a little embarrassing when people were watching! 

Make-Up Counters to Find

Our next task was to go and find a few make-up counters that were located either within West Quay shopping center or just outside on the high street. Once finding the counters, we had to take pictures of what they look like & also speak to someone who worked from the company and ask what their hero product is. A hero product is a company's best selling, number one product. The counters we had to find were;

M.A.C

M.A.C offer a wide variety of products to all different ages, skin types & social classes. Majority of M.A.Cs products are relatively affordable, however, I believe that some can be slightly over priced. The make-up counter layout is targeting a young audience. They use alot of colour in their products and make things easy to find & to know what each product is. M.A.C has 3 hero products, Ruby Woo lipstick, Studio Fix Fluid foundation & also 'In 

Extreme Dimension 3D mascara. 

Bobbi Brown

Bobbi Brown is American make-up artist who created her own brand. This is why she is such an inspiration to majority of make-up artists because a lot of people wish that they could create their own brand, let alone have it as a big success! I like Bobbi Brown make-up & tools, however, I believe the products are rather expensive for the every day person to buy, but if you do get something, it is also amazing to use! So it's a bit of a dilemma! Bobbi Brown have their top 10 products displayed on show at their store, Southampton, John Lewis. This was really helpful because other stores only have a top 2 or 3. These are their top 10 products;
1. Long Wear Gel Liner, 2. Lip Colour, 3. Corrector/Concealer, 4. Smokey Eye Mascara, 5. Bronzing Powder, 6. Skin Foundation Sticks, 7. Vitamin Enriched Face Base, 8. Pot Rouge 9. Shimmer Brick, 10. Long Wear Cream Shadow Stick. 

Benefit

Although I was unable to get a picture of the Benefit make-up counter, because I got tricked into buying some & sampling some products.... Woops!, everyone knows what they look like because they stand out so much with their pink, girly design. This counter is rather confusing to select a target audience because the design of it is very pink & girl, but when you look at the products, they have something for everyone! 
Benefits top five hero products are;
'They're Real Mascara'
'They're Real Liner'
'Hoola Bronzer'
'Professional Primer'
'Brow Zings' 

Smashbox

Smashbox hasn't been around for too long. It was started up in 1990 by David Factor. I like the make-up counter for Smashbox, which was located just outside West Quay in Boots, because it is simplistic both with the make-up counter & the products themselves. I also wouldn't say they have a target audience because it's so mixed! They have the colours to attract the younger ages yet with the simplistic counter & products, it attracts the elder ages. I really like this counter because it looks so professional and it's one that I hadn't heard of before being told to find the counter! Smashbox's hero product is called 'Photo Finish foundation primer'. 

Laura Mercier 

The Laura Mercier make-up counter surprised me when I went to go see it, as it is a lot smaller than many of the other counters that were around. It was located inside John Lewis store and compared to the likes of Bobbi Brown & M.A.C counters, it was rather petit. I was expecting it to be a little larger as it is such a well known name. When there, the type of people that visited the counter was of an older generation to myself and I believe this is because it has alot of natural earth colours opposed to some brighter ones in the other counters. I would say this is there target audience and it shows that it works well for the Laura Mercier name & company. Their top three hero products were displayed for us to see on the counter by the till. These were;
'Secret Camouflage Concealer' 
'Foundation Primer' 
'Tinted Moisturiser' 

Bag Heads

Our final task during our induction week was to create a bad head. This was to get our creativity flowing & to just have a bit of fun with our new class mates, ofcourse another bonding exercise! This is where we all first started to really see eachothers creative sides and it showed how different the directions everyone could go in with the same equipment to use and just our minds. Everyone's were amazing and it really was alot of fun to just look at what everyone else could think of on the spot just like that! At first, I was a bit clueless of what to do but then I decided on curling some black thin paper and creating a bow on top in the style of Lady GaGa. I also gave my bag glittery, bright red, kissing lips & also big eyelashes, with one winking, to make the eyes stand out. We then had to go take a group photo somewhere around Southampton with our heads on. This is how it turned out;

 I really enjoyed this exercise because it did bring everyone a bit closer together because we had to do something wacky and out of our comfort zone!