Be Whole

With an online community of over 45 000, Beauty Squad South Africa made the switch to engage with their Cape Town community offline on Saturday, 27 October, presenting the Mother City with their third annual expo!

I attended the expo for the first time and was pretty impressed with the variety of beauty brands on display, from hair care, makeup, and skincare, to accessories and pro-makeup tips from the likes of Raine Tauber and the Bearded Beauty Boy.

Chanelle Avontuur, the founder of Beauty Squad SA, said that her goal was not only to give her community a platform to chat about and engage with their favourite brands but also to support and empower local business owners, who were able to share their latest products with expo attendees.

This was my first but definitely not the last Beauty Squad Expo that I’ll be attending. I’m looking forward to next year’s local business line-up as I was able to learn more about brands that I would never have known about otherwise. One particular brand that stole my heart was a makeup brand called Maria Cosmetics, an affordable vegan brand, dedicated to the founder’s mother.

When Andrea Hunter created Maria Cosmetics, she was thinking of more than lip tints and highlights and wanted to use her skills and experience as a makeup artist to inspire women with her products.

“My mother was practising as a makeup artist for many years and I loved watching her work, seeing the power of makeup in bringing joy to someone’s life. During her battle with cancer, on those days when she must’ve felt incredibly low when she lost her hair, she could still rely on a bright red lipstick to make her feel feminine and beautiful,” Andrea said.

You’ll be happy to know that the lipsticks are affordable, long-wearing, and has a smooth, creamy application for only R180 each. I was amazed at how long the lipstick lasted, even after I had eaten meals by the end of the day.

Watch my walk through the expo, as well as my quick chat with Andrea, as she applies the vibrant, Jukebox Joan to my lips.

To find out more about how you can become a vendor at the next Beauty Squad expo, email the organisers at info@beautysquadsa.co.za, head to www.beautysquadsa.co.za or simply for updates on the next event.