Misslipgloss brunch

Last week, I attended the Misslipgloss brunch. Cynthia, who runs this hugely popular Dutch beauty blog, wanted to get together with some of her readers to celebrate the fact that she reached 5000 blog posts. I signed up for the event and when I was in my hotel room in Miami I got the e-mail saying I was one of 10 lucky winners. You already saw the goody bag in this blog post. And today I am telling you all about my experience that day, illustrated with the gorgeous pictures taken by Mariët Mons who was our resident photographer for the day.

All of the lovely ladies together in one picture. Before we all met up in Zwolle, the 10 of us got together via Facebook. We organized a gift for Cynthia and pretty much everyone would arrive around the same time. So we all met up at the station together and went to Brasserie Janssen. This is a spot that Cynthia loves to visit in her home town and she figured: why not meet up at one of my favorite places in the city? Also present were Cynthia’s two guest authors, Emmy & Tewa, which was a pleasant surprise.

When we arrived our massive goody bags were already there and waiting for us. Cynthia had sent us an e-mail the day before to say we had to bring a big sturdy bag ourselves as the bags were so heavy they would most likely break. Of course I forgot to bring one, so I had to lug it back to the station. Luckily I could take a bus once I got back to Leiden, so I didn’t have to carry it any longer.

We all had so much fun! The food was delicious and we talked about almost everything. Of course about blogging and how Cynthia ‘does it’, but also about traveling and how everyone found and discovered Cynthia’s blog. Quite naturally we also talked about why we still read her blog, for most of us after so many years and the reasons were very diverse. Some people look for book recommendations or recipes, other people really enjoy reviews. It was great to see what everyone looks for in a blog, also for myself.

The lunch place we were at had made sure everything was decorated in style. They had printed these special coasters, just for the occasion. How thoughtful is that?!

A lot of talking also means a lot of listening. Here you see Kiki (left) and Cynthia (right) paying full attention.

The food was absolutely fantastic. This was a plate of nuts and cheeses. I just tried to have a little bit of everything.

Not sure what I was doing here, but apparently something was very funny. Here you see Denise (left), then Joëlle, myself, Jeanette and Nancy.

Some more food pictures, because the yumminess just kept coming.

This omelette was absolutely delicious. Soft and fluffy and packed with flavor.

But mine and everyone’s favorite seemed to be these American style pancakes. We ordered a second plate…

And then, as we got talking, we were treated to a spontaneous unboxing of the goodie bag. Here Kate gets all excited, as we all did, when we saw one of our favorite products popping up: the Garnier Micellar water. All the way on the left you can see Maxime, whose red hair you simply can’t miss.

Again, not sure what I’m talking about or what I am doing here, but this is a nice action packed picture.

The brunch ended with these cute hazelnut filled bon bons. Again with the Misslipgloss logo on top. Talking about paying attention to detail!

Let me see…. which one should I pick?! I’ll have this one.

At the end of the brunch we took some pictures as a group and individually. I had a great time, not only thanks to Cynthia, but also thanks to the other lovely ladies who were picked. It was a great bunch of people so that was a lot of fun.

But now some people might be wondering: why did I get picked? Well, in my case, I kind of know why. When Cynthia announced this event, she also said she wanted to invite as many different visitors as possible. Someone who only reads her blog, someone who only watches videos, someone who has been around for years, someone who just started following her, etc. She also specifically stated wanting to invite people who are sometimes critical of her articles. She called out a few names of people she’d like to respond and one of them… you guessed it, was me. I couldn’t be sure at first of course, but I asked her, just to be sure. Plus she recognized me immediately from my picture.

I think that is one of the reasons why I still follow her blog. By now, I have deleted so many blogs from my ‘routine’. Where I used to enjoy reading 10 – 15 different blogs, I now only follow two anymore. One of them is Misslipgloss, for the one reason that IF you give feedback, Cynthia will do something with that feedback. Plus her reviews are of a high quality and she tries to write about plenty of different beauty products. And how many bloggers do you know that want to get together with their readers for an event like this?

Photo credits: Mariët Mons