You know that song that has the lyrics “When you’re going to San Fransisco…”? Imagine that song GLEEFULLY playing in my head on loop for my entire three-day trip. I was SO excited to be there, in that gorgeous city, shooting with DHC skincare for their monthly catalogue.
I’m getting excited again just reliving the trip.
It begins.
Thursday, April 2nd, 5am: Oh, boy. This feels early. My flight isn’t until 9am, but I have to wake up early to do makeup on the lead actress for the last day of filming for a movie I was the makeup artist for. Which was really fun. 5 am? Not so much fun. But we did it! Maddy came to me and I set up shop in my living room. 2 hours later she is all dolled up and ready to film the last scene. I am off to the airport in good ‘ol L.A. traffic. An hour and 10 minutes later, still in the cab, I am sweating that I’m going to miss my flight. Luckily, I’m (surprisingly) a carry-on only gal, so I didn’t need to check a bag. I’ve only checked a bag two or three times in my life and don’t know what I’m going to do when I start having kids and you have to bring all the extra stuff on trips!
9:15am: I get to LAX and thankfully the line for security was super short. I go through and get to my gate just as they starting boarding. Perfect timing. I have a window seat AND no one in the middle seat. Yes. I love Virgin America’s computer ordering system. I order a coffee, a champagne, an orange juice (mimosa time), two waters, and a protein snack pack. I think at that moment, the stewardesses did not like the computer ordering system.
10:40am: SAN FRANSISCO! I love this city. Love it! I hadn’t been in years. I have a car waiting for me (classy move, DHC) and got to take in the city on the drive to the hotel. I love getting to be a passenger, you really get to take everything in.
11am: We pull up to my hotel, the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins. It’s beautiful. It looks like a hotel from when people would dress up to travel. Old school swag, class, beauty. I’m wearing sweatpants and exude none of these qualities at the moment. I check in and go up to my room.
11:11am: CHILLS. I get up to the room, which is also gorgeous, and open the windows. (First thing I do in every hotel room, I guess I’m obsessed with light and also looking at things outside? Dunno.) The first thing I see is the Grace Cathedral. Here’s why I have chills. I’m a bigger believer in fate, Kismet, destiny, whatever you want to call it. When I was in San Fransisco years ago with my friends for a weekend trip, we did a tour of the Grace Cathedral, then walked by the Fairmont and Mark Hopkins hotels. I had a thought “some day I’ll be back in one of these hotels and have a room high up with a view.” Which is already an oddly specific enough thought to have, so when I see the view from my room, that thought from years ago immediately flashes in my mind. It’s all happening. A room high up with a view. Chills. Fate. Agh!
Noon: I had thrown makeup on my face in the car and spiral my hair like {this} quickly in the hotel bathroom before I run out for a quick meeting.
2pm: Back to the hotel to meet up with Angela and Tia from DHC to film a makeup tutorial for YouTube! YAY! Girl Get Glamorous meets DHC!! It’ll be up on their channel and features a winged liner look that I love, with a lip color that is also a favorite, especially for redheads.
4pm: We finish up and go outside to shoot some extra video footage. Except I’ve been up since 5 am and I somehow don’t hear the word “video” and THINK WE ARE DOING PHOTOS. So I’m stopping and smiling and changing my pose every two seconds. You guys, I can’t stop laughing at this. I would give anything for the 20 minutes of raw, unedited footage of me walking around, posing like I’m taking photos. It actually makes me cry laughing every time I think about it.
6pm: Dinner with DHC. On the water, as the sun sets and the lights of the bridge come on. Fresh fish. Wine. Laughs and great conversation. Heaven.
Early to bed, getting a good night’s sleep for the magazine shoot tomorrow. Conclusion – Day 1: Baller.
Friday, April 3rd.
8am: This really feels like sleeping in compared to yesterday. I get up and open those glorious curtains and take in that view. I seriously contemplate how to make this room the new Girl Get Glamorous headquarters. I could blog there! Film tutorials!
8:02am: I put on some sweats and walk downstairs to the breakfast bar in the hotel.
8:08am: Oh, it’s a real restaurant, not just a little breakfast bar. Yep. I’m standing there in my sweatpant pajama set, hair and teeth not brushed and the hostess just sat me at a table, next to normal humans who have showered already and are wearing business suits. Hiiii. It is too late to go back up to the room to change. My shame fades away as I eat. It’s delicious. Holy heck. This food is good. They even have fresh Krispy Kreme donuts.
9:45am: I have showered and am waiting for my uber to take me to the shoot. My driver is super nice and I hang out the windows like a big old tourist taking a ton of photos. I love this city!
10am: I arrive to the shoot and I already don’t want the day to be over. Do you know that feeling?? I meet the whole team from DHC and the photographer they work with for all their customer/blogger spotlights. I’m only their second blogger spotlight ever, which I’m really excited about. Everyone was so nice and happy to shoot and the studio was a huge open space with skylights.
10:15am: I started trying on all the gowns that DHC brought for me to wear. They are all really, really pretty, each in a different way. We oooh and aaagh over the gowns and I try them all on.
10:30am: Gowns selected, we start on the “before” photos, which are never my favorite. But I get it. I do them for my Friendship Friday makeovers too, they have to be done!
11am: We start doing some photos of my skincare routine for the post, including my 3 all-star products and my new favorites, which I included in my skincare favorites {post}, but haven’t written individual posts on yet.
1pm: Lunch. Sushi at the studio. Perfect.
1:30pm: Back in the makeup chair to take things up a notch. My favorite phrase! The lovely hair and makeup artist for the shoot starts curling my hair in these gorgeous retro-style curls, to go along with the gowns. The makeup gets a little more dramatic and then: gown time.
2pm: I put on the first gown, a sequin dress that made us all gasp. It’s really pretty. However…we start to do some photos and the sequins aren’t photographing that well. I sort of look like when a sea lion flops out of the water to lay in the sun. And not a cute little baby sea lion. Like, a sea lion that really enjoyed all the fresh fish this winter. So, it’s on to the next (sequin-free) gown!
2:30pm: Yes, that’s better. It’s so interesting how clothing photographs so differently. The next gown is perfect, old-hollywood and glamorous and vixen all rolled into one. I love it, everyone loves it, that dress is basically a Mariah Carey song in 1999. It’s a hit.
4:30pm: Time for a little more video. This time I know it’s a video. I talk a little about myself, how I found DHC and what my favorite products are. They have to cut me off. Ha! My friend Lindsay said to me once at a beauty event, “You really like this stuff.” And I do. I love talking about beauty products. I could talk about them forever. I honestly think I would love it, if at a party, everyone had to say their full skincare and makeup routine and list all the products they use and why. Woah, should I do this for for my birthday party this year?? I feel like I might have no more friends left if I do this though.
5:15m: Poppin’ bottles. The shoot is done and I am happy/sad. You know that feeling? We pop a celebratory bottle of champagne, but I really, really do not want this experience to be over. We all sit around the table and talk and I look through the Japanese version of the DHC catalogue, which has a zillion more products, I try not to pass out from excitement, and we all talk some more. The more we talk, the more I do not want the shoot to be done.
Fun fact: I learn that DHC is even bigger than I think in Japan. The monthly catalogue is called the Olive Club (agh!!!). It’s basically it’s own little department store – with skincare, makeup and even clothes and food! The Japanese catalogue has SO many more products and everything is written in Japanese, which I can’t not read, so the mystery and allure build even more for me. I silently vow to someday travel to Japan (I’ve ALWAYS wanted to) and make visiting a DHC store a priority stop on the trip.
6pm: People have real lives, so we wrap things up and I hug everyone goodbye and pretend I’m not sad. And I’m kind of not actually, because I just decided to store these magic two days inside my head so they’ll live forever. I don’t tell anyone I am thinking this. But I seriously really like this whole DHC crew.
6:30pm: Back to the hotel as the sun is setting. I honestly feel like I’m writing a Nicholas Sparks novel. These two days have been perfect.
6:35pm: I grab a bag of freshly-made potato chips from the hotel restaurant’s to-go section. Things just keep getting better and better.
8:30pm: Meet up at the Fairmont with a friend from college and her parents, who I love. We sit for a couple of hours and have a late night dinner and talk.
Conclusion: Day 2: Please don’t be over. The Most Fun.
Day 3: My flight isn’t until 9pm, because I wanted to get a full day in the city to explore. I have breakfast at the hotel, then stay in my room writing until my 1pm checkout. My obsession with this room is real. I love the view and the light so much.
I check out and wander around Knob Hill a bit. I keep pinching myself and am so grateful that blogging brought me back to this beautiful city. I embarrassingly shed a few tears of gratitude in front of Grace Cathedral and pretend to the people around me that it’s just the brightness of the sun that is making my eyes sensitive, but they know. I have a mush heart.
Around 3pm, another friend I’ve known since college picks me up and we go out for pizza and I have an ice-cold glass of rose, sitting in the sunshine talking and laughing. We hadn’t seen each other since another friend’s wedding last year, so we had plenty to catch up on. My other friend from the night before and her parents meet up with us. It’s a fun group.
Around 7pm, I head back to the hotel to grab my bags and meet the car that was taking me to the airport. Again, I stare out the windows as we drive, with the sun setting on San Fransisco. I wonder how I got so lucky, but I also feel a deep sense that all is right, fate has brought me here and this is where I am meant to be. Does that make sense?
Sunday: I flew back Saturday so I could go to church on Easter, but I’m so exhausted that I sleep until 10am like a little Heathen. I finally get up and have to make my own coffee and breakfast. There are going to be a few rough days like this, of adjusting back to my regular life where I have to do things like take out my own trash.
The trip was such an amazing experience for me, I’m so happy I get to share it all with you. I genuinely can not wait for the spotlight to come out next month. You can get on the DHC catalogue mailing list for free {here}, or by calling 800.342.2273. I will add more photos of the finished look after the catalogue comes out, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise!
Thank you for reading and letting me share this magical trip with you. It was one of those trips that I know I’ll remember forever.
xo and Go Get Glam!
LEAVE A COMMENT
OMG what a story!! I loved hearing all the behind the scenes and taking the trip alongside you…in a way.
My godmother actually can read Kanji writing and speaks Japanese so I’m curious what’s in the DHC Japan version and to think what that experience would be to go to Japan and be in their “Olive World…”. I wish they could send you over there. Right now she is there as she was taking care of her father but he passed away. They were going to be traveling to Kyoto to bring his ashes and also it happens to be the season of OBON where the Japanese honor their ancestors and loved ones that are no longer here with burning incense, offering up paper money, foods,etc. (she knows how much I love Japanese incense…it’s an art form over there and very high quality and sent me special ones they use during OBON but also other ones) Everyone makes the journey back home for OBON.
I keep forgetting to ask her or mention DHC to her as I’m sure she’s passed it a bunch of times. I always love when I get surprise packages from her…Japanese chocolate is amazing…the texture, taste, smoothness…flavors…they even have Banana. Okay, off topic there.
I got chills reading how it was like somehow within you knew you would be back and to make a remark that specific about where and to have it happen….wow!!!
This was such an enjoyable post and that is just so hysterical how you kept posing for the video segment when you thought they were taking pics….LOVE it.
The dresses on you were just perfect!
Thanks for including us in on your trip!
Thank you so much for sharing your exciting trip with us. You are truly a beautiful women inside and out.
Love it!
“I honestly think I would love it, if at a party, everyone had to say their full skincare and makeup routine and list all the products they use and why. Woah, should I do this for for my birthday party this year??” lmao i know you’re serious too