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Last night my friend and I went to EcoStiletto’s Green Girls Night Out in Chicago. I’ve been to similar events and have learned that you need to be there early, waiting by the door for the mad rush when the doors open. I prepared myself by looking at the photos from the event in other cities and found they were doing manicures, which from past experience meant we needed to make a bee-line for that table and sign up immediately upon arrival. Shockingly there was no line at the door when we arrived at 5:40 about 10 minutes later someone told us we could go in. We didn’t rush to the manicure table but still managed to secure spots at 6:30 so we grabbed a cocktail and made our rounds to the stations – which again to my surprise there was no waiting to get to the front of the table. Our first stop at the front entrance was for an Envirosax tote and a perfume from Agape & Zoe Naturals. Next up was the Tom’s of Maine table where we scored a travel sized toothpaste and floss – my friend got a full sized tube of their strawberry, fluoride-free children’s toothpaste for her baby. Across the room we saw the Nicobella chocolates and I was hoping they’d have a vegan option – much to my surprise they were all vegan!  The pumpkin spice was amazing and super creamy (not always common with vegan chocolates due to the high content of cacao and no butter or milk) and the walnut flax was almost as good – only because I didn’t think it was as creamy but the flavors were great and you could actually taste the different notes of walnut and flax in it. Paula thought the walnut flax was creamier than the pumpkin spice so maybe in the end it just different among batches. Regardless, the chocolates were delicious and I would definitely purchase them. I was really looking forward to the Elemis table. I first discovered Elemis in the spa while on a cruise my senior year of college and then found it again that summer when I spent a month in England for my cousin’s wedding. The spa at the gym I joined there had it – of course – it was made in England! Since then I come across it now and then and even got some Elemis goodies from my Aunt at my wedding shower last year – she loves the products as well! I was most surprised to find that Nordstrom carries it now!

Next up were our manicures. I have read so much about Scotch Naturals nail polish and have been dying to try it myself. In theory it’s a fabulous product and I want to love it. It’s vegan, water based and insanely natural – no chemicals (way better than Zoya – which I LOVE). Head2Toe a mobile spa service did the manicures. The ladies were wonderful but having not used the product before they were only just learning how to apply it. According to the Scotch website you have to follow the directions to a T in order to have good results. I’m pretty sure they did, but the results still weren’t great. The polish is slightly streaky and does not have clean lines around the edges as conventional polish does – maybe being water based it bleeds? Not really sure but I walked away thinking they looked messy. I also had lots of stray polish around my nail beds which of course washed off when I got home, but it just didn’t impress me at first. Scotch also takes FOREVER to dry! It takes about an hour before you can even feel comfortable carefully touching anything and supposedly 6-7 hours to officially cure. When I first heard 6-7 hours I though who the heck has time for this? In the end, within 2 hours they seem pretty indestructible to me so it wasn’t that bad after all. That being said, 13 hours after the polish was applied they look like my Zoya polish looks after a full week of wear. They were worn at the edges by the time I got up this morning and after my shower I had a big chip on one of them. I’m going to hold out and see how much longer I can keep this on before I have to take it off. I’ll get back to you with a post on that.

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We tried to hold out until the drawing for the diamond earrings at 8pm but at 7:40 we finally left. We were bored and freezing in the heavily air-conditioned room.

Oh – I don’t want to forget to mention my one complaint of the night. For being an eco-friendly event there were no vegan food options and only one vegetarian option! Shocking! The bruschetta had cheese and then there were crab cakes, chicken salad on bread and beef skewers (a real eco-sin!). I know not everyone is vegan – perhaps I was the only vegan there, but I would imagine there were at least a few vegetarians there and all they could eat was bruschetta! Since there was such a small crowd the woman serving the appetizers was houding us every 5 minutes with a new tray of stuff that I couldn’t eat. Jonathan Safran Foer recently said in an interview posted on The Ecologist, that environmentalists who eat meat have a blind spot, not to get preachy, but this is something I’ve had an issue with for quite some time. That being said, I was pretty disappointed to see 3/4 of the options at this event meat based.