Day two of the 5th annual Beautycon Festival NYC kicked off Sunday (April 7) with a slew of panels, photo opps, and celebrity guests. Though ticket holders spent much of their day makeup booth hopping and testing out new products in the Javits Center’s main hall, all eyes were on the Beautycon pink carpet when famous faces began to arrive in the afternoon.
YouTuber Manny MUA, celebrity hairstylist Tokyo Stylez, and Love & Hip Hop’s Alexis Skyy and Jason Lee were among the A-listers that walked the carpet, though up-and-coming influencers like Missy Lynn, Jayka Noelle, Mai Pham, and Brandon Westenberg also made appearances.
One of the most popular events of day two was the Self-Made panel discussion, which featured Stylez, Liah Yoo, Wuzzam Supa, and Courtney Adeleye. Beautycon veteran Manny MUA made his debut as moderator for the panel, which he chatted with us about on the pink carpet.
“This is the first time I’ve ever moderated, and I’m like, oh my God, I’m so excited!” the makeup artist began. “[The panel] is basically about diversity in the workplace, and I’m really excited about it because it’s a panel of entrepreneurs and people of color, and I just think it’s gonna be really, really great. To hear their stories is going to be really exciting.”
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After the panel, which received rave reviews from festival guests, Celeb Secrets caught up with Tokyo Stylez, who revealed just how inspiring the discussion truly was.
“The panel was amazing! We killed it,” Tokyo gushed. “It was all about people being self made, starting their businesses, and the things that we did to come up.”
Though serious hype surrounded the Self-Made panel and it’s speakers, the most popular and highly-attended event of the day was the Making Money Moves panel discussion, for which Beautycon founder Moj Mahdara interviewed none other than rapper Cardi B. Despite a two-hour wait for Cardi to arrive thanks to a delayed flight, thousands of Beautycon attendees were completely, for lack of a better word, shook when she and her sister model Hennessy Carolina finally took the stage that evening.
The “Money” songstress fired up the crowd by speaking on gender equality in the workplace and explaining why women should demand respect in the same way men do.
“A lot of women always say to me, ‘I be seeing girls, their boyfriends be spoiling them,’ [they ask me] ‘what can I do to have that?’” Cardi said. “You need to ask for a man to give you what you want. Because these men, they don’t hesitate to ask. That’s why they get what they want.”
Cardi went on to insist that success in any field, whether it be music, business, or something else entirely, can be achieved through hard work. She also encouraged the young adults in the audience to take a business class in college regardless of their major, in case they decide they’d like to be their own boss someday. This, of course, was met with cheers.
Festivities wrapped up a few hours later than anticipated as Cardi and Hennessy posed for pink carpet photos, met fans, and mingled with other celebrities and influencers at the festival.
