A Meet and Greet Session with Mehreen Syed

I was lucky enough to be able to meet the beautiful Pakistani supermodel Mehreen Syed a few weeks ago, with a small group of select girls at the Dorchester Hotel in London. I've been a fan of Mehreen for a few years after seeing her modelling campaigns from as far back as about a decade ago, and I've also been interested in her charity work and business endeavours since.

We managed to speak with Mehreen for an hour, and she was full of stories, of modelling, fashion designers, beauty care and her travels. I wasn't sure what to expect as I haven't met a lot of Pakistani celebrities, but I found Mehreen very friendly and bubbly - she told us she got about 5000 messages a day while she was in London requesting meetings, and how she wished she could meet everyone!

It was also nice to see that she looks exactly as she does in her pictures (she's also super tall!) and has a very natural beauty which you can see photographs well, and is one of the reasons she's a sucessful model today.

Mehreen herself has previously blogged before, and is the founder of the Desi Beauty Blog (now managed by co-founder and makeup artist Nilo Haq whose work I also follow). I really like the idea of someone who is experienced in the fashion industry giving back knowledge from what she has learned and her experiences, rather than looking to make money from her knowledge.

Another project Mehreen told us about was setting up a beauty school in Pakistan for poor girls - daughters of workers and servants who couldn't always afford an education so that these women could not only learn makeup skills, but use these to create a career as makeup artists themselves. She is also chairperson for the International Fashion Academy Pakistan (IFAP), which is a private educational institute based in Lahore, Pakistan, and is a fashion industry school. The school was developed to an platform for the next generation of fashion industry professionals; specifically stylists, models, makeup artists and photographers, and for them https://www.facebook.com/IFAPofficial/to study their field in a professional environment

We spoke to Mehreen for a while, and also managed to get some beauty tips from her - I've forgotten some of these but I'll post what I remember:

• I'm sure you can tell from the pictures that Mehreen has amazing hair! She told us that the latest shampoo she was using was L'oreal Elvive Extraordinary Oil Hair Care series - the shampoo, conditioner and hair oils. She said that she sometimes has pretty dry hair due to a previous illness earlier on in the air, which meant she needs intense hydration, and these shampoo and conditioners were really helpful. I've bought these but haven't tried them yet, so I have high hopes for them.
• If you're looking to dye your hair - make sure you pick the right colour and don't over-bleach!
• Without sounding too obvious - a balanced diet is very important if you want to be healthy. As a model Mehreen said that this was important to maintain a good figure and remain slim, and to not over-indulge in sugary foods!
• Similarly, she said exercise is important, regardless of whether are thin or not in order to maintain your health.
• Mehreen encouraged us to try different makeup styles and tips - find out what you like, don't be afraid to try new things and practise doing makeup to find out what suits you.

It was really lovely to meet a down-to-earth, humble person such as Mehreen, and I'm really glad I got the chance to meet her during her stay in London. She has encouraged us to keep in contact and also email or message her for any queries, which I also though was very generous considering how busy she is! It was also nice to hear her stories - of fashion designers, of Pakistan and of her travels, and it was really great to meet a celebrity who made the time to sit with us and have tea : )