Dove Love with Play Date

Beat the sun,

Lets go off the burn,

When Dove Play Date calls for fun

Guys we run run run!

Ops, it was Dove Play Date so no guys this time. Yes this time we had an all Women Indibloggers meet thanks to Dove. But let us not jump the gun shall we? Let me start from the very start. Sunday the 10^th of May, aka Mothers’ Day Indi team and Dove decided to treat the female bloggers of Mumbai or well that’s what I thought in the beginning and when Indi calls we show up no matter what. So a whole lot of amazing female bloggers made their way to J.W. Marriott, Juhu, besting the ruthless Mumbai summer sun and the totally unbearable humid heat only to be welcomed in style to the Dove Meet – A Play Date with Dove.

Dove Registration Desk

While we registered, for the first time our hands were kind of full even before we started with the event. No goodies, patience! We were given maps, codes, team numbers and badges and were left clueless to enjoy the selfie tweeting booths setup by the Dove Team. Post some selfie proclamation of existence when I made my way to the funky photo booth with my gal gang we were transported to some vineyard with red and white wine – choose what you like. Women love themselves and well according to me no one gets to question why; and when we go click click we are one of the happiest beings you would ever come across - and that is the exact thing we did at the photo booth. And travelling, chitchatting and too many photos do make your tummy growl right – Indi team knows us, so from paani puri to chaat, from mini sandwiches to cheese delight and from cup cakes to well a lot of cup cakes, they had it all ready for us.

Oscar Selfie fever is here to stay for a very very long time!

Then started the real fun – Enter me to a lantern lit Hogwarts Great Hall! I am not exaggerating. The Ballroom where the starting of the event was organized looked nothing less that Hogwarts great hall, infact it looked better with the multi colour lanterns and the dim lighting shining on the wave of white. All the lovely ladies in white (because the colour code of the meet was witty white!) settled and our lovely host Freeshia began with the Dove Love, giving our regular favorite Indi Host Anoop a break for the day. This is when we realized it was not just the Mayas of the Maya Nagri enjoying but female bloggers from a lot of other places of India were also being showered with the Dove Love. Cross Country meets are the best and this revelation indirectly announced what and amazing evening we were to experience.

The Great Hall reminding me of Hogwarts

Ladies in white eagerly waiting

Post the regular Intro session we were asked to let loose! Women tend get pretty conscious about their looks, figure, weight, surrounding etc…but Dove made sure we let go of all our reservations and just enjoy life, the day is meant for us, and so it made us all do Zumba. We were divided in 12 groups of 10 with hair dare names like Pixies, Bun Games, Waterfall, Bangs, Fringe etc and for next 10 mins we danced our hearts out music and cheers and how can I forget – The Gangnam Style!

Let us do the Zumba Baby!

Post the ‘Let your body move’ was ‘Hips don’t lie’ which marked the start of the competition among the 12 teams. Hips don’t lie was the hula hoop competition where the lady brave enough to challenge and win against Shakira won the round for her team. Next up was a kindergarten decorated for us to let the child in us play and be carefree in pools of balls. Have a ball was arranged in another ballroom of Marriott. The dove people had 3 pools of colourful balls ready for us to dive in and fish out grey dove balls. 3 players threw the balls and 2 players caught them in a basket, in the end the team with maximum dove balls won the battle. Reminds you of some round of ‘The Legends of the Hidden Temple’ of Nickelodeon right? ;) It was a colour blast for sure! And from there we rushed to be the mannequins for hair styles. We had to try a range of trendy hairdos on our team mates and deck up in ‘Hair Play’. I learnt some really cool hair styles during this round and then the teams thronged into yet another ballroom where a life size dove play puzzle waited to test our brainteaser skills.

Cant she make Shakira seethe with Envy! 

Play the Jigsaw

Hare Care with Team Dare

Ball Pool!!!!

After all the running and chasing and competing it was finally time to be pampered and dove had the whole of Saraswati Ballroom turned into some studio salon where we go our hair done by the professionals. Hair cut and broad tong curls is what I opted for and O Boy, did it look pretty! The narcissist in me just fell in love with my hair that day.

By the way did you guys notice, dove people had booked all the ballrooms for us? Well if you think that is it, it is not. Be the bartender was the next mini event and it was organized at the pool side! Well now the women power of innovation was on the rocks, because 1 person from every team was to make a cocktail to please the judge to win 1500 dove gift vouchers for every person in her team! Too much pressure right, but the lovely ladies did get the chilled drill right to get the ‘Bartender’s attention’ but just one got the berry pink drink that was at stake – group 6!

Ladies at work

Instructions are always important

At Stake!

All done we were ready to literally hog on the delectable platter placed by the chefs of Marriott. We enjoyed the buffet with the open house bar when the dove team surprised us with a peppy flash mob performance.

Dove Team Flash Mob

And then the end of the day was announced with the event winner Team 2 and with the Dove Love Goodies and Indi Tee! Also we had drop till home facility so while we waited for our car we had a DJ session on. Ok yes I am literally dragging the post now, because I still don’t want the day to end, but not everything we want can be true right?

Now for the skeptical souls like me out there, you must be wondering why would a brand spend so much and not promote any of their products in the meet, right? I have a small theory about it – If the product is good it does not really need people preaching about it, does it? I have used Dove Split End Rescue System earlier and have to say the product does its job quite well; also the Intense Repair system leaves your hair with a soft feel. In this meet I got the elixir in the goodies and have used it twice already and it undoubtedly leaves a visible shine post the wash. Don’t believe me, check and try – though I solemnly swear I am not endorsing their product!

My share of Dove Love

All said and done I really think Dove takes its motto  - Go Play and Dove will take care (edited a bit by me in this case) pretty seriously. This raises the bar for the future meets because hands down, this was one of the best Indimeets I have attended so far.

Last but not the least - A pic with my Gal Gang!