Month: March 2013

Today was one of those days that I was feeling blah and its due to two things, one is that I am suffering with a sinus cold again and the other is Montreal is under a snow storm warning. We are suppose to get roughly 30cm of snow. Plus its been cold again with temperatures reaching below 0 here.

I am honestly so over with winter now and really longing for Spring to come. I had hoped with the warmer weather we were getting a little while ago that things would be changing but I guess not. Hopefully it will start warming up sooner. I need Spring.

Thankfully I got an awesome package in the mail today that cheered me up.

I am part of a swap group on face book that involves Canadians and this was actually my first time taking part in one that required me shipping something out. This was the second swap I took part in.

I was so happy when I found out who my swap partner was going to be, its Stephanie and she blogs over at Fun Size Beauty . You should go over and check out her blog and let her know I sent you over. She blogs about anything and everything. I have been enjoying the time I spend over there.

Here is what she sent me:

 I was so happy that I was home when my mail man rang the bell for this. He sometimes is the gentlest with packages when he puts them between the doors.

 Everything was wrapped up in pretty tissue paper and stickers. I loved this because it was like Christmas morning. I couldn’t wait to open all the little goodies.

So here is all the goodies I got from Stephanie:

In the bubble wrap pouch was: samples of Henriksen pur perfection night cream, Kiehl’srosa arctica youth regenerating cream, Garnier intense 7 days lotion, TRESemme split end shampoo & conditioner, amd a Marcelle day cream. There was also a handful of candy, a chocolate bunny and mini eggs.

Which BTW if you mircowave the desired amount that you want for a few seconds you will get a melt in your mouth treat. Yummy!

Now onto the other make up goodies Stephanie sent me:

-Cover Girl lip slicks (tinted lip balm) in the shade Daring. Its a very deep berry shade and at first I was like wow that is dark but its actually a sheer color. Its very moisturizing on the lips. I think this will be something I will use alot.

-Revlon brillant shine nail polish in the shade Magnetize (#140). Its a silver metal polish and I will be using it this weekend when I apply my new nail polish for the week. So when I do that I will come back and edit this post.

-Essence 24 hour Stays no matter what volume Mascara. I have heard alot of amazing things about this so I was so happy when I saw this. I am going to resist opening this one for now and hopefully I can hold of. I know its going to be hard.

-Essence Quattro eye shadown in #12 Purple Day. The shadows are about the size of a loonie and there is a purple, magenta, a light silver and a darker silver. Very pretty colors.

-Finally another Essence Ready For Boarding palette in the shade 01 Beauty On Tour. Its got 6 shades and they are in silver, yellow, mint green, blue, gold and copper. Very pretty colors.

UPDATE!!!

To my surprise I got this cute little package from Stephanie. I have never tried Indie Polish before. Its a Canadian business that you can see here if you CLICK ON THIS

 There are mini polishes (5ml ) in the shades Sweet Heart, Teal Tidal and Wonder Lust

About the Polishes:

Sweet Heart is a great over coat polish or with 3+ layers a great stand alone polish. It’s made up of beautiful high grade red holographic glitter!

Nailpolish is made using a 3-free base and is cruelty-free. NO Dibutyl Phthalate, NO Formaldehyde and NO Toluene.

Teal Tidal: (available) Teal Tidalis a mix of HIGH GRADE holo (holographic) teal microfine glitter, larger round teal glitter and teal diamond glitters. It can be worn as an over coat or a polish

Nailpolish is made using a 3-free base and is cruelty-free. NO Dibutyl Phthalate, NO Formaldehyde and NO Toluene.

Wonder Lust: (I think there is only one available in this size) Wonder Lust is a SERIOUSLY sexy color and no matter how I went thru the 15-20 pictures I took in an attempt to capture it’s beauty it’s hard to see the purple and gold shift and teeny tiny holo glitters. It’s BEAUTIFUL and really shows off in bright sun.

The purple gold shift color is a mixture of mica’s that actually work against each other to make this neat illusion. Than I added just a tiny bit of 008 holo glitter to pick up on the purple. I LOVE this polish. You will too!

All product descriptions were taken from the sellers etsy shop.

I am so happy that my first mailed swap went so well. I won’t be taking part monthly just because it will get expensive in shipping but I am thinking perhaps four times a year.

Have you ever done a swap before?

Today is the day that I get to share some exciting news with you guys, my readers. I have known about this for a little while now (a little over a month) and to keep this under wraps has been really rough because I wanted to tell you about it.

This has been the year of friends I know becoming authors (published ones). I am so happy for them and just want to support them all and I think you should to.

Today, one of my local book blogging friends, Linda has her first short story, The Blind Side of Control published on NFTU.co.uk so you should click on that link and go and read her short story.

CLICK HERE TO READ BLIND SIDE OF CONTROL

Place you can find Linda at:
http://www.lindamc.com/
https://twitter.com/lindamcnguyen
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3275660-linda-m-c-nguyen

Congrats Linda and wishing you much success with this. I really think you need to have a book next. What do you say?

It was exactly a month ago (February 16th) I met up with a local facebook friend, Mihaela,  to do our first official swap (if you click HERE you can see my first swap meet up with her) within the group we are in and during that meet up we decided that we should do this more often (perhaps not a monthly bases but every few months) and so brought on this weekend. We finally were able to pin point a date and we decided to stay at the same mall (this mall is awesome).

This time we took advantage of some shopping and I think I did pretty good. I only bought some Lush bath items (Easter ones that I will be talking about in a review shortly) and some spring candles from Bath & Body Works (with an upcoming storm scheduled I am in need of some spring scents). I will probably do a review of them in a few weeks.

After shopping we headed to a coffee shop to sit, talk and do our swapping.

Mihaela told me in advance I would be surprised and teased me with a photo and that the box weighed 10 lbs (which at first I didn’t believe here but upon picking on the box she was not kidding.)

This is the little teaser she sent me. Everything was wrapped so pretty and the box smelled so good. I didn’t know why until I had opened it all completely.

This is eveything unwrapped. I was so over whelmed at first but as I was opening everything I was so happy because these are things I really wanted to try and a few items I almost picked up but didn’t because I knew I would be getting some swaps in.

I know last time I didn’t include alot of pics in my post so this time I am including a ton of pictures and I hope you don’t mind.

The first items I am going to talk about is the eye shadows Mihaela got for me. The last time we met up we talked about MUA’s (Make up Academy) Palettes Undressed (black casing) and Undress Me Too as these are suppose to be dupes for the Urban Decay Naked and Naked Two.

Honestly comparing the colors in the all the palettes they are similar. I have seen swatches online and quite honestly if I didn’t know any better I would say they are exactly alike. The difference is the price and quantity of course. The Mua’s palettes are roughly under 5 pounds and are 9.6g and the Naked Palettes are $60 and you get 15.6g.

Mihaela told me it was time to add some color to my eyes so she included a Wet N’ Wild in the shade Petal Pusher. This has been something I have been eyeing for a little while now but never purchase it. I actually get to the point of having it in my basket but returning it before I leave. The eight colors are very pretty, silky and very pigmented. This is a great compact that you can travel with because it can take you from day to night instantly.

The other smaller palette that I got is by NYX (a line of make up I have been wanting to try since hearing about it and didn’t realize that a drug store here was selling some of the line since I thought it was a US line). Its in the shade TS 03 and the colors are nude, taupe and dark brown. These are my colors. This is another perfect traveling compact as well.

Bronzing powders are all very new to me and honestly it sorta of scares me. I have never tried bronzing powders before but I am willing to give it a try. This is in the shade 706 Hamptons Radiance.

Next up is nails. Who doesn’t love nail polishes? I have been looking for a dark blue polish since hockey started because I was hoping to do something neat with my nails for the team but could never find the right shade and I think this OPI Listen to Your Momanger will be perfect. I also got this Essie kit with the shades Ballet Slippers (a sheer pink) and As Gold as it Gets (Glittery Gold) with a nail file. Mihaela also told me I should try the Nail Cavier. She included the colors green, teal, pink, gold, silver and copper.

On to the lips items. I have become some what obsessive with the L’Oreal Paris Colour Caresse Wet Shine Stains since they came out recently ( I have a few of them and just love them) so Mihaela got me one I might not have purchased on my own because I am not much of a colour on my lip kind of person) and its in the shade #186 Berry Persistent (I think I need to do a post on this), Burt’s Bees is something I have seen in stores but just never purchased on my own. This is a duo kit and includes a Nourshing Lip Balm with mango butter (smells so good) and a lemon butter cuticle cream (which I am need of as my cuticles are really dry),  another item I have heard great things about it the baby Lips by Maybelline and this is in #030 Peach Kiss, another one of my obsessions lately has been the Cover Girl Lip perfection jumbo gloss balms and they are in the shades Rose Twist and Plum Twist (very nice sheer kind of colors and something I will be wearing and I think this will be another one I will review) and finally the last lip item is by NYX and its a lip liner pencil in the shade 849 Beige (another nice neutral colour for me)

I have heard of MAC and the only items I have purchased from MAC are the lip sticks (which I absolutely love and would buy more of if I could) so I am excited to try out this Skin Refresher/Finishing Mist. Mihaela told me is one of her most loved items.

When I feel sturdy I use eye liner pencils (sadly not as often as i should) and I recenly got a Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On eye pencil in a beauty box recently and have been using it and I like it so I was thrilled to see a few in my box. One brand that I have been looking to try is Tarte (have been hearing amazing things about this Brand) its a smoldering eye pencil in the shade  gunmetal (silver) and two Urban Decay’s Glide on’s in ransom (purple) and bourbon (brown). They are all very silky and smooth.

Now the best part honestly is the chocolates. Mihaela included a bunch of solid chocolate eggs which got eaten pretty quickly when I got home and this cute Ferro Rocher chocolate bunny. I have been eyeing this bunny since they came out because I have never tried it and was thinking of picking it up for Easter while I am so happy I wanted but if this is anything like the ferro rochers then I am in trouble. 🙂

Thanks Mihaela for this awesome swap and you know I loved everything. We are so alike in taste and items that is scary but in a good way. Looking forward to future swaps with you and meet ups.