Glossy Box January Edition

Posted on by Cindy

Its not very often that I get two Glossy Boxes in one month but due to the Christmas Holiday my December box got delayed in shipping and I only got it late into January. Thankfully the January box came just in time for January.

I didn’t get to see any spoilers so this box was pretty much a surprise to me. So lets get into the box shall we.

As you can see we are back to our normal box and I love the box. All my previous boxes have come in handy for storing things in them. They are sturdy to be reused.

The first item I saw in the box was this Wella Professionals Brilliance Leave-In Mousse. I have never tried this before and I am a little curious about it. Looking forward to trying this out in February. This is a full size product and its SRV is $17.99 for 190g

This is something that is new to me but I have heard of the brand before, its the Too Faced Lip Injection Extreme. This is perfect if you want to have a fuller pout without the injections. I don’t know what size this is but if you were to purchase a full size it would be $28.00 for 0.2oz

I actually liked the smell of it and can’t quite place what it is and I did notice like a tingling and then a burning sensation happen. I actually noticed that within a few seconds it felt itchy. Within about 5 minutes it went away and I have to admit that I didn’t notice a fuller pout and the only thing I noticed with redder lips. I don’t think I would purchase this.

Yes you are seeing that right, its another Burt’s Bees Naturally Nourishing Milk & Honey Body Lotion. This is the same thing that I got in my Glymm bag this month. I have to admit that I prefer getting it like this then the little sample we got in Glymm. I honestly think that Glymm could have sent a size like this but aways that’s a whole other rant.

This is a sample of 25g and the full size is 170g for $12.99 I have never used a Burt’s Bee lotion before so I am excited to try it out. If its anything like their lip glosses then I am sure I will love it.

This is actually the Glossy Box best in moisture item and I know some people complained about what they got and I have to say that I am really pleased and happy that I got this. I have gotten this in previous boxes and loved it. Its the perfect size to shove in a make up bag or your purse and it seems like just as I am about to run out I get another sample size.

Another item that caused an uproar is the Nivea Essential Lip Care. I haven’t opened this yet just because I am currently using up a Nivea lip balm that I recently bought because of my dry lips. I like Nivea and I find that it does nourish my dry lips. This is s full size item 4.8g for $2

This is a bonus item and its the Beauty So Clean cosmetic Sanitizing Wipes. They sent me 12 sample wipes. Now this is one of those things that I have gotten so many off and that I don’t really use since I don’t share my make up and I really wish that they would stop sending them out. The full size is a 48 pack for $12.50

So that was my Glossy Box for January and I have to admit its not an overall favorite of mine but I do like what they sent apart from those wipes. What do you think of the box this month?

I am curious to see what February will bring since its their first year anniversary and I have been with them since day one.

The only thing that disappoints me is that they are going to reward the subscribers with the highest glossydots a special deluxe item. I really think that if they are going to do that they should at least send a little something to the subscribers who have been with them since day 1. What do you think of that?

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Nails By Tanya (January Edition)

Posted on by Cindy

One of the things I love most about Facebook is discovering all kinds of groups that are out there especially ones with Canadian content with Canadian people. Which I love.

One of these groups just happens to be a beauty related group and I love how knowledgeable the ladies are in this group and so generous with their time and info because honestly I don’t know alot about make up and being able to ask someone and not worry about being made fun of is great. They are a great group of ladies and some just happen to be local and we are in the midst of trying to plan a meet up. If you are in the Montreal area (or surrounding areas and are interested please let me know, we would love to have you join us.)

Shortly before December, I asked if any of the ladies wanted to do guest posts for me on a montly bases that perhaps didn’t have a blog but wanted to try blogging. I was surprised that I did get a few inquires and hoping to have some of them up soon now that all the planning is done.

Today I am thrilled to bring to you my very first Guest Blogger and new feature to my blog. The title is a work in progress (please let me know what you think and if you have any ideas). Please allow me to introduce you to Tanya who is a west coast girl who loves doing nail art. I have seen some of her work and she is so awesome. What do you think?

Starting in February this will become a weekly post and then at the end of the month Tanya will let us know which design was her favorite of the month and teach us how to achieve that look. Thanks so much Tanya for doing this.

 In case you don’t follow hockey this is the Vancouver Canucks inspiration. Which just happens to be one of my favorite teams next to the Montreal Canadiens. All I am saying is Max Lapierre.

This past week Tanya dedicated the above design to her boyfriend (who has to deal with Tanya’s nail addiction) this design is the helmet of Boba Fett, from Star Wars.

Aren’t they great? Which one is your favorite? Which is my favorite? Which is Tanya’s favorite?

I have to say that I really like the first one and so did Tanya.

Here is what Tanya had to say:

I love the way it looked so elegant and yet was so easy to accomplish.

 Here is how to get that same look:

What you will need:
~Nail Envy by OPI
~Pro-fx base coat
~Orly’s Gumdrop
~Silver Glitter
~Nail Art Pen in White
~Nail Art Pen in Silver Glitter
~Seche Vite Top Coat
~Julep drying drops

Directions:
1) Start by applying one coat of Nail Envy by opi

2) followed by 2 coats of base coat by pro-fx (walmart brand).

3)followed by  2 coats of Orly’s ‘Gumdrop’. (This polish is very opaque and I could have done 1 coat but wanted to make sure it would last.)

4)Let this polish dry and then use a nail art pen to apply silver glitter to the tips of the 3 fingers. (To get the gradient look,  concentrate the glitter at the very tips, then dragged the brush down about 1/3 to 1/2 down the nail.)

5)For the thumb and ring finger, use a white nail art pen tip to draw the 2 intersecting lines. After those are dry, draw the bows at the intersecting lines.

6)Let them dry for about a half hour to make sure its all set and then apply 2 coats of seche vite top coat and Julep drying drops.

What are nail art pens? The nail art pens are thicker than usual polish and dry very quickly.

Thanks so much Tanya for sharing your nail art with us this month. I am looking forward to your February work.

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Star Looks Janury Edition

Posted on by Cindy

Starlooks is another subscription service that I am always excited to get and as soon as the mailman hands me the box and the door is shut I am ripping into the box because I can’t wait to see what they send out each month.

I love that this is sort of still a unknown company to bloggers because I hardle ever see spoilers on this box and when something is unknown it makes you as a subscriber feel special. Is it just me or does everyone else feel the same way?

This month the box was this beautiful mint green and gold. Love the colors and inside the tissue paper was this yellow green which I thought was very bright and almost spring like which honestly at this time of the year we need this feel or at least I do.

This is a little more expensive then the other beauty boxes but honestly I love that we get full size items of the make up that is the Starlooks brand. You can only purchase online so that in itself makes the box special.

I have been told that if you order anything under 10lbs you get free shipping. I am really hoping to place an order this spring because I have spotted a few items that I like.

I was thrilled to get this blush from Starlooks. The pictures make it look dark and in person its a really coral kind of shade. I think this will look really nice on me as it doesn’t seem to be too dark of a shade. I love the packaging of this from the other wrapping to the product. Very simple and elegant.
I love the eye liners from Starlooks because they are a creamy texture and they apply so smoothly against your eye. I never felt like I was having to tug on my eye to get it across. The first one is a diamondline pencil in the shade Fancy. The packaging for this is elegant and simple. I honestly thought it was a silver put once I applied it you can see its a very nice green. The other eye pencil is a brown one.
I was so happy to get one of their brushes because I was told how great they were. They look very well made and this is super soft. I think this would make a great crease or blending brush. If anyone could tell me exactly what this is for I would greatly appreciate it.
As a bonus this month we got the green beaded wrap around braclet which is perfect for St Patrick’s Day in March since I don’t own alot of green things. The bracelet is from Abby Rose Designs. It has a value of $15
 

So that is the January box. As you can its got a value of roughly $60. I think this subscription is well worth the money if you are looking to try new make up each month. I honestly love the quality of the make up and  they by far have the best customer service out there.

What did you think was the best in this months box?

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Mini Essence Haul

Posted on by Cindy

Sadly today I ended up caving and breaking my No Make Up Buy Ban. Although I do have a very good reason why I ended up caving. Last week I got word that my aunt died from her battle with cancer and her funeral was today.

My aunt and her family live in Ottawa which is roughly 2- 2 1/2 hours away from me. So my sister and I were constantly checking the weather on the weekend to figure out if we would be going or not because it was forecasted that there would be freezing rain here (Montreal) and there. Up until this morning it was basically okay lets wait and see what the weather would be like. Thankfully the weather was nice enough that we decided to make the drive up.

I was up since about 4am this morning getting ready and packing a bag just in case we ran into bad weather and had to stay over night. Thankfully that didn’t happen the weather was perfect until tonight.

I made it a point that we weren’t going to stop until we got into Ottawa and near the church that the funeral was at. Well this wasn’t going to be a 2 1/2 hour trip, it turned into nearly a 3 hour trip. The roads were wet and I was driving between 80 and 100 m/h. We made it just in time.

The service was beautiful and it was nice to see all my first cousins (10 of them), second cousins (10+ of them) and third cousins (just a few of them so far) and the reception was fun because we got to laugh over so many crazy things we did as kids and my aunts fantastic spaghetti sause.

Before leaving Ottawa I really needed some retail therapy because I was tired and stressed out and honestly not looking forward to my drive back to Montreal because I had no idea what kind of weather we were going to run into etc. This was the first time in many years that I have driven that long so my back was sore and I had a headache. Not pictured is the tylenol that I bought.

Thankfully on the main road we were on they didn’t have a mall only groceries stores, restaurants, gas stations and pharmacies so we stopped into Shoppers Drug Mart (Pharmaprix here in Quebec) and I quickly headed to the Essence display because up until that point I didn’t realize that selected Pharmaprix here in Montreal have them. (I discovered that there is roughly a handful close to me now carry this line)

If your not familiar with Essence they are a company based out of Germany that make affordable make up that you can only buy in stores. When I say affordable I mean everything is basically under $5.

Here is what I picked up.

 ~Stay with me long lasting lip gloss. This is suppose to be a new item. I got one in the shade 08 Deep Rose. It was more like a sheer color for me. What I really like is the applicator has a roller kind of brush that makes application easy. It was a nice gloss and it wasn’t sticky. This is available in siz shades..

~The next one is XXXL Shine lip gloss. Its in the shade 07 Big Night Out. Its available in fourteen shades. This had a hint of color which I liked since it wasn’t something that wasn’t bright.  I loved that it wasn’t sticky and I am sure this will be used quite a bit.

~If you know me, you know that one of my favorite scents is Strawberry so when I spotted the Sweet Strawberry and Strawberry Smoothie I knew I had to pick them up. I love the texture and the smell of them and I am kind of partial to the smoothie more but they are perfect to throw in your purse.

Although I have to say that when I got home and was looking at everything, I first thought that I had picked up two sweet strawberries and was disappointed but upon closer inspection I realized that I did get one of each.

 I was in total heaven when I saw this little three pack of mini glosses. How can you not love something that has New York on it? I am a total New York addict and I always look for things with that on it.

 I don’t know what the shades are so I will just describe them. The first one is a pink, the second one is a pink glitter/shimmer and the final one is a clear one. I haven’t tried these yet but as soon as I do I will probably do a post about them. I figured with what I have opened and used already I should be good for a little while.

 Finally the last few things I bought was the cute pink essence sharpener. One is a regular size sharpener and the other side is for a chubbier pencil. Lately I have been getting  a few eye liner/ lip liner pencils and I thought it was time I picked up a sharpener.

I also picked up these cute little quads. They are roughly about the size of our $1 coin.

The first quad is from the Cherry Blossom Girl collection. Its the 01 Dreaming Under a Cherry Tree. The shades are peach, nude, brown and red. Although it doesn’t really look red in the picture or in person. I thought this would be a perfect spring look with many ways to wear it. It has a shimmer and matte finish to them.

The other quad is 12 Purple Day. This is just like the other quad with shimmer and matte shades. The colors are purple, pinkish purple, a dark grey and a silver. This one also has great color options. I am sure both quads can be mixed and matched with each other.

I honestly wanted to buy more from the essence line but I purposely said to myself that I will only pay cash and not use my credit card to avoid over spending and that worked for me.

This little retail therapy helped ease the stress and made the drive home more fun although I’m not sure if it was having my little bag filled with items or the delicious Tim Horton’s coffee I had picked up.

Have you ever tried Essence before? What are your thoughts? What should I be on the look out for?

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Glymm January Edition

Posted on by Cindy

I finally got my Glymm bag for Janaury.

Glymm had announced earlier this month that the bag would be delayed because of a product not coming in. I was excited and really hoping that this bag would wow me because quite honestly since they switched to the bag last summer I have yet to be wowed.

I was excited when the bag came because I was curious to see what this product would be that held up the bag.

Well let me say I was truly disappointed. I have decided to cut my ties with Glymm and February will be my last bag. I have truly tried to support Glymm and gave them the benefit of the doubt so many times but with the price increases happening so frequently I just can’t justify spending the money on this subscription any longer.

In the bag this month was:

A sample of Burt’s Bees Nourishing Milk & Honey body lotion. It was a 7ml sample.

A sample of Lash-M double trouble Mascara. Sadly this went into the trash because it was tried up.

A two pouch sample of LA Fresh Travel Lite FAcial Cleansing Wipes. They contain one whip each. This is something I will use. I just hope it doesn’t smell like the other wipes from this brand.

Something I never heard about is the DMAE Firming Serum from  360 Skin Care. I ‘m not sure I will be using this because ever since my last break out from a unknown product from a unknown company I am really hesitate to try things.

Finally the last item is Cool Way boost. Not quite sure what it is exactly since this is another new to me item.

So that was my bag this month. Nothing to special in it for me. I have noticed that since they switched to the bags we no longer get full size items which is a let down because I really don’t think that this bag warrents the price they are charging for it.

What do you think?

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Today I am appearing on……

Posted on by Cindy


I was recently asked by Katie from Katie’s Book Blog if I would be interested in doing a Q&A with her and I was super excited. Well today is the day. So be sure to go over and check out my Q&A on her blog.

I have been a follower of Katie’s blog for a little while now and love going to her blog to read her reviews and her blogger interviews.

Congrats on your four year blogiversary Katie. Wishing you many years of great success. Be sure to go over and say hi to Katie.  

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

MEME/ Sunday’s In Bed With…… #34

Posted on by Cindy

The awesome blogger behind this is Kate from Midnight Book Girl   not only is she an awesome blogger but she is was one of my roommates for BEA. YAY!!

Midnight Book Girl

Sundays In Bed With….is a meme I’ve started to share the book we’re spending the morning in bed with, or the one we’d like to stay curled up in bed with all Sunday if only our busy lives would allow! For fun, take a picture of the book in your bed, or simply write up a post or comment below sharing your Sundays in Bed With book. Quoted from Kate’s blog.

Good Morning everyone. Its hard to believe its that time of the week again for another Sunday’s In Bed With…. It just feels as though the weeks are going faster and faster. Can you believe its the last weekend of January?

Well I am not exactly curled up in bed reading since I had to get the boys up at 6am for hockey practice. So while they are at the arena I am curled up on the couch under my fleecy blanket with a cup of hot tea reading this:

I started it about the middle of the week but ended up putting it down because I need to write my previous read’s review which I was having a hard time to write.  So I am picking this up and rereading the first few chapters again. I am so excited to dig into this book.
What are you reading today?

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.