Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween to all of you celebrating it - and if you're heading out, have a great time and stay safe ;)

I've finished my hair and makeup already. Gosh it took me forever to stick those fake eye lashes on! LOL.

I'm just about to head to my friend Jasmin's place shortly and we'll be having dinner and some drinks before heading to our favourite night club called Branthouse.

I didn't do anything crazy for Halloween makeup as you can see - just a typical look for me!

I've been meaning to mention how much I love my Hot Tools 2" professional curling iron which is what I used today to curl my hair:

The curling iron can heat up to a very very hot temperature as all professional curling irons do. So this would curl even the straightest hair and my hair is very straight naturally if I let it air dry.

But what I like about this curling iron is the handle of it - the on/off button is a switch and not a press-in button so you don't accidently press it off while using it (which is what happens with my Conair flat iron). Even the knob to adjust the temperature is more stiff and you turn the knob as oppose to my Vidal Sassoon curling iron where the temperature gage is a sliding switch and it slides very easily (so sometimes I have slided the temperature too low while using it and my hair wasn't curling!). Also the rubber like material on the handle grip gives me a good grip on the iron so it doesn't slip out of my hands...some of the Conair handles are plastic and can slip out of your hands much more easily. Even the barrel on this Hot Tools curling iron gives my hair more grip somehow - I don't know how to explain it. I really have no complaints about this curling iron and that's a first for me - plus, the price is reasonable especially if you get it off of ebay or another discount beauty store.

Do you use curling irons? Do you have a favourite brand/model for a curling iron?

Don't forget to turn your clocks back one hour tonight if you're in that time zone that does Daylight savings ;) Yay for one more hour of sleep!

I hope you're having a lovely weekend so far ;)

Karen

Favourite Vanilla Scent

Vanilla is such a sexy scent....and for me, I prefer a more subtle approach to it.

My favourite vanilla scent to date is Victoria's Secret Vanilla Jasmine perfume





It was the only perfume I brought along with me on my trip three weeks ago so that says it all...and sadly I have finished off the bottle. Too bad they don't sell this perfume at any store here - I have to order it online.

Do you like vanilla scented perfumes or body sprays? Any you would recommend?

The latest perfume I picked up a couple of weeks ago was MAC's Asphalt Flower:




I would say it's a Fall scent...a bit musky, very floral and a tad bit strong. For 6 mL, yes it is a bit pricey at $24 CDN but what the heck - it's a very convenient size (I can fit it into any small clutch for on the go)

And it's a roller ball applicator. It helps control the amount I put on and for someone like me who is spray happy, this is good news ;)

What was the latest perfume or body spray you picked up?

Hope you're having a lovely week.

=) Karen

Yay for a couple of more shoes and dresses ;)

I hope you had a lovely start to your week!

My weekend was pretty laid back. As usual I spent time with my best girl friend - her name is Jasmin. The two of us hung out on Saturday with another friend named Gordon along with Gordon's 7 year old daughter Emily.

Since Emily is young, one of the places we went to was a toy store called Mastermind. Jasmin is a bit obsessed with Penguins so she found herself a toy penguin which she bought for her young nephew. Isn't my friend Jasmin so cute with her toy penguin? ;)

We did some other shopping, including a visit to Spring. This is the first time I've ever purchased shoes from Spring because I always had the impression that $40 heels must be painful after five minutes of walking in them. You'd like to think that the more you spend on a pair of shoes must mean it's more comfortable right?

Wrong.

These two pairs of shoes, especially the red ones are really comfortable!

These shoes are really an eggplant purple with a kind of crocodile pattern to it. But it looks black patent in this picture.

Do you own a really comfortable pair of high heels?

The rest of my weekend included a sleep over at Gordon's, playing cards, drinking wine and eating a ton of good home cooked Thai food (Jasmin's a great cook).

Anyways, this evening I picked up a couple of dresses at Urban Behaviour. I don't know why I haven't been to that store in ages even though it's less than a ten minute walk from my condo.....

I figured this dress might be good for a dinner or something like that. The fabric is soft which I really like.

Wow, talk about blurry! LOL

Oh and sequins. I detest the idea of hand washing clothes - I toss everything in the washing machine/dryer. But you know, I've been thinking about getting a sequined dress for a while now and picked up this one today:

Oh, and just for fun I included this next picture. I accidently had my camera on flash AND my silly boyfriend popped his head in the picture last minute when I was taking this shot...LOL. He looks like Mr. Bean with grey hair no?! This picture is just waaaay too funny.

Anyways, what do you think? Do you like sequins?

=) Karen

Greenish FOTD

Yay! It's Friday almost ;) I hope your week has been going well.

I played with a couple of my new pigments this evening. I know green is not my colour but it's fun to play around with different colours.

I ended up using five eye shadows/pigments in total for my look (it sounds more complicated than it really looks).

Shadows used from left to right: MAC one-off eye shadow (starflash), MAC teal pigment, MAC chocolate brown pigment, MAC vanilla eye shadow, and MAC smut eye shadow. The swatches are in the same order.

I couldn't bring the camera closer because the flash makes the whole picture white :(

And now that I look at this picture, yikes I did a poor job with blending! LOL. Oh well, too late!

Complete list of products used were:

Eyes

MAC one-off eye shadow all over the lid and slightly above the crease too

MAC teal pigment on the whole lid area

MAC smut + MAC chocolate brown pigment both mixed in the outer half of the lid bringing it up above the crease and outwards

MAC vanilla eye shadow under brows and in the inner corners of the eyes

MAC Feline Kohl pencil on top and bottom lashes

MAC Prep + Prime Lash

L'oreal Voluminous Waterproof Carbon Black Mascara

Face
MAC Studio Sculpt SPF 15 Foundation in NC30

MAC Mineralize SPF 15 Loose foundation in Medium (it's really like a powder and not a foundation)

MAC Fun & Games blush

Lips
MAC Creme Cup lipstick

Sooo...do you have anything planned for this weekend? =) Let me know!

Karen

Another Black Dress from F21...

I was bored so I went on the Forever21 website and browsed the dress section. This one particular black dress caught my eye:

As if lace alone wasn't tempting enough, the price tag and black colour drew me in so I went for a 10 minute walk down the street to my local F21 store yesterday evening and sure enough I found the dress! I love weekday nights for shopping because it's nice and quiet and you don't have to risk being elbowed by fellow shoppers.

Don't you like shopping when it's nice and quiet in the store?

Of course my picture of the dress didn't turn out as nice as the website picture above:

I also picked up a pair of hoop earrings that looked really cute. I rarely wear hoop earrings nowadays but when I saw these I was like, oh I have to get it! LOL. I don't have a pair of hoop earrings with charms hanging off them like this:

Each earring has like a pearl on it with a flower charm, a bird charm, a cubic zirconia charm and a silver chain hanging down. This the close up:

So that was my mini purchase from F21 and I might wear it out this weekend!

Are you eyeing anything from a store lately?

=) Karen

FOTD/OOTD & a few MAC purchases

I hope you had a great start to your week =)

Well, just like a lot of other bloggers I got my share of MAC Style Black. I picked up three mineralized eye shadows: Cinderfella, Young Punk and Blue Flame (from left to right below). I won't do any swatches since I've seen a whole bunch from other bloggers but if you'd like me to swatch any, please let me know.

And I picked up four MAC pigments: (left to right) Push the Edge, Kitschmas, Teal and Chocolate Brown. The swatches are in the picture below and are in the same order from left to right.

I love how Push the Edge seems to be a matte finish and not frosty like many other MAC pigments. It's a really pretty eggplant purple colour =)

Kitschmas is sort of chunky in texture. I like how there's glitter in it and that it's a light pink colour.

Teal and Chocolate Brown are both smooth in texture and slightly frosty in finish. I'm loving both of these too ;)

So I used a few of the new colours today for my FOTD. Here's the look:

A close up of the eye make up:

Products used:

Face

Make up Forever HD primer

MAC Studio Moisture Tint SPF15 in Medium Dark

MAC Mineralize Foundation SPF15 Loose in Medium

Cargo Blu Ray Blush/Highlight (no designated name for this one because there's only one blu ray blush for Cargo I guess)

Eyes

MAC Soft ocre paint pot all over lid

MAC Young Punk eye shadow all over the lid and slightly above the crease as well

MAC Push the Edge pigment only on the lid area

MAC Kitschmas pigment on the inner corners / tearduct

MAC Mylar eye shadow under the brow area for highlight

MAC Feline eye kohl an top and lower lash line as well as waterline

MAC prep + prime lash

L'oreal Voluminous Carbon black mascara

Lips

MAC Creme Cup lipstick

I had to pick up some lightbulbs from Canadian Tire earlier in the evening so this was my casual OOTD:

T-shirt from Stitches

Black pants from Garage

Jean Jacket from Winners

Scarf from the CNE

Bag from Michael Kors

Shoes from Lacoste

Hope your week is off to a great start! Let me know if you have anything exciting planned for this week! ;)

Karen

Halloween costume!!

Guess what?! I went into a sex store with my Mom for the first time today!

Yah, like have you ever been in a sex store with your Mom or Dad before?!

My Mom was really cool about it and told me it's not even her first time in a sex store. Sheesh, I should give my parents more credit.

You know it's only two weeks away til Halloween so I had to get my butt to the local sex store and get myself a costume. My decision came down to a sailor costume or a french maid costume - my Mom convinced me that the french maid outfit was sexier so that's what I walked out of the store with ;)

Have you picked out your Halloween costume yet?

I need your help though. My Mom thinks the costume looks a lot better with stockings on.

Do you think I should go with stockings or without stockings judging from the pictures?

Picture with costume on and no stockings:

Picture with costume on with La Senza stockings (don't mind the grumpy face I'm pulling):

The plan is to head out to a nightclub for Halloween and low and behold Halloween conveniently falls on a Saturday this year!

What are you plans for Halloween?

=) Karen

A quiet Saturday night for a change

Usually I'm out on a Saturday night but my best friend is out of town on a business trip....and I honestly still feel a bit tired from my travels. Whenever I travel I wake up pretty early and go to bed pretty late so I guess it's bound to catch up.

So all I did tonight was stay at home with my boyfriend and ordered in:

I love gyros!

Have you had gyros before? Do you like it as much as I do?!

I HATE to admit it but I have such bad eating habits....if you see the way I eat you'd think fast food and all that bad-for-you food is laced with narcotics of some sort. I can never get enough!

In any case, I finally finised up an Aveda Hair Product that I've had for a while. It's the Aveda Light Elements Finishing Solution.

It's claim: "infuses all hair types with weightless light hold, absorbing oil and taming flyaways".

First, this product was recommended to me by an Aveda stylist when I got my hair done with them.

I'm not sure if the product provides much of a hold at all - it's definitely a "very light" hold if it provides any hold at all.

The word "light" is what caught me with this product because I didn't want to weigh down my hair any more than it already is. My Aveda stylist had told me that this light elements line was perfect for me because I had thicker hair, didn't want to weigh down my hair with products and wanted something to tame some frizz while keeping it shiny and healthy.

It's a thin liquid consistency so pretty much to me, most pastes or liquid hair products will tame flyaways. I don't have very thin hair so I don't have to worry about flyways too much.

Okay, it does not absorb oil even though it claims to do so. If I don't wash my hair for two days straight I do get a bit oily near my scalp and slapping a bit of this product on my hair only makes it worst.

The smell of this product is the same as all Aveda products - it has that Aveda herbal smell to it.

Then, the one thing I don't like about this product is the way the product dispenses. It looks like you just pour it out the bottle. Actually, there's a kind of rubber/plastic flap surrounding the hole of the bottle so that you actually have to squeeze the bottle to get product out. But you have to squeeze a bit and almost all the time I've squeezed out way too much product because it's so liquidy that you get a lot out at a time. I know my explanation might not make much sense but it's not easy for me to squeeze out just a little bit at a time.

All in all I definitely will not buy this product again. It didn't perform any different than another similar hair care product that is half the price. I've tried to like Aveda hair products but none have really worked out for me in the end.

How about you - have you tried and liked any Aveda hair products enough to repurchase? If you haven't tried Aveda hair products, are there any hair products you're using now that you've repurchased from before?

Hope your weekend is going well =)

Karen

Miller Harris....you killed my hair! LOL

Who is Miller Harris? No, he's not your local town mayor.....it's a London Perfumer.

And one of their signature lines called "Citron Citron" is well overpriced considering the quality is severely lacking.

This was the line of products given to me at the Fairmont Palliser hotel where I stayed at for six nights last week:

In fact, the Citron Citron Miller Harris line is given to all Fairmont hotel rooms that I've stayed at (I've been at the Fairmont in Ottawa, the Fairmont in Toronto and the Fairmont in Calgary). The Gold Floors of the Fairmont give you another Miller Harris line of products but not any better, and in my opinion, it doesn't even smell as good as the citron citron line.

Okay, so I didn't pack any shampoo or conditioner. My luggage was slightly overweight as is and my decision was made from that. I used the Miller Harris citron citron shampoo and conditioner for six days straight.

At the end of the six days my hair was fried, dried out and dying for moisture.

Not even my usually reliable John Frieda Frizz Ease Hair Serum saved my hair.

I usually put a hair serum in my hair when it's damp after a shower to help add shine and make it tangle free. See, I finished the flippin' bottle of hair serum and my hair was still straw-like! Okay, well, it was like 1/3 full at the beginning of my trip..but still! The citron citron shampoo is like Mr. Clean - it just stripped all the oils of my hair and then some. The conditioner did nothing what so ever- it didn't even untangle my hair well at all.

So what was my saviour?

My L'oreal Professional Lumino Contrast Nutriceride conditioner masque.

It's like a pearlescent kind of paste and has a nice perfume-like smell to it. This is what it looks like:

I slapped some of this on my hair last night and stuck a shower cap on my head. I sat in the bath tub for maybe 8-10 minutes and then rinsed out this conditioning mask.

Even while I was applying the L'oreal professional conditioner to my hair, I could almost like feel my hair drinking up the moisture. I know that sounds weird....but OMG, what a difference it made to my hair instantaneously. My hair was so smooth, moisturized, silky and tangle free after. I highly recommend this conditioner masque.

And if I haven't bashed the citron citron shampoo and conditioner enough, get this. The 250 mL bottle of body lotion is 30 British pounds! So this 60 mL bottle of body lotion I got everyday at the hotel is worth like 7 British pounds....crazy.

Okay the lotion does smell nice for about ten minutes after application if you like a citrus clean smell. But my love for it ends there especially after I found out how pricey it is. I had to mix this lotion with Cetaphil lotion (very good, unscented lotion that I highly recommend) in order to provide enough moisture for my skin.

So that's my thoughts on this London Perfumer so far!

Have you ever tried pricey body/hair products that simply did not work out at all?

I hope you're having a lovely start to your weekend!

=) Karen

Where I've been this past weekend

***Pic heavy***

LOL...I always see this warning on blog posts so I thought I would throw it in here too!

Since Monday October 5th I was in Calgary, Alberta. It's just under a four hour flight West of Toronto where I live.

On Saturday October 10th, my parents flew out from Toronto to join me in Calgary. And my younger sister from Edmonton drove south to meet us all in Calgary (Edmonton is about a three hour drive from Calgary).

So there was six of us altogether on the weekend: both of my parents, my younger sister Jennifer, her boyfriend Siv, my friend Emmanuel and myself. Saturday was spent seeing Calgary. My family and I did a number of things:

• walked along Stephen Avenue (Calgary's downtown shopping district)
• drove by Calgary's Saddledome (where concerts are held)
• drove by the Canada Olympic Park (where Calgary hosted the 1988 Winter olympics)
• went to the Calgary Stampede Casino (where I played my first game of blackjack at any casino!)
• checked out Crescent Heights (an area outside of the city were you have a great view of the whole downtown Calgary)
• and went up the Calgary Tower (which you saw from my bedroom window at the Fairmont Palliser since I posted a pic of it during the week)

Here's pictures taken from Crescent Heights. It's just outside of the city and you have an amazing view of the whole of downtown Calgary.






Yep, that's the whole of downtown Calgary in those two pictures above! Small city!

And I took this picture of everyone standing on the Crescent Heights hill. From left to right we have Siv (my sister's boyfriend), Jennifer (my younger sister), my Mom, my Dad, my friend Emmanuel.


And the six of us went up the Calgary Tower.

This is a picture of the glass floor with my Dad on the left, Siv on the glass floor goofing off and my sister taking a picture of Siv.




Oh boy, I look terrible in all the pictures (lack of sleep?!) but here's my friend Emmanuel and myself sitting on the glass floor.




Only Jennifer and my Mother wouldn't dare step on the glass floor.


Have you ever been in a high tower with a glass floor and went on the glass floor???

And for fun I took a picture of my shoes (bottom left), my Dad's shoes (top), and Emmanuel's shoes (bottom right) while standing on the glass floor.



The next day on Saturday, we all drove out to Banff and Lake Louise.


Banff is about a 1.5 hour drive from Calgary and it's very scenic out there with mountains. Lake Louise is about another hour drive from Banff. Lake Louise is a well known turquoise coloured lake.

We saw these cute light grey coloured birds out in Banff and Lake Louise. They're kinda chubby looking with their feathers so that's what makes them look really cute and they hop right up to you! =) I haven't seen these birds before, have you???


Going up Sulphur Mountain using the gondola in Banff is a must if you're there as a tourist. I've been up Sulphur Mountain once before and was terrified of that gondola ride! This time, I was much better and was able to talk and look out the window too!

My Dad took this picture of my Mom and I on the gondola ride up to Sulphur Mountain.

And I took this picture looking out my gondola window. Jenn, Siv and Emmanuel were in the gondola on the left following us up the mountain:

The trees were so beautiful and Christmas-like with all the snow. Don't you think??

Have you been on a gondola before??? Were you scared???

About the snow, it snowed everday for a short bit on the weekend. And earlier in the week there was some snow in downtown Calgary so I had my first snowfall for the Fall season out in Calgary. It still has not snowed yet in Toronto this season.

Has it snowed yet where you are???

The next picture shows the gorgeous view at the top of Sulphur Moutain. If you see closely, there is a hotel towards the bottom centre of the picture hidden in the shadows - that's the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. Notoriously known for being haunted....eeek!

So yah, we stayed at The Rimrock Resort Hotel instead....which is conveniently right beside the gondola ride.

This was one view from my hotel room at The Rimrock:

And another view from my hotel room at The Rimrock:

And here's another lovely picture of the beautiful mountain ranges from the view on Sulphur Mountain.

And we also managed to do Lake Louise on Saturday. It's a beautiful turqoise colour and it's the first lake I ever saw that had this colour. I've been to Lake Louise a few times already but it was the first time for my parents and my sister.

Here is a picture of my sister Jennifer and I in front of Lake Louise:

Lake Louise and the beautiful mountains surrounding it. It really is a small lake...but guess how deep it is?

This lake is 70 metres deep at it's deepest!!! For some odd reason, I always feel that small bodies of water should be shallow but not the case here!

So on Monday morning Jenn and Siv departed us to head back to Edmonton. The both of them are in University and they had to get back to Edmonton that day in order to get ready for school on Tuesday.

So on Monday it was only my Mom, my Dad, Emmanuel and myself who went on the daytrip to the Columbia Icefields. It was the first time for any of us to go to the Icefields which is in Jasper National Park.

Jasper National park is huge and there are many scenic sites along the drive. The Columbia Icefields is only the half way point to Jasper itself.

One very scenic stop on the way to the Icefields is Peyto Lake. It's another gorgeous turqouise coloured lake but a lot quieter than the more touristy Lake Louise.

We didn't bother to walk right up to the foot of the lake because it was a 2.2 km walk from the parking lot to the base of of the lake. So we ended up just walking to the viewpoint area which is about a 800 metre walk.

And here is the gorgeous view of Peyto Lake:

Can you see a wolf from the shape of the lake???

On the left side of the lake is the glacier that feeds into the lake:

So after Peyto Lake we did have a few other stops to view other lakes but not quite as beautiful as Peyto in my opinion.

I'll skip right to the Columbia Icefield. That big hunk of ice in the middle of the picture is the Athabasca Glacier. Further up above the glacier is the Icefield itself.

We took a special tour bus which took us out onto the Athabasca Glacier. Look how huge those tires are! That's me standing beside the bus which is already on the glacier itself.

Okay, see the orange coloured pylons in the picture below? That's where tourists should stop walking because the rest of the ice/mountains may have huge crevices that are covered in snow and if you step on that area, you can fall into the crevice and die.

In this picture below, I'm on the Athabasca Glacier looking at the Columbia Icefield. The glacier is apparently always moving like a river and the Icefield is like a lake - it stays still but feeds into the glacier. I remember that part from the bus driver's speech.

If you see closely, there appears to be tiny crevices in the Icefield. Well according to the bus driver, those small crevices are actually pretty large and some of them can fit up to six of those large buses stacked on top of one another in terms of depth and up to two large buses across in terms of width.

Picture below: this was one really cool glacier stuck on the side of Mount Andromeda. It looks like snow about to fall down on that poor fellow below beside the orange pylon but it's actually frozen ice.

And glacier ice is not like ice cubes in your freezer. Glacier Ice is has been formed using a lot of pressure. There was quite a bit of snow covering the Athabasca glacier so it wasn't slippery to stand on the glacier.

Here's a picture of my foot on the glacier. You can see the ice below the layer of snow:

And here's a picture below of the rickety snowmobile that would have taken us out on the glacier if it had been 50 or so odd years ago.

Maybe in 50 years from now, people will look at that huge red bus I took out onto the glacier and shake their head thinking, "what the heck! I'm safer walking out there than taking that bus!"

And lastly, one of the stops we took after leaving the Icefield was to stop at a place called Bridal Veil Falls. I'm not sure if you can tell but in the picture below, the falls are actually fully frozen! Have you seen a frozen waterfall before???

=) Karen