Beauty, Daily, Hair, Photos

New hairdo

8 Comments

I got my hair cut and colored on yesterday evening after work. I honestly haven’t let anyone dye my hair after my mad experience back in February 2011. In fact my hair stylist and I broke up. Since then I’ve been going to this great master stylist who has been trimming my hair since, so I could grow it out to my ideal length.

The bad thing is, he charges  $70+ to do my hair, and all I’ve been getting out of it was a “dusting” cut. Literally cutting off the minimum to clean up my ends every 14 weeks. Dude I can’t afford that, nor do I wish to pay it if I was rich.  Last time I got it cut by master-stylist-dude was back in July when I showed you some before/after photos in that blog post.

My coworker L, always has great hair color even though her hair is a completely different color than mine (her’s is blonde). Speaking of which, I went blonde for about a day a few years ago. Big mistake.

L recommended her hair stylist who is very inexpensive but does great hair. I’ve seen the results, so I was confident going into my appointment. A few nights building up to me getting my hair done, I had a nightmare about this new stylist! Isn’t that insane? I dreamed that she cut my hair all off, and left one of those 80’s rats-tail by the side of my hair… and it was bright red. What a weird dream. Guess I honestly was really worried, haha!

I know people have said that hair grows back, you shouldn’t get attached. Blah de blah blah. But seriously? It’s my hair, I am attached and I get disappointed very easily.

I decided, in order to avoid disappointment, I was going to get very specific with this new hair girl. I arrived, and took off my rain coat, and brought in the printed out looks I’ve loved, and looked I’ve hated too, just so she would get a little hint of that I’m interested in. I mean, no ones a mind reader, right? I wanted my hair to have a slight change, nothing crazy since I hadn’t dyed my hair in 1.5 years so I forgot what it’d be like with a bit of color on me. This is the outcome:

Before and After photos. Sometimes it’s hard to believe how bad your hair really did look, until the after pics. I didn’t wash it the morning of, and just straightened it. Looks so dishevelled.

From the photos, and I suppose in “real life” you can’t exactly tell a huge difference. But the ends are now the same color as everywhere else, and I’m happy.

I’d definitely go back to her. Even if she does have her hair salon in a sketch basement.

How often do you get hair cut?

Continue Reading

Daily, Photos

Manicure’s at McDonalds #SCCTO

7 Comments

I want to thank the Chicken Farmers again for sending me to the She’s Connected conference (SCCTO). Had a great time!

Yesterday morning I set my alarm for 5am to get my butt in gear and make the drive to Toronto. How many times have I said on my blog, it’s never a road trip unless I get lost? The GPS told me to get off onto Dixie (that road will be the death of me, I have so many stories about that road and me driving on it doing u-turns) do a u-turn and come back onto the same highway I got off of. Thankfully I allotted myself a ton of time to navigate the city. After that, everything ran smoothly.

Morgan and I had planned on meet up with one another at SCCTO, and so glad I did. I hadn’t seen her in months and I was overdue for a giggle-fest day with her.

At the first keynote, a few of the SCCTO first-timers (including me) were told to stand up and introduce ourselves. I’m glad I did because as soon as I did, Isabel tweeted me saying she was sitting at the table behind me. I finally met her!

 One of the main sponsors for SCCTO was McDonalds. I had huge plans to spend a lot of my day in their lounge, and so I did.

Nice spot, hey?

McDonalds Canada hired people to do massages and manicures in the relaxing jazz-music-playing lounge. Courtney and I got manicures, while Morgan got a massage. I requested a few hot chocolates throughout the day, and my final one I asked if I could have a pump of their caramel sauce (for coffee’s or lattes) in my hot chocolate. I think it’s something they should totally market, because holy heavens it was delicious.

Here’s my loot from SCCTO:

Yep. A thong in my swag bag.

Maple Leaf Connects was also there. My Dad would be proud of the shirt I scored. Dad makes the best bacon I have ever, and will ever have. I only eat it when I’m home in Newfoundland because of it. Good bacon cooker ;)

The seminars I attended were so great. I have pages of notes to flick through. Morgan ended up speaking on the one of the panels about Brand ambassadorships and community management from the PR perspective.

L-R: @AliciaHCox, Morgan, @CateWritesAgain (Canadians, remember Hal Johnson and Joanne McCloud? Catherine’s with participaction!), and @BigDaddyKreativ!

After SCCTO was over, our stomachs were rumbling. For lunch we all went to Chipotle to grab something to eat. I’ve heard so many people rave about that place, on blogs. But have never been there. It’s basically a mexican-style subway. I wish everything didn’t have onions in it though. Everything was smothered in it, and there was no way around it. Disappointing lol.

Morgan took me to the Queen/Spadina location of Fresh. It’s a vegan/vegetarian restaurant and it was my first time being there! I ordered this tasty dish and polished it right off.

I was then accompanied to my car with Morgan, because I didn’t want to get mugged. She’s my Batman in the bad city of Gotham haha. I dropped her off on some random side street (just kidding) and went on my way back home.

Spadina, the road I needed to make a left on, was shut down due to construction. My plan was ruined to get home (lol). I called the Boyf and he navigated me throughout Toronto for a full 30 minutes until I was finally on Lake Shore Blvd and heading towards home. Moses, what a rats nest I was in.

For the last 25km of the ride home I was feeling a bit unfocused. It was then 10pm, so I blasted the cool air in the car along with radio music. But it didn’t work, I felt like I was getting tired. I ended up talking to myself out loud in the car, about writing this blog post, about She’s Connnected, basically pretending someone was in the car with me but I was doing all the talking. I told my boyfriend this when I arrived home and he jokingly asked me “Have you gone mental?” hahahah!!!

It’s what I had to do. I had a great time hanging out with Morgan, thanks for taking me to some new restaurants! Can’t wait to see everyone again.

Continue Reading

Beauty, Daily, Health, Photos, Reviews

Luxury organic skin care by GRATiAE

No Comments

One of the many benefits of having a blog, is getting to try out products that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise tried, or purchased. This review, being one of them. Primarily because of the cost of the product ($59.99), but don’t let that deter you from reading about it, or even going out yourself and purchasing it.

As always, I give my full 100% honest opinion. I’m hoping that everyone reading this truly appreciates my reviews. I put it all out there on the line. The blunt, honest truth whether it be good, or not so good. Thankfully, this one gets an A+ in my books.

I go through a ton of body exfoliators and lotions. Due to the nature of my already dry skin, I’m prone to it being itchy or flaky if I don’t exfoliate on a regular basis. Plus, who doesn’t want to have smooth skin all the time? Especially if you’re like me and are semi-addicted to self-tanning. You don’t want to have patchy dry skin while your tan is fading off.

A little background on GRATiAE. It’s a Canadian premium skin-care company that offers certified organic products. They take minerals from the water and combines them with Sea of Galilee native flora and organic essential oils. Love how they adopted the name GRATiAE, as it originally came from the Roman empire who named the spring GRATIAE, meaning The Three Graces, after the goddess of charm, beauty and fertility in Roman Mythology.

To be quite honest, I don’t read labels to make sure that they’re organic, before putting them onto my skin. But the short ingredient list on these products definitely make me appreciate it. I mean, I don’t intend to put unknown chemicals into my skin with body lotions, but it happens with generic brands. Speaking of which, which body lotion/scrub do you use on a regular basis? 

The Passion Fruit & Ginger GRATiAE body butter soaked into my skin but left my body feeling very moisturized for plenty of hours later. It felt rich but not too thick and the scent? Oh man, it literally smelled like a pina colada which smells great but tastes gross, haha.

Passion Fruit & Lime GRATiAE exfoliating body scrub.

The scrub itself was a dry almost salt-like consistency. I found that the body scrub did its job, on wet skin while in the shower and it wasn’t difficult to work with. Some scrubs end up rolling up into a little ball and doing nothing while I’m in the shower. This one was effective, and left me feeling very moisturized after. Had somewhat of a “greasy” after-touch.

Both products shown above retails for $59.99. A little steep, but that’s what you get for a luxury product. Will I re-purchase these products once I run out? Probably not. Only reason, is that they’re quite pricy and a wee bit out of my price range. If they lower the cost, I would reconsider for sure.

I also got a few mini samples of the lifting facial serum, and lifting moisture cream. Nice little moisturizers for sure. I usually use a serum at night before bed, and then moisturizers in the morning.

The packaging is in this luxurious looking tubs, ready to be whipped up on my body after a nice hot soothing shower. Unfortunately right now they’re only in Alberta, and Nova Scotia but you can view on their facebook page a full list of GRATiAE retail locations.

You can find GRATiAE on twitter, and on Facebook!

Continue Reading