Kerastase Cristalliste

Let’s give you all a little brief run down on my hair history.

This was the longest my hair was, I was going through old photographs the other evening and found this photo of my friend and I taken in 2003.

And another, just for good measure. Too bad my friend is blinking. Whoops!

I remember chopping it off a few months after, simply because I wanted a change. I also would like to know why it looked so thick in those photos. Of course my hair looked bomb-diggity when I didn’t care about it.

After that I discovered hair straighteners, and curling irons and just abusing my hair ever since. Last August I decided that I didn’t want to damage my hair any further and stopped using my flat iron on a daily basis. Slowly I kept getting my hair cut off shorter and shorter, mainly because of the dead ends after straightening my hair every 24 hours.

Sure my hair isn’t at my ideal length yet, but it’s the healthiest state it’s been in years. All because of a good relationship with my hair stylist, knowing what to tell him, knowing how often to go in and get a trim, and of course – taking care of my hair at home.

I wash my hair 2-3 times per week. I even found out from my latest trip into the salon that it was okay to wash your hair multiple days in a row, and you’re not “starting from scratch” when you do that again.

I always like to have multiple shampoos in the shower with me at all times, but ever since I started this whole regimen of healthy hair, I’ve only used my LUSH shampoo bar.

A few months ago, the folks at L’Oreal / Kerastase sent me a few things to try out from the new Cristalliste line. The shampoo, conditioner and hair serum.

Love that when I see my hair stylist he tells me to “keep doing what you’re doing” and nothing more than that. I’m finally taking care of my hair with good quality hair products from Lush and Kerastase.

But getting more into the Kérastase Cristalliste end of things, these products are all free from silicone, parabens and colorants! This line is lightweight and moisturizes my hair, while locking in moisture without stripping the hair of it’s essential oils. I can use Cristalliste and still just shampoo a few times per week and my hair is smooth sailing the whole time.

The set, has a nice scent to it. Don’t ask me to describe how it smells – I’m terrible at descriptions. But it’s pleasant. Nothing earthy like Aveda’s line. This one just has a fresh sort of scent to it. Not overpowering either. I’m prone to dry hair due to the fact that every strand of my hair is fine, so it’s very delicate and can break fairly easily. The Cristalliste line doesn’t make anything difficult about washing my hair like some shampoo’s can. It’s not drying at all on  my hair. I think my favorite part of the set is the conditioner. It leaves my hair with that slippery feeling when rinsing it out.

As mentioned above, the shampoo, conditioner and hair serum is silicone, paraben and colorant free which means that it is perfectly safe for you to use if you color your hair.

The Kérastase line of professional products are available in salons. I also still use my Kérastase Elixir Ultime in conjunction with the shampoo and conditioner shown above. I don’t like to mix up a good thing so I haven’t used the hair serum shown above on a regular basis. Though from what I can tell it’s similar to the Kérastase Elixir.

Have you found any new shampoos worth talking about lately? What one’s do you use?

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Lululemon quality: sub par

Late last month I made an online purchase on Lululemon’s website. I picked up the Swiftly Racerback tank in the color blush pink. I can’t stay away from the nice designs and colors they come out with. But I’m reassured when I get a quality issue error on one of my new items that I just opened. I now remember why I stopped shopping there.

I mean sure the photo doesn’t make it seem like a huge deal. If I chop off that thread, there will be a hole where there shouldn’t be a hole. When you spend your hard-earned $48 on a tank top, you’d expect it to be in pretty top-notch condition when it arrives on your door step.

This has happened to a few items of my pairs of my Lululemon capri’s after wearing them once the inseams came undone on them. What the heck is going on with you Lululemon? Bring back the “Made In Canada” and stop sending everything overseas.

I e-mailed the GEC at lululemon, as I have already saved their e-mail address in Gmail. I also brought it to twitter, of course. Got some responses like the swiftly line has no room for error. Which I agree. It could snag easily if you’re not careful. I know that, due to the fact I already own two swiftly tech tee’s and they’re in perfectly good condition, especially at two years old.

Lululemon heard me on Twitter (@spiffykerms) and gave me the telephone number to GEC in Vancouver. I called and told them that I e-mailed GEC earlier and she brought up the photos. Without hesitation she said she was going to send me a sticker so that I can mail the parcel back to Lululemon without me paying anything out of pocket. Free returns for damaged items, good on them I say!

Here is the parcel, all ready to be mailed off! My hand is covering the tracking number and my return address.

Unfortunately, just days after I placed the order the Swiftly Tech racerbacks are no longer online. So I can’t get another one of them, and there isn’t a Lululemon store around here that sells the racerbacks. We have a personal training area that sells Lululemon but not the Swiftly tanks. Bummer.

I guess I’ll be shopping at Costco more often now for workout gear. Check out my Lululemon Vs. Costco workout apparel blog post I did back in March.

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Popcorn < Movies

Anyone who knows me, knows that I will never say no to going to a movie. I don’t care what type of movie I see in the theaters, all I need is a bag of popcorn and I’m content.

Sometimes, when Scott’s away at work – I don’t even make myself dinner. I actually have popcorn. That’s terrible to admit, but I really really enjoy it. A lot. Clearly.

In the span of 5 days on the airplane and while I was back home, I watched three movies. On the airplanes I watched: The Vow (nearly cried), The Help (also nearly cried) and I went to the theaters with my best friend from back home, Trevor. We saw The Avenger’s.

I’m not sure that I’ve spoken of Trevor much on my website. I don’t think I talked about him here much mainly because I thought he didn’t read my blog! Well folks. Here is me and my best bud.

This photo is a few years old, but still a goodie. We’re at the local climbing gym back home.

Same night, both of us dancing. We had a “private party” at the climbing gym one year for his birthday and another guys university graduation. :)

Back to my post about movies though.

Apparently it did really well in the theaters, and everyone on twitter had been raving about it. So of course, I didn’t mind going. However it wasn’t what I expected it to be at all. I was excited that Ironman was in it, he’s a funny character. I don’t want to go into much detail about the movie, since my boyf Scott had no idea what the movie entailed and I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone.

I do want to let you know that you should probably watch the previous movies before hand like: Ironman, Ironman 2 (there’s a two, right?), Thor, Captain America annnnd…. what other one was there, if any?

I was semi-lost, thanks to Trev for talking to me throughout the movie explaining things for me, ha!

Have you guys seen this movie yet? If not, will you?

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