Beauty, Photos, Reviews

Facial Cleansers: Which One’s Work For Me

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You guys know how much I love my Purity by Philosophy facial cleanser, right? I’ve given it away on my blog, and talk about it more than a few times per month. It comes in an assortment of sizes and you can get it anywhere from The Bay, Sephora and even Shoppers Drug Mart.

I have never strayed from using it the past 12 months and I finally ran out of my large bottle. I ordered a new 24oz of it though, on the Sephora website when they had the VIB sale. Since I’ve ran out of the purity cleanser, I went out and bought my old school trusty Marcelle cleansing milk. It was the very first beauty product cleanser I was ever recommended and it was recommended to me by a pharmacist back home in Newfoundland who just happened to be our neighbour.

I since then have recommended it to others.

Marcelle is my second favourite cleanser, if I can classify it as that. It’s backed up by the Canadian Dermatology Association. Because of CDA’s mission to “offer patients, their families and the public, education on the prevention of skin cancer and other ways to maintain a lifetime of healthy skin, hair and nails”, the CDA has just launched a new initiative: the Skin Health Program.

CDA

There is a common ground here, you see. Marcelle products have always been hypo-allergenic which is why it was recommended to me in the early 2000’s. It’s gentle on your skin, especially the eye areas and of course is perfume free. Their products don’t sting your face. It’s just as gentle as Purity. I hate comparing the two, but they’re both pretty up there in my opinion and the only one’s that I like to use on my face. I dislike using cetaphil, only for the scent— it smells too medically or something.

marcelle cosmetics

Cleansing Cloths*, Soothing Cleansing Water*, Eye Make-Up Remover Cloths, Oil-Free Eye Make-Up Remover Lotion*, Eye Make-Up Remover Pads

* = products I’ve tried out and used and would completely recommend. The stuff that isn’t asterisk’ed are product I have not tried.

Already available at Marcelle.com and in stores      
Marcelle Cleansing Cloths         $12.50   25 cloths  
Marcelle Soothing Cleansing Water $14.50   6.7 FL OZ 200 mL
Marcelle Eye Make-Up Remover Cloths              $12.50 30 cloths  
Marcelle Oil-Free Eye Make-Up Remover Lotion $13.50   5 FL OZ 150 mL
Marcelle Eye Make-Up Remover Pads $9.95     80 pads  

What cleansers do you use?
I use Purity by Philosophy, or Marcelle cleansing milk. Nothing else (okay sometimes make up wipes if I’m really lazy)

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Daily

Drugstore Dupe: Marcelle vs Anastasia

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I love to save money. It’s a game with me. I hate spending more than a penny (or nickle in our case seeing how we phased out the penny this year — that joke won’t ever get old with me!) than I have to. I often get teased regarding my coupons or how I’m so frugal. For instance, I won’t pay over $3.99 for toilet paper. I wait until I see a sale, bring my abundance of coupons and stock up. So much so, the cart is so overflowing with toilet paper, enough where I get questionable stares from shoppers. Is she stocking up for a hospital? Does she have digestion issues?

If I can save and have the cheaper product work out similar or better, then I scored big time.

Although I have long lashes that don’t require mascara, I get it. I get that you want your lashes to stand out, hold a curl and look lengthening and voluminous. I get it gorrrrl. Sorry. That was weird. But honestly, everyone has their all-time favorite mascara. Not everyone is going to go out and buy what someone recommends on a blog. But this is different you guys. It’s not a mascara, it’s a top coat. You don’t have to switch out your holy grail mascara for a completely new one. I know not everyone wants to wear a waterproof mascara every day. But if you plan on laughing so hard that you cry (me, every day), or plan on jumping into a pool at a pool party (me, this weekend) you can waterproof that fav mascara of yours with a clear waterproof topcoat. Then the next day, revert back to your regular mascara sans waterproof topcoat! Brilliant.

And friends, I found a drugstore dupe. Not everyone has a Sephora location they can pop into and spend $28 on the Anastasia Lash Genius (which I reviewed last year). closed-waterproof-mascaras

Bring it on Marcelle!

anastasia-vs-marcelle
About Marcelle Waterproofing Mascara Topcoat
Retail price: $16.95
0.24oz / 9.5ml

Waterproof features:

  • Transparent water-resistance for mascara
  • Goes on easily over regular mascara (Yup)
  • Long lasting (No raccoon eyes!)
  • Leaves lashes feeling light and supple (Raises hand. I can vouch for that)
  • Tested under ophthalmological control (mouthful)
  • Paraben free
  • Hypo-allergenic and perfume free

I’ve been wearing the Marcelle sweat proof, tear proof, waterproof mascara for the last few weeks. I don’t remove my makeup when I go to CrossFit after work. Due to the fact I have little time in between getting home and changed and then driving to the box to get a workout in. So far it hasn’t caused any rebellious raccoon eyes. Nor has it been stubborn to remove at the end of the evening. I have so many favorite mascaras and I don’t want to buy the waterproof version of them because they’ll all just dry out before I have a chance to re-use them again. I mean, I could potentially wear them every day, since I do laugh a lot and I’m a crier when I laugh. So I could benefit from using a waterproof one every day. But I don’t. waterproof-top-coat

I realize I’ve talked about Marcelle products in the past in a YouTube video of mine, especially the mascara that acts like a “push-up bra”. It has a twistable wand where you can make the bristles give your lashes volume, or lengthening. I’ve been using it in replacement of my Make Up For Ever Smoky Lash (hey, sometimes you gotta switch things up a bit. Know what I’m sayin’?).

An American twitter follower of mine asked me where she could buy Marcelle products and unfortunately it’s not sold in USA stores, however you can buy it online at Marcelle.com and they ship to the USA! Hooray for sharing neighbours. Buy any Marcelle mascara and receive one Marcelle Waterproofing Mascara Topcoat for Free. Offer applies between August 19 and September 30, 2013. Online only. Promotional code upon check out: BOGO.

How does the Marcelle waterproofing mascara top coat compare to the Anastasia lash genius?waterproof-brushes

(Left-Right Marcelle, Anastasia)

It’s pretty on par. If I were going to suggest you get one of the two products, they’re virtually the same. Save your $12 and get the Marcelle.

Random tidbit: Marcelle is one of the first cosmetic lines I started using. Especially after I found out that I should only be using hypo-allergenic products (mainly in the winter due to my eczema).

Disclaimer: Marcelle Waterproofing Mascara Topcoat was sent to me for review. I have not been compensated for this review. All opinions are 100% my own, as always!

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Daily, Photos, work

International Women’s Day at work

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*Faces blurred out for those who I didn’t ask permission to be online.

Last Friday was International Women’s Day, and we certainly didn’t hold back celebrating it at work! The color of the year for International Women’s Day was purple, so if you see a theme here in this post, you now know why.

The three amigo’s all dressed in purple.three-amigos
Back in mid-February the trio of us ladie in the marketing department got together for our weekly meeting and decided it should be celebrated. Being that we do work with 34 people, 32 of them being female. So, throughout the last few weeks I tallied up some of my favorite companies I’ve worked with on my blog, and asked them for favors and donations for goodie bags we were putting together for staff! I was not expecting the incredible amount of loot I managed to accumulate!

We put together the packages earlier last week. So. Much. Stuff. Putting-pkgs-together

International-Womens-Day-Go

Everything was kept a secret until Friday morning. I drove into work a good hour or more before everyone arrived, so I could put a little surprise on everyone’s desks. The other two people in the marketing department did the same, at our other two offices. Everyone got a different package from Marcelle, being that we dived everything up by age group. I blurred out my work place for safety reasons.Loot-bag-on-desk

What was in each loot bag:loot-bag

I’m telling you, the most popular item which was in each bag, was the durex play vibrations. I kid you not, no one else cared what was in their loot bag once that was spotted. Giggles from the women, some even clipped it onto their belt buckles as a joke. It brought a lot of laughter to the office, let me tell you that much. I won’t be posting any of those photos for obvious reasons. I don’t want any crazy spammers attacking my comments section hah.

Gotta say though, the pop rock chocolate was my favourite thing, along with the Marcelle Cosmetics gift set.

We ordered lunch which was color coordinated. Pink paper plate, purple napkins, pink drinks and delicious pizza!pink-lunch

This pizza was so good.lunch

That wasn’t the end of the fun, those loot bags and lunch. Oh nuhnono. We held contests for a few things like Best Dressed, Best Dressed runner up, and some quizzes we had sent out earlier in the week.

Best Dressed, which was won by Laura. She ended up getting a Fossil wallet, which matches her Fossil Explorer tote quite well! Loved her outfit, everything was purple!Laura-wins-fossil-wallet

Runner up was Amy, in all purple who won a Rubbermaid glass food storage container set.Amy-best-dressed-runner

L won one of the two quizzes and got a gorgeous brushed metal light gold colored Fossil (Georgia?) watch.  She said it wasn’t anything she’d pick out for herself, but she absolutely loves it. I can’t wait to see her wear it.L-with-watch

The other prizes consisted of:

  • RUSK shampoo gift set + Yankee candle
  • Marcelle Cosmetics
  • Calvin Klein gift set
  • Roberto Cavalli gift set

Grand-prizes

I was seriously in awe at the generosity of the companies and what they donated. Absolutely incredible. I want to thank each and every company that donated to International Women’s Day. Everyone at work was so shocked, so happy, and exclaimed that it was better than Christmas!thank-you-2

Many many many thanks to making Friday a memorable one.thank-youThumbs up to, and thank you Marcelle Cosmetics, Fossil, Rubbermaid, Coty Canada, Kernels Popcorn, Orville Redenbacher, Durex, Veet, vitaminwater Zero, Cober Printing, Hershey’s, McDonalds, and VH Sauce.

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