making faces :: indispensables [the basics]

cosmetics and vanity products in general are about excess and luxury, but they can become so ingrained in your life that it's hard to picture going without them. i know how to cut back in lean times, but there are a few things that i would turn to crime before giving up. here are a few, from the category of beauty basics- everyday things i use, not including colour... i think i could deal with each colour individually ::

moroccan oil :: my mother actually turned me onto this trendy hair treatment after her hairdresser used it on her. for me, it was love at first try. i would never have thought to put oil in my hair on my own [don't you wash hair to get the oil and dirt out?], but this makes my dead follicles feel amazing. the only down side is that i find it difficult to stop touching my own hair, which gets to look a little creepy after a while. [tends to be good for getting people to leave you alone on the bus, though.]
there are a lot of argan oil [which is what moroccan oil actually is] treatments on the market and it's become very popular to bash the original in favour of its imitators. nonetheless, i can be surprisingly brand loyal when i try and i'm so happy with how soft and smooth this makes my hair feel that i get a bit nervous thinking of how sad i'd be if i got a bottle of another brand and found it inferior. i'd have to work through that whole bottle before i could go back to having a happy head again. scary stuff.

lush "cynthia sylvia stout" shampoo :: it's made with stout. do you require further explanation? well, fine then. it literally gets my hair so clean it squeaks when i'm rinsing it. squeaks. my hair runs a bit dry and i find that "cynthia" leaves it healthy enough that i can actually skip conditioner if i want to [although i do put the moroccan oil on as a leave-in]. i'm consistently amazed at the healthy shine it imparts, particularly since my hair is prone to being a little dull.

shu uemura cleansing oil :: aside from my hair, about the least likely place for me to apply oil would have been my face, up until an enterprising sales associate got me to try a small-size version of one of their famous cleansing oils. i'm sold.

i absolutely love the rosemary-y scent and the fact that it works as both an effective makeup remover and cleanser, allowing me to be lazy by accomplishing everything in one step. i'm very into stuff that lets me be lazy. it removes makeup, even mascara, pretty easily and rinses away with water. it doesn't irritate my skin [which is prone to redness and patchiness if i have to rub it too hard] and, contrary to what i might have thought, it doesn't leave my skin feeling oily at all, just soft. so i can pat my cheeks when i get bored running my hands through my hair.

the bottles are not cheap [there are two standard sizes and different formulas depending on skin type], but my travel size bottle lasted me almost two months using it every single day, so you're not going to have to make the investment that often. amortised over its life span, it's actually not a bad deal at all. and remember, it's filling two roles.

body shop body butter :: pick your flavour. personally, i'm a big fan of the nut-related ones- brazil nut, coconut, almond [although i think that might have been discontinued]- but if you're not a nut nut, there are still plenty to choose from. i'm glad to see that they've finally introduced "economy size" versions for those of us who use it every day, which i do because it is literally the only thing i've found that i can apply to my freshly shaved legs that doesn't make me feel like i've doused myself with hot sauce.


made to order vegan cosmetics "revamp" :: i should have a section of this blog entitled "cool sh*t my friends do", because one of the reasons i have things to do and write about is that i generally surround myself with people who are more interesting and talented than i am. a good example is "made to order vegan cosmetics", the new brainchild of a fellow skincare natural product lover who decided that, since a lot of her favourite products were always getting discontinued, that she'd strike out and make her own.

"revamp" is a moisturiser and after-sun treatment which is a great idea in the summer, when every night basically demands after sun treatment. there's aloe and witch hazel, which help soothe and smooth skin, but what makes this a really perfect summer moisturiser for me is that it's not heavy. the consistency is like butter and, like butter, it becomes quite viscous on application. however, it absorbs within a couple of minutes and my skin feels perfect- not like i'm slathered in heavy cream. it's become the only night cream i use over the last month.

there are a whole range of products available, exclusively [for the moment] through their facebook page [linked above] and new ones are being added regularly.

so what do you always need to have around the house? what products would you secretly harvest your neighbours' organs to buy?

friday favourites 17.06.11

ok, i am prepared to say that this week had some favourites. a lot of the previous week's irritants remain, but i'm generally feeling a little less angry and hostile about the world in general. here are a few reasons why...

a new 'do :: i've been getting generally frustrated with my hair for the last few weeks, as i always do when the summer comes around. this is due to a combination of factors such as the fact that i have extremely thick hair that tends to run a bit dry, the fact that montreal gets extremely dusty when it gets hot and that crap gets trapped in my giant hedge of hair. i'd also reached that point where my previous hair cut had become lost in the outgrowth- whatever shape and style it had had going in had been overwhelmed and so i was getting rather shapeless... so in a fit of pique, i took dom up on his offer to cut it. since i'm a little finicky about how my hair frames my face, i did most of the work on the top/ front and dom did the overall structure and the back. as with many things, we seemed to have a shared vision of how we wanted the end result to look despite not discussing an action plan [in part, because neither of us has a sufficient grasp of haircut jargon to make such a conversation of any use.] i have to say that while our working method required more fine tuning and a few more spot checks than a regular trip to the hair salon, the end result makes me pretty happy. so guess what, kids- you can do this at home!

THERE'S MORE! PLUS THIS WEEK'S KITTEH PIC FEATURING SETH & HECUBUS



recycling inspiration :: i have come to a sad realisation this week: i have put on weight. now everyone puts on and loses weight as a regular part of life, but in this case, i've put on enough that i can feel it sitting on me, i can feel that extra drag on my body. i'm not at my heaviest, but i'm above what i'd call my comfort zone and that means that i need to do something about it.

this isn't the first time that i've been forced to actually put myself on a diet, of course. although my weight tends to be fairly stable, it has a tendency to creep up when i'm not paying attention, because i really love food. it's just something i have to remember to watch more carefully, particularly since i'm not the most active person in the world. [nor am i the most inactive, by a long stretch.]

so this week, i looked back on the blog posts that i'd done chronicling the first time i took off a bunch of weight [a lot more than i need to take off at the moment] and was surprised that reading about my past adventures and roughly what i did made things seem much more manageable and achievable than just thinking about it randomly. it's nice to be able to look back on those things and remember that you are capable of doing what you set out to do [even though you may have to set out and do it again at some point]. and it's strangely encouraging to think that i can encourage myself.

working on a mystery :: i've always been intrigued by scents. the whole logic of scents being tied to memory and scent receptors being located in a particularly ancient, mysterious part of the brain is something i've never personally verified, but it seems to have a certain truthiness to it. both dom and i share this trait, which is probably why we have about ten pounds of incense in our house at any given time. i'm fussy about my scents, too. stray too far from a natural base and i tend to react badly. i'm not allergic, but my nose is a picky nose. [those last two words look wrong, but are actually correct, despite the fact that it looks silly.]

why did this guy show up as a search result for "rose musk perfume"?

because my nose constantly seeks out new adventures [sometimes to its own chagrin], i don't tend to stick with any one perfume. anymore.

you see, there was a time in my young life when i started wearing perfumes and i almost immediately hit on one that was perfect. i was 15 and it was rose musk perfume oil from the body shop. virtually everyone i knew had their tea rose perfume oil, while a few of the more daring ones went with white musk. but i had to be different and so i got rose musk.

the scent lived up to its name and, while i tried other scents from time to time, i never stayed away from rose musk very long. it was my fallback until 1996, just after i first moved to montreal, when it was discontinued. i bought what i could afford and stocked up, but inevitably, the supply dwindled and my scent was gone. and nothing else smelled like that. [even its rich reddish-amber colour was unique.]

i even went so far as to contact the body shop to ask if they could tell me the ingredients. after all, they aren't making it, so why should they feel the need to deprive its fans of what they love? turns out, they didn't see it that way. however, more recently, through the miracle of the internet, i've been finding hints from others who, like me, are still eager for a fix. while there's nothing "official", people whose noses have been better trained than mine are gradually working their way through the layers of scents that form the final product. here's one such person's list:

Top: Musk, Tea Rose
Heart: Musk, Rose, Violet
Base: Musk, Jasmine, Rose, Iris, Amber, Patchouli, Vetiver, hints of Peach, Oakmoss, Vanilla

the mention of tea rose, which i normally think of as delicate, seems a little off to me, but i think that, from what i know of scents, this list seems pretty close to accurate. [you can see the original review here.]

i'm closing in on it, i can feel it.

at the moment, i'm grateful that, having just returned from seeing hyper bottom live with clara engel and white noise supremacists, the gods of timing seem to be smiling on me tonight. no sooner was i ensconced here, comfy in my nightie, face smeared with another lush mask i'm trying [i love being a guinea pig!] when the heavens opened and the night went from being hot and humid to being cool and fresh [and wet]. i always notice when those sorts of things work against me... i figure it's good to notice when they go in your favour.

here's a couple of guys who always know how to chill out and appreciate the good things in life...

 

thanks for reading!

[un]making faces ["get it off me"] :: product review

well, as with most people who like their beauty products, i tend to purchase quite a few of them. and since i've been sharing more of this part of my personality on the blog lately, i figured i'd share some of the good, bad and truly ugly experiences i've had with some of my purchases. i figured i'd kick it off with the antithesis of cosmetics, though: makeup removers.

ok, we were all young once. we all went through our twenties coming home at four in the morning and passing out with one of our boots still half on. ah, the halcyon days of youth when the removal of makeup was something that was accomplished by putting the pillowcases in the laundry. we've all most likely done the "makeup from the night before" look, thinking we looked disheveled and perhaps a little sexy. indeed. isn't it pretty to think so?

the fact is, it's not a good idea to wear your mascara until it flakes off and the oils on your skin do not make a good cleanser. whether you're like me and have reached an age where your face isn't going to forgive you for a few nights of too much wine and bad decision making, or you're part of a generation that realises it's not always wise to take your youthful good looks for granted (smart folks, you), it's important to find things that are going to get the makeup off your face and let nature preserve you as best it can.

here are a few reviews of products i've tried in the past to help guide you on your way. since this is a personal blog, i'm dealing exclusively with products i've actually bought and used, so it's by no means comprehensive. this is just my accumulated knowledge thus far (accumulated only since i stopped falling asleep every night with my makeup still on). prices and availability are for the canadian market.

CONTINUE ON TO THE REVIEWS/ RECOMMENDATIONS



body shop camomile waterproof eye makeup remover :: i grew up on the body shop. i was the kind of kid who really warmed to their earth-friendly, people-friendly message and grew into the kind of consumer who stuck with them because i liked the idea that they stood for good things. i'm always a little nervous about trying "natural" products around my eyes, but this one is a real winner. i think i could seriously pump it directly into my eye without any harm being done. it's gentle enough that i've never found it irritates my skin and i don't find it leaves a heavy, oily residue. unfortunately, like a lot of cream products, this one doesn't do terribly well at removing mascara. it takes a lot of effort to get all the black crud out and even then, there seems to always be some dark smudges the next morning.
price :: $14.50
availability :: body shop stores and on line

body shop vitamin e gentle cleansing facial wipes :: ok, this might be cheating a bit, because it doesn't actually say that these are to be used for makeup removal. nonetheless, they are "cleansing", so i figured i'd give it a shot. learn from my fail. these are too rough and dry too quickly to be used to remove makeup. in addition, vitamin e is one of those things that, while unquestionably good for skin, is something that often causes a bad reaction around the eyes. these are wonderfully light, but they really aren't built to remove makeup- more like a quick refresher after the gym (assuming you're one of those energetic people who hauls your butt to a gym and doesn't just sit at home sipping wine and working on your blog). the wipes are not terribly moist and have a tendency to dry out before you finish the package.
price :: $14 for 25 wipes
availability :: body shop stores and on line

yves rocher micellar cleansing water :: this is another wonderful company for feeling good about yourself and what you buy. they have a long tradition of using natural products ("botanicals" in their terminology) and, since they supply many of their own key ingredients, they don't have the taint of unfair trade about them as many others do. unfortunately, after trying this for about a week, i had to stop because my skin was starting to break out. the product was reasonably efficient at removing makeup (although it still took a fair amount of rubbing) and its watery, rather than oily or creamy, consistency made it really nice to use (no residue!). unfortunately, although it has no sign- such as heavy perfume- that it might cause a reaction, it did. i'd recommend this one only if you're willing to spend some time removing makeup (i'm impatient) and if your skin doesn't often react to new products.
price :: $19
availability :: yves rocher stores and on line


cliniderm gentle eye makeup remover :: having fallen completely in love with their spf 45 sunscreen last year (seriously, my holy grail sunscreen- absorbs well, feels light, doesn't make me break out and protects me like a samurai guard), i really wanted to love this product. in fact, it's not bad. it has a heavy cream texture, but it absorbs fairly quickly, so it feels moisturizing rather than greasy. the entire cliniderm line is methodically purged of irritants, meaning that, no matter how sensitive your skin, you're seriously unlikely to have a reaction to anything in their line. it does a decent job of removing eye makeup, but it's not great. i tried applying it, waiting a few minutes and then wiping it away, which is really how these products are supposed to work (rather than applying and wiping or rinsing right away) and it removed some makeup, but there was still plenty left (particularly mascara, the bane of all makeup removers). although it stung a bit in my eyes (kind of hard not to get some in there), i had no reaction whatsoever and it actually seemed moisturising.
price :: $19
availability :: most major pharmacies

mac cosmetics facial wipes :: i guess i'm saving the best, or at least my favourite, for last. i am already a fan of mac, but i hadn't thought about trying their cleansing products until one of the associates at my local store pitched them to me. i figured that it couldn't hurt trying. mac have a lot of makeup removal products, but, as the associate promised me, these are the bomb when it comes to getting crud off your face. a single wipe clears away everything (although it does sometimes take some rubbing) and leaves my skin feeling fresh and soft and toned (never irritated). if your skin is normally oily, i'd venture to say that you don't need anything else on a nightly basis. it fulfills my tendencies towards sloth by allowing me to accomplish everything in one quick step, but it doesn't leave me looking like i neglected my beauty-duty. unlike virtually every other wipe on the market, these ones are plenty moist, but to keep that moisture circulating, it's best to store the package upside down, so that the liquid doesn't collect near the bottom. the wipes are biodegradable and the package can be returned to mac through their "back 2 mac" program, which allows you to get a free lipstick, gloss or eye shadow for every half dozen empty packages you return. and if that's not good enough for you, the wipes come in a convenient bulk size that actually make them more affordable than most competitors, while sacrificing nothing in quality. oh, and if you want to keep an extra pack around, they are exceptionally good as quick cleansers/ toners for leather footwear. (i'm not joking. as the cute guy with the spiky hair at the bay said "it makes sense. leather is a skin.")
price :: $21.50 for 45 wipes or $31 for 100 wipes
availability :: mac cosmetics stores, mac counters at the bay or on line

one more little tip. if, like me, you are lazy and choose to remove makeup, cleanse and tone in one fell swoop, it's important to understand that you're only removing the surface dirt from your skin. there's nothing wrong with that, but remember to give your skin a good deep cleansing- preferably with an exfoliant- two or three times a week.

so that's my advice on the subject. i realise there are about a hundred million makeup removers i haven't covered, but this is what i've tried. if you have comments on things that you've tried, speak up! feedback is always welcome.

on that note, wish me luck, because i'm off tomorrow to have someone else do my makeup for me. this is something that i've tried only a couple of times, with mixed results. this time, it'll be one of the makeup experts at nars who'll be deciding what to do with my face. one way or another, the results will be up here forthwith. perhaps i'll try a makeup remover?