What's in my Shower Tag!

I didn't get tagged from anyone in particular, in fact, I didn't even know this was a tag until I Googled it right now.  I just was thinking that it would make a cool post and then thought about it every time I was taking a shower, and then promptly forgot again as soon as I got out.  But then I was taking pictures of my lips for the Topbox swatches from last post and was reminded, had my phone out for pictures, and had just cleaned my tub!

Not that you even see pictures of my tub..lol.

Soooo, without further ado, here is what is in my shower (and my thoughts on the products).

So, here's a list of everything and then I'll break it down individually with pictures of each: Fructis Anti-Dandruff Dry Scalp Shampoo, Just Bee Natural Quenched Pomegrante Shampoo, Balea Everyday Moisture Conditioner, Philosophy Vanilla Birthday Cake 3 in 1, Vasanti Brighten Up Enzymatic Face Rejuvenator, Olay Pro-X Advanced Cleaning System Brush, Dove Sensitive Skin Soap, Irish Spring Original Soap, Bath Pouf from The Body Shop, Random Hair clip.

And here's the lowdown:

Fructis Anti-Dandruff, Dry Scalp Formulation
- This is hubby's shampoo, though I use it occasionally when I want a good stripping shampoo since it's anti-dandruff and has sulfates in it.  He doesn't really have a problem with dandruff, but I bought this when he was getting a bit flakey and it's a super 700mL one and he doesn't use copious amounts since his hair is short so it's lasting a long time.  I picked the dry scalp version because the regular one had a lot of sulfate based detergents in it (like more than one listed) and this one only has one I think, so I thought it would be a bit less harsh that way.  It was on sale at Shoppers for $3.97 or something ridiculous like that, so I got that.  I think that was like in February...man...it has lasted a long time.  I only remember because we got it from the one beside his dentist and we only went there in Feb because his tooth was hurting.

Just Bee Natural Quenched Shampoo
- I don't know if the brand is "Just Natural" or "Just Bee Natural" because it has a Bee and not the word.  But on the back it says "Bee Natural, Bee Beautiful, Just Bee" so I assume the brand includes the word?  Anyway...this shampoo is mine.  It is SLS, Paraben free, etc etc.  I don't care so much for all the "naturally sourced" claims for shampoos, but I tend to just look for a sulfate free shampoo that smells good.  This one lathers well even without the sulfates so I am pleased with that.  It smells really good too.  I had to choose between this and the coconut scent they had, but went with this because hubby doesn't really like coconut.  This smells fruity but not artificially so.  It is gentle, which is good because I lather rinse and repeat usually.  I also have used this to clean my makeup brushes last cleaning and it worked well for that as well.  I got this for $6.99 at Superstore and it wasn't on sale, so I would likely purchase this again because it's reasonably priced for 700mL.

Balea Everyday Moisture Conditioner
- I don't use conditioner every time I shower because my hair isn't as damaged as it was before and was a conditioner junky. I actually bought this on our honeymoon because I had thought the hotel would have given us conditioner as well as shampoo but they just had shampoo and I still had my super damaged hair.  It was on clearance at Shoppers for $1.97 which was also ridiculous.  It is a decent conditioner, it does use silicones though so if you're not into that then don't use it.  It is a lighter conditioner though even with the 'cones.  I probably could use it everyday and not have it weigh down my hair, but I prefer a little argan oil styling serum after my shower instead of the conditioner in my shower.  I do have a problem with the packaging though...it takes a lot of force to squeeze it out, and it's getting worse for that because it's getting emptier.  The plastic is kinda hard and un-squeezable at the top and if you squeeze the bottom it just moves to the top because there is less resistance there than to go out the valve.  I likely would not buy this again unless it was on clearance again. Oh, and the reddish stains on it are from when I dyed my hair (I mixed some conditioner in with the dye and got dye on the bottle).

Happy Birthday Beautiful gift from Sephora Beauty Insider program

Philosophy Vanilla Birthday Cake 3 in 1 shampoo, shower gel, bubble bath

- This was last year's (2011) birthday gift from Sephora, but I started using it this year (since birthday is in October I get it near the end of the year).  I mostly use it as a bodywash/shower gel sort of thing if I want to smell yummy for some reason, or just randomly throughout the week.  I have used it as shampoo on occasion, but it does have sulfates in it so I don't like it as shampoo.  It smells delicious though.  This was the 2nd time I got bodywash from the birthday gift thinger...but this sample size is GIANT compared to the first one.  So I am pleased with that.  I don't think I would buy this again because the full size product is $21 at Sephora, but I might buy a sample set with this selection in the set?  I don't buy bath stuff that often though because I either get some as a gift or I just use soap.

Vasanti Brighten Up Enzymatic Face Rejuvenator

- I got this as a sample in October's Topbox and at first I didn't like it.  It seemed too rough on my skin.  But I think it might have been that day or something I had sensitive skin because since then it has been okay.  I like the fineness of the grit in it for exfoliating.  I like that it has chemical exfoliation from the enzymes (papaya and something else) as well as the mechanical exfoliation from the grittiness.  However, I don't think I'll buy this in full size ever mostly because I have the next product.

Olay Pro-X Brush

- I have had this for over a year and it is still awesome.  I can use it daily and it's not too rough, and for extra good exfoliation I can use any scrub first and then use that overtop to rub the scrub in.  lol, rub the scrub.  Mine is a little stained because of hair dye and using it too close to my hairline while rinsing out hair dye.  I just use it on the fast speed and so I like that it remembers which speed you're on when you turn it off.  Really that's just switches remaining in place, but I pretend that it is remembering my preference.  I recommend this to anyone who wants something to exfoliate without being a harsh scrub...or just anyone.  I don't know how it compares to the Clarisonic, cuz I don't own one and have never tried one, but I can't imagine it being that different really.  I especially like that it can go over my nose stud and not rip it out like a cloth would, yet get all around it unlike my fingers with a scrub.  I think I got mine with a coupon while on sale for like $27 or something from Pharma Plus...and it comes with a little chemical exfoliator lotion thing which I liked as well but the full size is like $25 or something so I didn't buy it when I ran out of sample.

Last little Bits here:

Dove Sensitive Skin Soap

- I bought this a while back for some reason, and just recently found it in the box again while cleaning out some drawer...so I used it.  I used to have The Body Shop soap in Olive, which I liked as well.  I prefer soap and a pouf to bodywash and a pouf generally...because it is waaaay cheaper.  I likely won't buy this soap for a while because I got 4 soaps from the Body Shop for free for my birthday this year.  So I don't need soap for a while.  I also have a backlog of like Dial and Lever 2000 or whatever it's called.  Soaps I bought for some trip and then never used after that trip.

Irish Spring Original Soap

- This is hubby's.  He has always used Irish Spring Original.  The only time he hasn't was when they didn't have any at the store and so we had to get Irish Spring Aloe soap, which he said smelled girly.  Silly boy.  I like that he sticks to the same thing though and so Irish Spring soap smells like my Man.  I don't use it though obviously.  Maybe once in a blue moon where I am out of my soap and body wash at the same time.

Body Shop Pouf

- Got this with a set of Olive scented stuff including a scrub, soap, and bodywash.  I like this pouf because it has a fabric loop for hanging.  However, it is starting to come apart from the centre so there is one section that I can stretch out fully.  But it serves it's purpose.  I am not picky about poufs.  Just no sponges please.

Random Hair Clip

- This is a remnant of when I had long hair.  I would put conditioner in my hair and then clip it up off my body so I could wash my body and let the conditioner sit.  It also helps not getting conditioner on your back to help prevent bacne.  However, my hair is short now and this is useless...just haven't taken it out of the shower.  It is probably rusted.  

So that's it folks.  Not very exciting.  More exciting than some people's who just have shampoo and soap though.  If you wanna do the tag, then do it! It's fun!

TTFN

- Becka

November Topbox!

Once again I got the notice that I got my Topbox delivered from Canada Post and then it comes the next day.  And this time, for some reason, the delivered it to my door and woke me and my hubby up about 30 mins before we had to get up anyway.  Random.

Anyway, last month was my first ever Topbox and it was kinda a disappointment, but this month's is pretty cool for sure.

Arranged so nicely on my laptop.

And here's what's inside and my initial views on them:

What I have been working on: Crochet.

I always want to type crochet like this: chrochet.  That makes no sense though.

So lately I have been knitting a lot, prefering the look of knit to crochet (especially with any variegated yarns) but throughout all of that knitting I have been working at this painstakingly long and annoying project.

So I got the pattern off of pinterest originally from THIS site which calls them "Sea Pennies" because she did them in various blues and sea glass colours.

I was originally going to make a ripple afghan from my various purples and reds that I had amassed over the years (mostly from my Grandma's basement).  But some of the yarn had very little to it, not enough for a full row of afghan, and I was sick of making those afghans anyway (though they are beautiful).  So I thought, why not do these curious sea pennies, it looks cool.

And yeah, it does look cool.  Just each of those circles takes maybe 1 - 2 minutes to make and attach to the rest as you're making it and then you're done that colour and need to get another colour.  And then I am making it to fit a twin size bed as a bedspread...so I have to make roughly 40" of sea pennies across for each row, and as each are about 2 inches wide...that's 20-40 mins per row of afghan.  If I was straight crocheting a row it would take me 10 mins probably.

Not to mention having to pick the yarns so it is random yet planned so that we don't get two of the same next to each other.  And then I need to get more yarn before I can go too far so that I don't have completely different yarns at one end from the other.

I think I bit off a bit too much, but luckily, the likelihood that I will have a twin size bed that needs a bedspread in the near future is slim since I live in a one bedroom apartment with my husband and we have a queen size bed.

Anywho....that is that.  TTYL

My Favourite Lipsticks: In my Collection

I used to not wear lipstick.  I had like...a billion lip balms and glosses (maybe that's an exaggeration...lol but at one point I had 8 lipglosses in my pencil case at school).  I never got into them until after I got really into more intense makeup.  It helped that it looked a lot better whenever I had unnatural coloured hair.

But lately I have been wanting to try more colours and wearing lipstick more often, and trying to venture out of my comfort zone of sheer barely there colours into more substantial lipsticks.  So I have been buying some here and there and this is my collection.

I'm not dead, I promise

Blah at posting blogs again...lol.  So, I forget when I last posted but I have been busy and not busy at the same time so thus no new posts.  I need to create a day where I just make like 3 posts or something each week all at the same time but then schedule them to post every few days so it has the illusion of regular posting.

Things that have been happening:
- started a new job (well, same job but another location added on to my previous location) I am covering some vacation time at another clinic and have the contract until December 31st, but I dunno if she'll want me to continue after that as well since the lady I am working under can't take new clients herself often because she's so booked.
- hubby lost his job, but it was okay because he never really quit his other job and thus was still on payroll and got hours again there.  It was still kinda scary there for a while because losing one's job is always annoying and emotionally painful.
- Hurricane Sandy came through our end of the province yesterday...had a bit of a power outage and blowy wind and rain but nothing as horrible as NYC
- I turned 26, which was rather uneventful and I feel old now.

I don't know what else to post....I finally got my first ever Topbox, which was actually disappointing and I was going to do a whole post about it and a review but I was just so disappointed by the samples that I am likely not going to post about it other than here.  They received a lot of negative feedback for that apparently so they promised that November's is going to be awesome and then gave us a code for $10 on their new store, but the code didn't work and I don't think I have gotten the new code or the working code or whatever.  But there isn't much in the store either so I'll just wait to use it anyway.  Customer service wise they seem good, so I have high hopes for the next month's.

Now, so this post isn't pictureless....here's one of a seasonally appropriate pumpkin which my father carved and then sent me and my sister's the picture since none of us live at home.

he was always very in to making them have ears

Black Tie Makeup

So I don't play around too much with makeup what with it being summer and my lack of employment which results in me being somewhat of a hermit and not leaving the apartment too much.  However, sometimes I just get bitten with the makeup bug and do crazy things just to do them.  So the other day I put together a classic kinda smokey eye look.

I always look paler in natural lighting...

I was feeling very fancy in my tanktop. lol.

Hubby Haircuts

So a long long time ago I attempted to cut my husband's hair (back when we weren't married) and I totally freaked out and botched it and he was like "I'll never let you cut it again" and has gotten professional haircuts since....however, I really wanna cut his hair because it's way cheaper and I cut my own hair usually and I wanna get good at cutting his hair so I need practice lol.  So finally he agreed because I was going to use clippers and we were broke.

And he really needed a haircut.  This is the before pic.

So not pleased.

He usually does a thumbs up in pictures I take of him (our honeymoon has like loads of thumbs up in it).  But he was so not looking forward to this adventure.

Freezer French Fries!

So cooking for two can be very annoying.  My cooking experience was mostly developed in University where we lived in Townhouse style dorms of 8 people.  Other than that my cooking was usually just like, a bowl of pasta for myself.  Definitely not used to proportions for only two people.  Now some days I am okay with this and I'll make a lot of food with the intention of having leftovers, but other days I'll make enough for 2.15 people or something.  Or just enough of one dish for another person but the rest of the dishes are just enough for me and my Hubby.
Potatoes are especially difficult for me.  It always seems like there isn't enough and then I peel and cut them up and it doesn't seem like that much.  And if I just make boiled potatoes we have leftovers, but if I make mashed there usually aren't.  I try to estimate based off of "one baked potato per person" kinda rule, but that only really works if the potatoes are large, which they usually aren't.  So then my rules of extrapolation seem to just go crazy and I end up with like 4 little potatoes for each person but then I have too many.  Lol.
So basically the end result of all of this is that I don't like cooking potatoes all that often.  But potatoes are cheapest if you buy them in 10lb bags.  So...in my year of living here so far I have had plenty of potatoes go bad on me.  I don't use them enough to use them up, and if I did use them up I would probably just have leftover in my fridge that go bad and either way it's a waste.

So I decided I would freeze them!

Slouchy Hat!

So I finally managed to make a perfect slouchy hat, for how I like slouchy hats anyway.  It might not be for everyone.  I have this awesome hat which I got from Kmart, back when Kmart still existed in Canada here, for like $0.49 when it was closing down.  That was like....when I was still in Grade School, so ages ago.  I still have it, and it's still my favourite hat.  But it's machine knit with like Lace weight yarn or something so I don't really want to just copy it because knitting stockinette knit with really fine yarns in a circle would be really boring and tedious.  Lace weights are for lace which is intricate and somewhat exciting to knit.  So I have been trying to make similar ones and usually the hats come out just like regular tuques.  But this time it was actually slouchy.  Probably because it's a bigger hat, so that's my problem I guess.  I make hats to be fitted and thus they don't slouch.

My face isn't necessary, lol.

So this one is slouchy! The yarn I used is the Loops and Threads "Charisma" yarn, which is pleasantly bulky and really soft.  I have made a cowl of the same yarn and so now I have a sorta matching set I guess.

Mushroom head.

This is how far it pulls down, I suppose I could fold up a cuff to make a it a regular tuque also.  Such versatility!  It could probably even fit my husband's big head.  Lol.  I just took this pic to show the pom pom.  I love pom poms on hats.  This one was kinda awkward because I didn't have a template so I just wrapped it around my fingers so some parts are really long and others aren't so much and I wish it were more bulky but whatever.

The hat itself is just a basic 2x2 rib, 60 sts around, knit on circulars.  I forget what size of circular, but my biggest needles with the smallest connection basically. Lol.  I am a bad knitter, I don't gauge on these things. I am more the type to frog something and try a different pattern or make one up as I go if somehting isn't working out how the pattern says it should.  I chose just simple rib because of the self striping effect of the yarn, I didn't want anything too complicated to look weird with the stripes.

I wanna make a baby-sized hat out of this yarn because I know a lot of people having kids and I like non-baby coloured items more than giving them something pale blue or pale green or pale pink.  I still have one ball left of this colourway so a baby hat with some curly-q's as a pom pom and maybe some booties if I can figure out how to make them.  I have some issues with some things because of the aforementioned lack of doing a proper gauge swatch and checking that.  Bad Knitter!

Toodles!

Well Hello There....

Holy Long Time No See, Batman....over a year....
...Now I must admit I have been cheating on Blogger and had a blog on Wordpress, but only apparently made like 4 entries in it and then it died as well.  And I have been bit by the blogging bug again and want to chronicle my life and I like Blogger better.  I like that it's connected to google mostly.  Haha.

I wanna just blog about life mostly though.  This blog was previously just makeup and beauty, and that's all fun and I'll still do it because I still do makeup and beauty things most days...but I also cook and bake and craft and work and rant and rave and whine (and wine) and whatever....and I was like "maybe I'll just start another completely different blog" but I like cake for days as a name...and I can't be bothered to do that.

So...Updates I suppose.  My life changes in the past year, this might be a bit: