Natural Body Products: Boo Bamboo Face Wipes

I've been using these Boo Bamboo 'skin balancing' make-up remover wipes for a few weeks now and I've found them to be a really good buy.

Boo Bamboo appears to have started off as a hair-care centered company, as that's all they really talk about in their 'about' section. But I did a little bit of digging and it seems they are another Canadian company focused on organic, all-natural, and cruelty free beauty products!

The make-up removal wipes in particular are also a good find: biodegradable, unbleached, and free of all sorts of bad things like parabens, sulphate, and DEA. In terms of their effectiveness, I find them useful. I can see on the wipe itself that it clears off my makeup quite effectively. Mind you: I don't wear a lot of makeup. A dab of concealer here and there, a little care to my eyebrows, and some mascara are usually the extent of my routine. I use these wipes as more of an end-of-day cleanser to clean up whatever guck I might have gotten over the course of the day. Also, they do not do a good job of tackling my waterproof mascara. In fact I don't think they remove any of it. And my eyes water a lot from wind and things so I really do need waterproof mascara most days. However, my skin is doing great and I believe having these in my routine is a helpful step in the process!

I may or may not purchase these again - only because I'd love to find a wipe that removes my mascara, seeing as that's the only real makeup I wear, and it's really hard on the eyes to not remove it entirely.

What face wipes do you use? Do you have something effective for removing tough waterproof mascara?

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Check out previous Natural Body Product reviews:
Andalou Naturals (For Hair!)
Green Beaver (For Face!)

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(Disclaimer: I am NOT being compensated for this post. Boo Bamboo doesn't even know I exist as I write this. I just want to share for any of you who are interested and looking for good alternatives to the usual handful of options for body products.)

 

It's Finally Here! (Grad Show!)

Hi friends!
Just popping in to share what I've been up to this week as there was radio silence on the blog (oops!). I've been setting up all week for my exciting graduation show coming up this week!

I volunteered to help build the actual display walls and I have a WHOLE new appreciation for manual labour. My fella does a lot of manual labour as a general contractor/builder of things and I have a whole new appreciation for what he does. It was a special experience to do some problem solving for building these things, and to do something with my hands and body; heavy lifting, gluing, measuring, drilling, cutting through thick-ass cardboard - woo! I called my fella to tell him of my new understanding for how tiring and exhausting (but fun!) his work can be!

I also had to set up my own personal work for the show! I kept my presentation simple so that the stories within my Spencer's Adventures series can speak for itself, and it is almost all up and ready to go as of today! I have a few things to add tomorrow, but then I'll be all done. It's wild that it's finally here; the accumulation of an entire year's worth of work.

 I'll be sure to share some photos of the final set up (and maybe some peeks at some of my peers' works?) in the coming week, and hopefully be back to some regular posting after my show!

xo

Weekly Photo Capsule .10

It has been a really nice couple of weeks. Though I still have to get my work ready for my final graduation show, it has been really nice to have some time on weekends and between work to focus on my own projects. The top left is a fun project I have worked on with my friend over a few years now (which I'll talk about some other time!) and the bottom right is for a fun zine my friend Blair is writing, which I will also talk more about later!

Last weekend the fella and I went to the zoo for Gorilla awareness day - it was one of the first wonderfully sunny days of the year and we really enjoyed walking around, learning about Gorillas, and seeing what ever other animals were out and about already. The Toronto zoo just recently got Pandas and boy are they cute and lazy and hilarious.  This one was just lounging and letting whatever bits of his food fall onto his belly. No care in the world I tell ya!

What have you been up to this week?
xo

Window Shopping || 6

Floral Dress: Lucy Blue Vintage | Tribal Turquoise Necklace: Jessamity | White Mary Jane Shoes: James Rowland Shop

I don't wear as much floral anymore, but I used to be absolutely floral obsessed - I probably would have bought this light blue, adorable vintage dress in a heartbeat if highschool me saw it! I still have the very first shirt I ever thrifted back in Grade 10 or so. Surprise, it's floral! Maybe I'll include it in an outfit post soon.

Spring has me dreaming of florals and cute dresses again - gone are the days where I am restricted to darks and pants (I still wear them, but at least I have options!). We've had blue skies and sunshine this last week and I have been over the moon about it! I even broke out my cute little summer loafers from Paris for a celebratory dinner last night. My best friend Kami and I have both finished our undergrads and we thought it was worth dedicating a nice dinner and movie date night to. We had dinner on a patio, which got chilly when the sun went down, but it was nice while it lasted!

Has spring arrived around your part of town? I suspect the answer will be yes; Canada seems to be late to the game this year.

xo

Creative Crush: Max Litvinov

Last week a classmate showed us the work of Max Litvinov (KClogg) - it's crazy bizarre. I love it!

It's nice to see an artist with a distinct 'style' still mix it up and try new things. I find his characters super charming and love the distortion and weirdness.  He also has a super psychedelic colour palette which is really fun and is more evident in the video at the bottom of the post than these two images I chose to show.

His animation reel is reel-y (haha... ha) what caught my attention though. Apparently all the music is his own too, which is really fun - I admire it when someone dives into the whole process of a project, and makes it entirely their own. I think that's what I enjoy most about Litvinov's work. Especially in the video, you get drawn into his own quirky universe with a variety of characters and colours and creatures.

Take a look:

KClogg animation Demo Reel 2013 from Max Litvinov on Vimeo.

Which artist have you been crushing on lately? 

Natural Body Products: Andalou Naturals for Hair

I've always battled a bit with my hair. I am not an anomaly - I know these same words are uttered daily by women and girls around the globe. I still battle with my hair - but there are some things that help me embrace my crazy hair instead of battling it. The Andalou Naturals hair products have done pretty well at taking care of my big ol' mane so far.

The Andalou "Argan & Sweet Orange" Shampoo and Conditioner are what I have been using for about 9 months now! I initially picked them out because I had a moisturizer by Andalou that I really liked, and then I got one whiff of their scent and it was decided! They kind of smell like candy, very much like an orange creamsicle. Yum yum.

My hair is a thousand different textures on one head: I get little curlies at the nape of my neck, some straight areas mixed in all around, and some waves and frizz thrown into the mix too! It's a crazy town when it can't make up its mind. I find that with this shampoo & conditioner combo, my hair won't necessarily choose one way to be, but all its various parts are happy and behave with these products. My hair generally feels healthy and soft and good.

Andalou as a company seems pretty great - they balance profit and philanthropy (their words, not mine!), and take a generally sustainable approach to making their products. Not only do they stuff their products full of good, mostly natural things (I don't think it is 100% natural, unfortunately) they also source the ingredients from sustainable, good sources.

"We value knowing where our ingredients come from, the farmers who grow them, and connecting the human chain of hands that make every step possible from farm to bottle, soil to skin, and botany to beauty."

I think that's pretty awesome. 

One thing that there is controversy over is the use of "Fruit Stem Cells"in the products, as though they help to rejuvenate and regrow things.  Some people argue this is a misconception because the cells die and therefore do not perform the function we expect them to. It does however seem as though, at the very least, the "stem cell" ingredients included offer other pluses such as antioxidants. I've had some trouble finding articles that explain why stem cells don't function in beauty products, as most of the writing out there are trying to encourage the purchase of the products and are all for it. The doubt about plant stem cells is briefly mentioned here and here. 

Stem Cell stuff aside, the product has been really good to me and I will probably continue to use it. 

ALSO! I did find out that the store I normally goes to is seriously upping the price - so I found an alternative that sells it for several dollars cheaper. Make sure you double check when buying pricier products that they aren't being sold more expensively than they already are!


What natural shampoo/conditioners have you tried? 

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(Disclaimer: I am NOT being compensated for this post. Andalou Naturals doesn't even know I exist as I write this. I just really like them and want to share for any of you who are interested and looking for good alternatives to the usual handful of options for body products.)

 

Year of Thrift Spring Update

I'm a little delayed in writing a Year of Thrift Update! I have some more insight to share now though, since I actually have some experience to reflect on.

Observations
What do I mean by actually having experience to reflect on now?

Well, I have found that my Year of Thrift Challenge has seriously slowed me down in my shopping, in general! Of course this isn't surprising, but I find that my urge to shop has diminished, and I barely even go thrift shopping! In comparison to how frequently I would shop before, that is. By not allowing myself to step into the closest H&M impulsively after class or as an extra stop on my way somewhere else has made me stop wanting to almost all together.

That being said, I haven't collected that much recent 'experience' with thrifting to share in regards to my year of thrift! Other than a few little items here and there (this adorable spring jacket is still the winner of the year so far) I haven't done any spring shopping or anything yet.

Also, clothing swaps are still my most favourite thing. I recently nabbed a few really cute clothes from my friend Annie and she has a rockin' sense of style, so I seriously scored!

Exceptions
Travel Gear.

The likelihood of me finding a traveling backpack that was the exact right size for carry-on bags around the world were slim, so we researched the heck out of it and found a good bag, the Osprey Farpoint 40, which the people at Europebound in Toronto were kind enough to have transferred from another store and put on hold for us (it's a popular bag it seems).

Also, clothes that are appropriate for travel are hard to find - mostly because cotton and wool are no good (don't dry fast enough, pretty bulky) and they seem to make up a good portion of the clothes I've found at thrift stores lately. I haven't given up though!

Anecdotes
When my fella and I were backpack shopping, we decided to pop into a few stores to look for swim suits (another exception). I walked into H&M and was very quickly overwhelmed by all the beautiful patterns on all their beautiful new spring clothes and as soon as he came back down from the men's floor, I hustled him out of there mumbling "GET ME OUT OF HERE! LOOK AT THE PATTERNS. OH MY GOD." I guess my desire for shopping isn't entirely out of my system yet, or maybe just my love for patterns... I stayed strong though - be proud!


Quick Side note: Is it even accurate to call this weather Spring yet? I don't know about you guys, but here in Toronto we woke up on Easter Sunday to SNOW. Big, icky clumps of it on the ground! What's that all about?


Have you made any fun thrift buys recently?
xo

Weekly Photo Capsule .09

Hey guys! Feels as though it's been a while, so much has been packed into the last week and it felt long long long, but it flew by all the same! Time is weird. I am done with my thesis assignment and all my exams, so I am pretty much finished my undergrad - hence the excited crazy ponytail photo.


And what better way to finish off a busy week with an equally as busy but wonderfully full Easter weekend!? My family and I had an absolute Easter Marathon: 4 Easter meals in a single weekend. I'm stuffed! We had food and three legged races and chocolate and lots of laughter, it was a really lovely time.

How was your Easter, Passover, or simply long weekend? I hope it was splendid!