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It is the time again for Toronto Fashion Week, or now known as the World Mastercard Fashion Week!  I had the opportunities to attend a few shows on Day 2.  On my way in, Mr. Max Kopanygin snapped a few photos of me outside the tents, and it made it on FLARE Street Style!

Credit: FLARE.com

Photo by Max Kopanygin | http://maxkopanygin.com | @maximkop

Press: FLARE Magazine Street Style at Toronto Fashion Week on Day 2

March 21, 2013 • 11 comments
This past Sunday, a few Toronto beauty bloggers and I met up at Milestones for our regular(ish) TOBB brunch!  Normally, we would chat about beauty, catch up with our fellow beauty bloggers and maybe meet a few new faces.  This time, on top of the aforementioned activities, we have a special guest who flew all the way from the United Kingdom — Amanda Bell, the makeup artist of PIXI Beauty.

Round Table of makeup goodies
If you are an avid viewer of some British beauty vloggers on YouTube, you probably would have heard of PIXI Beauty before.  They are a UK based makeup brand developed by its founder & creator, Petra, with a mission of "simply to bring out the natural beauty in all women – to make women look like themselves, only better.gredients so that skin is treated whilst you wear it".  They have been made available in the U.S. at Target for a few years now.  As you all probably know already, Target has arrived in Canada, and PIXI Beauty is also available now in the Canadian location.  Hurray!

Sprinkling some PIXI Dust on my Sunday Brunch...

March 13, 2013 • 15 comments
Maybelline has recently released their Dream Fresh BB Cream.  I first got introduced to this product by Grace Lee, the Maybelline New York Lead Makeup Artist in Canada last month at Luminato.  She raved about this BB Cream and told me how it gives a fresh looking finish, and hence “Dream Fresh”.

Maybelline Dream Fresh 8-in-1 Beauty Balm SPF 30 in Light/Medium and Light

CLAIMS

It claims that it could provide the following 8 benefits:

1.       With SPF 30 helps prevent sunburn
2.      Helps blur the look of imperfections
3.      Creates a natural looking glow
4.      Skin looks visibly smoother
5.      Compliments skin-tone
6.      Hydrates all day
7.      Feels fresh
8.      Oil free

It is recommended for people with normal skin (I have oily skin).


Maybelline Dream Fresh 8-in-1 Beauty Balm SPF 30 claims


PACKAGING

Comes in a squeeze tube and a security seal.  Very sanitary =D
Prior of your purchase, you would want to make sure the cap is sealed and the mouth of the tube is sealed.  Mine were of course sealed, and I think this is a major plus on Maybelline’s part because I know that no one has used my tube before me.  It comes in a squeeze tube packaging, which is always nice and more sanitary.  It’s very easy to dispense the product.  The tube itself seems quite small but it’s quite heavy for its size.

Feeling Fresh with Maybelline Dream Fresh 8-in-1 Beauty Balm | Month of BB

August 12, 2012 • 4 comments
When the MARCELLE released their original 8-in-1 BB Cream earlier this year, a lot of Canadian beauty junkies went wild.  It has gotten a lot of high praised in the blogosphere (including here).  So when we were told that a newer version, with SPF, is going to be released in July 2012, we were all excited about it!

CLAIMS

The new MARCELLE Anti-Aging 10-in-1 BB Cream SPF20 looks almost identical to its sister.  Except instead of a metallic silver label, it’s got a metallic hot pink label (which is not shown here, unfortunately, because I got a prototype press sample).  Instead of having 8 beauty benefits, it has been powered up to 10 benefits:

1.     Gives skin a lifted appearance
2.     Smoothes fine lines and wrinkles
3.     Improve skin tone
4.     Offers immediate and long-term hydrating benefits
5.     Protects skin from environmental stresses
6.     Strengthens the skin
7.     Controls shine
8.     Soothes and calms dry/damaged skin
9.     Reduces the appearance of imperfections
10.  Provides anti-dull radiant complexion.

PACKAGING


The packaging is identical to its sister, the original MARCELLE BB Cream.  It also comes in a tube form with a pump and a cap.  I love the pump packaging because it's sanitary.  This pump is also a very high quality one that will not dispense too much so that product goes to waste.

COLOUR

This new Beauty Balm is available in two shades: light-to-medium and medium-to-dark.  Both colours tend to go a little more yellow, which is perfect for counteracting redness, and perfect for those with neutral/beige/olive skin tone.  With pink skin tone, the yellow tone in it will brighten your face, but I can’t say for certain that it will match your skin.  It doesn’t have the highest coverage, so it’ll be easier to blend in with your skin tone, but then again, I don’t have pink skin tone so I cannot say for sure,

PRODUCT (coverage / soft-focus effect / texture / staying power)

The major difference of this BB Cream versus the original one is that this one got SPF 20.  And true to its claim, it does provide a little more hydration like most anti-aging products do (creams, serum, whatsoever).  It claims to give you an instant lift, which I can’t say it’s true or false because I don’t need that yet.

MARCELLE BB Cream Anti-Aging + SPF20 Does it ALL | Month of BB

August 3, 2012 • 15 comments
It has been a busy Summer in the office the past month...

Stock Image from yaymicro.com
When I say busy, I meant staying over time every single day.  But being busy is better than not busy at all, but that means something else will have to compromise, and in this case it's my blog.  The good news is that part of it is over, no more staying overly late every night, some nights, but not all.  Well, I can't say for sure for the next two weeks but we'll see.  I want to give a little update and let you guys know that I'm still here and I'm not abandoning my blog.  It is taking a hit right now, but it's inevitable.

On to some beauty related note, this month will be a month of BB Cream!  I'm kind of a BB Cream hoarder...  I don't collect them but I do have a soft spot if the product seems like it'll do a good job.  Having tested out so many different kind of Asian BB Creams, I have a good sense of what I'd like to look for whenever I try a new one.  American high-street and high-end brands have jumped on this bandwagon since last year, almost every brand now has a BB Cream, so it's time for me to test out some of them that are out in the market.  I'm going to focus first mainly on western drugstore BB Creams first because I believe that's more readily available for you guys.

Can you guess what which one I will be reviewing first?  Here's a hint...

This should be an easy guess...

x Rica

It's August and it's the month of BB Creams

August 1, 2012 • 0 comments