by Marie | May 17, 2018 | Best of 2018, Facial Cleansers, Projects with Videos
I seem to be on a bit of a “concentrated” kick, partially inspired by my recent trip to Australia. I brought shampoo bars with me (that also ended up doubling as body wash), and found that all the use (aka getting wet) and the lack of time to dry between moves meant they got pretty darn smashed up. I love shampoo bars at home, but it seems like if you are packing them up and moving them around frequently, and using them often enough that they never get a chance to fully dry, they’re not as travel friendly as they could be. So, I started thinking about ways to create sudsy things that didn’t need to dry, and that’s how we ended up with these Lemon Rose Facial Cleansing Drops.
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by Marie | May 7, 2018 | Lotion
I thought I’d do something a little different for Mother’s Day this year. Instead of sharing recipes your moms might like, I’m sharing a recipe I made with my mom, based on what she likes! My parents live on the coast, where it’s much more humid, so when my mom visits she often adopts a recent lotion creation of mine to combat Calgary’s legendary dryness. A few visits ago I didn’t have anything up for adoption (gasp!), so we worked together to develop something just for her. She loved it and ran out, so on this visit we made another (bigger) batch, and I thought I’d share it in honour of Mother’s Day!
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by Marie | Feb 5, 2018 | Best of 2018, Facial Cleansers, Other 2018 Favourites
This Ginger Oak Moss Solid Facial Cleanser is the sister to my Ginger Oak Moss Cleansing Balm Stick; the two accompanied me all around New Zealand last December, and did brilliantly. The inspiration for this came from a product I stumbled across while perusing /r/AsianBeauty: the Su:m37 Miracle Rose Cleansing Stick. I immediately saw the travel (and general) awesomeness potential of a solid facial cleanser in a push-up stick, and set out to create one of my own.
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by Marie | Jan 29, 2018 | Body Mists & Sprays, Projects with Videos
My Australia countdown is in full swing (I leave in three weeks!), so even though it’s definitely still winter here I’ve got images of sandy beaches and steamy rainforests dancing around in my head pretty much all the time. Talking with my friends down there has me somewhat concerned I may melt. I love hot weather more than most people (more than most Canadians, at least)—I don’t know many people who are stoked about 35°C, but I am. 45°C, on the other hand… that may be a bit much. We’ll see. In preparation, though, I’ve created this cooling, Australian-inspired body mist.
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by Marie | Jan 18, 2018 | Lotion
January is our cold, dry month. It’s that month where the holidays have passed, the solstice is behind us, and it well and truly feels like we’ve settled into winter proper. Of course a chinook can always show up to toss aside the chill for a few days or a week at a time, but it’s always ready to seep back at this time of year. In March you can start to tell yourself that the chinook might be an early spring, but in January you know it is only a temporary respite. With all this in mind, I wanted a lotion that smelled bright, crisp, and fresh, and would help with winter scratchies without being heavy. Silky, bright, hydrating skin goodness. This is what I came up with.
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by Marie | Nov 20, 2017 | Conditioner, Projects with Videos, Vanilla Spice
When I was in university I had the most wonderful roommate in second year. Harriet and I started as roomies and are still fast friends to this day. There were many things that made us fantastic roommates, including our shared appreciation of pizza nights, clean door handles, quiet nights in, and removing our possessions from the shared shower. You see, Harriet’s first year roommate owned approximately thirty different bottles of shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, and heavens knows what else, and they all lived in the shower. There was barely room to stand in the middle of the asteroid belt of bottles ringing the perimeter of the shower, like some sort of packaging-themed art installation. Anyhow, the point of this tale is that bottles are sort of silly, thirty of them definitely is, and I really like using shampoo and conditioner bars instead. This Vanilla Spice Conditioner Bar works perfectly with my desire to have next to nothing in my shower.
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