Beauty Vixen: NYX

Five Things I am Loving Right Now - Fall 2018 Edition

By Jill Oliver-Fox Wednesday, October 24, 2018 5 things i am loving right now, brow, dermalogica, dry skin, guerlain, joe fresh, l'oreal, lip, loreal, meteorites, NYX, puppy love, tinted lip balm

Holiday Gift Guide

By Jill Oliver-Fox Friday, December 15, 2017 body fantasies, burts bees, clinique, gift guide, holiday 2017, lip smacker, NYX, Quo, shoppers drug mart, stila, the body shop

It is time for my big gift guide. There are so many people out there and so many gifts to buy, so I have done up a guide of some of the best gifts you can give this holiday season.

Before I begin, some of these items were sent to me from PR for review, and some I bought myself with my own hard earned cash. Either way they wouldn't be in this gift guide if I did not 100% love them and want them here. Items with an asterisk (*) next to their name were from PR, ones without I personally paid for. All views are my own, as always.

Quo Artisan Brush Set*

Oval makeup brushes have been all the rage the last few years. Quo happens to always makes fantastic brushes and brush sets, so to see that they have an oval set for the holidays is a delightful thing. This set features 10 brushes, everything from your lips, face and eyes is covered with this super soft and dense set.

The Body Shop Vanilla Chai Tin Of Delights*

I love The Body Shop's holiday scents, and while they have changed over the years (gingerbread, candied apple, cranberry have all made past appearances), this year's Vanilla Chai is an amazing blend of holiday warm scents that makes me feel at home. I love how The Body Shop always has amazing sets this time of year that have great value, this one has one thing other sets don't, Bubble Bath. I love a good bubble bath, so the fact this set has all my other favourites, body wash, body butter makes it my must have set this holiday season from The Body Shop. Oh and the pretty packaging too. If you needed an extra reason to give this, or any gift from The Body Shop this season, all gift sets help raise money for International Alert's Place for Peace Project

Belgian Cookies

Belgian chocolate cookies are a tradition in our house. Every year we get one as a gift and enjoy them with coffee and tea as desert on Christmas night. This year I opted to buy a box a little early just to make sure I had some on hand. While many companies sell these under their own name, we got the PC brand (honestly I think they are all the same). I love the combo of cookie and good quality chocolate. Plus you get a nice tin you can reuse for other projects or storing holiday ribbon (its what I do with them). I really think it makes a nice hostess gift.

Custom Ornaments:
Shoppers Drug Mart has their own online photo store, which has a whole pile of customized photo gifts. After getting our Santa photos done I thought it would be a great idea to get our families (and ourselves) some custom ornaments made up. We chose a wider shape with a red border, but there were lots of options. A nice touch is that they are double sided so we put Bradley's last year photo on one side and this years family photo with Santa on the other. I really think our moms are going to love these. Ordering was easy, and pick up was in about a week at our chosen Shoppers location, oh and we got Optimum points too (bonus).

Sony EXTRA BASS Portable Bluetooth Speaker*
This tiny speaker that is about half the height of a pop can, is waterproof and rechargeable. I currently have another Sony Bluetooth speaker that is much larger and runs on either an electrical cord or a bunch of batteries, so to have a smaller version that can pump out the tunes just as well without the need for cords or batteries is a much welcome change. You can get a second one and have them set up for stereo sound, but honestly one makes some pretty amazing sound. I recently started to use it in the kitchen (hanging from a cabinet knob and off the counter) while cooking and in bed when I am using my tablet. My tablet's speakers are on the back of them and get muffled when I push it up against a pillow, so it is fantastic for that. It also has a little string so you can hang it if you are out and about. It also has the ability to sync up with a second speaker and create a stereo experience and has some pretty incredibly deep bass settings (hence the name).

D-Link WiFi Range Extender*
When we moved 2+ years ago from a tiny 1 bedroom apartment to a 3 story stacked town home, we worried about the WiFi. It is a silly thing to worry about but really, how was the signal going to be from the basement all the way up that concrete thing to the 3rd floor. Well it has been hit or miss. My office is upstairs and we do a lot of watching of online media in the bedroom (tablets, phones, chrome casting to the TV). So the idea of boosting our reception was a great idea. This little tiny thing does such a great job I do not know why we didn't get one sooner. The best part for me is, the hubby has older desktop computers that don't have WiFi options, and we have wires everywhere to connect them to the internet. This little guy has a LAN cord spot in it. Which means all you need is an outlet and you can get the internet to a computer. This is really great because we felt really limited in what areas of the house we could put his computers, and now we aren't. We now have the option of giving him an office like me on the 3rd floor. Anyways I think this makes a good gift for anyone with a house or a larger condo, it helps give you full WiFi bars just about anywhere.

Body Fantasies Gift*
This little perfume body spray set features four popular scents from Body Fantasies. With Japanese Cherry Blossom, Sweet Crush and Pink Sweet Pea Fantasy, these three scents are sure to brighten up anyones holiday season. The box set makes for a nice gift for anyone you know likes fragrances (you could also break it up into four gifts for a few stocking stuffers).

Burt’s Bees Face Essentials*

Burt's Bees is a favourite of mine this time of year. They always have such great gift sets for any need, face, feet, hands, travel, lips. This year I am trying out their Face Essentials kit which has in it their White Tea Towelettes, Peach & Willowbark Deep Pore Scrub, Soap Bark & Chamomile Deep Cleansing Cream and Coconut &Pear Lip Balm. All full sized and all great products for anyone who is into skin care products. I really love their Deep Pore Scrub and Deep Cleansing Cream, I have dry skin and cleansing creams are definitely the way tot go to get your pores clean but not strip your skin of moisture.

Lelo Intent Women's Gift Set*
If you are looking for a great gift for the lady in your life, or heck even yourself then you may want to consider this bit of an adult gift option. Lelo is known for making high end toys that are also come in classy packaging. This set features two of Lelo's global best sellers, INA 2 and SIRI 2 as well as a bottle of their water-based personal lubricant. If this seems like a bit of an odd gift, you should head on over to Canadian Fashionista's blog and read about how 75% of Canadian women are not having orgasims.

Clinique A Little Happiness Gift Set

I love Clinique's Happy and Happy Heart. The scents have been in my rotation for years, but recently it caught my interest again. Sadly all I have at this point is a bunch or roller-balls I don't use. Then I found this little set and everything changed. It has three happy scents, Happy, Happy Heart and Happy in Bloom, all in mini spray bottles. They are spray bottles !!!! I am so happy (no pun intended). I can now spritz in the morning, or travel with one of them. I mean I really hate roller-balls, they get gross after a while plus I feel I need to spritz my fragrance a bit on my clothes to get more of a lasting scent.

NYX City Set Lip, Eye & Face Collection

A friend recently gave me this NYX Toronto set and I thought it was so cute. There are a few cities in the collection (New York, Santiago, Stockholm, London, to name a few). You get a quad of shadows, a blush, highlight and soft matte lip in its own little book like box. I think it is a really cute gift for anyone you know from one of the cities or just as a cute makeup gift.

Stila Eye For Elegance Liquid Eye Shadow Set
I am a big fan of Stila in general, each year I often end up purchasing at least one of their holiday sets. This year they had one I couldn't live without getting. It has six of their liquid eyeshadows, three of which are so new they wont be out until the spring. The three new ones are Shimmer & Glow shades while the three already released shades are Glitter & Glow shades. They all are really pretty pink, gold and silver shade that I think would look great on most people. The Shimmer & Glow ones really interest me because they are glitter free and they are just so pretty looking.

The Body Shop British Rose Expert Manicure Set
My hands are so dry all the time, but Christmas is the worst time of year because of how much I work. I adore The Body Shop's British Rose Hand Cream (the Almond one too), so this set really called to me in store. I love tin that looks like a playing card. Inside is a full size of the lotion, nail clippers. nail file and nail buffer. I really just wanted the hand lotion and tin, but this makes for a nice gift for anyone you know works hard with their hands. There is also a smaller version available. Plus, this gift helps fund Peace Play Project in Lebanon, like all gift sets at the Body Shop this year.

Lip Smacker Tsum Tsum Duo: Mickey & Minnie Gold Lip Balm Set

Tsum Tsums are still some of the cutest lip balms around, plus they have a great formula. While this year Lip Smacker has lots of options for stocking stuffers in the Tsum Tsum family, but this gold Mickey and Minnie set is just too cute not to get. Mickey is in gold with Whipped Pineapple flavour and Minnie in rose gold with Strawberry Beignet flavour.

There is my gift guide. I think all of these would make great gifts to give or receive this holiday season.

Empties: 10 I'm Tossing No. 5

By Jill Oliver-Fox Friday, April 10, 2015 almay, bourjois, elf, empties, eyes lips face, laura Mercier, makeup forever, NYX, primer, the body shop, throwaways, tossing, tossing 10

Yes another round of stuff I've used up or I am tossing. Woot woot. Yes I get excited when I toss stuff, because it is out of my life forever and that is a good thing when you live in a 1 bedroom apartment.

Let's get started

Glossybox lashes: I got these in a glossybox, way way back when (not even going to bother looking up a link to it for you, not worth the effort). These have a thick thick band, so I never wore them. Not once, I'm sure they would have been difficult to use with such a thick band.

Boujois Healthy Mix Serium Foundation in 51: I got this about 2 years ago and I actually used it up. I am super excited that I actually used a fluid foundation. Would I buy it again? Yes. It was a nice foundation that matched my skin really well

Makeup Forever Mist and Fix: I feel like I had this forever and ever. I liked it as a spray to get rid of powder on my finished face but I just wasn't sure about it fixing properties. It smelled nice and felt good on the skin though. Would I buy it again? I heard they re did this product and it is much better now (not that I thought it was bad before ) so I probably will buy it again at sometime, for now I am trying out the new smash box primer spray that also is a fixer.

ELF Studio Primer with spf: This was supposed to be limited edition when I ordered it, but it is still on the site. I honestly popped it into a tube that was 8ml so that I could get rid of the bulky packaging. I have yet to really give it a go.. Would I buy it again? Maybe, I like the idea of spf in my primer and that it is so cheap.

Elf Studio Poreless Primer: I got this before the spf version and also stuck it in a tube. I am glad I did, it is so much less bulk. I like this one, while I don't have oily skin, I do like the idea of minimizing what pores I do have and giving my slightly oily areas a bit more oil protection Would I buy it again? No, I think I would just stick with my regular versions or the spf or hydrating.

In case you haven't seen how much spare packaging an elf primer has (it is a thing elf does to make their products seem much bigger than they are, which is just wasteful) here is a link to a empties post where I put some other primers in tubs and took apart all the wasteful plastic.

The Body Shop Moisture It Primer: This was an ok primer. It always seemed runny and that I would waist a lot as a result. It also never felt like a real primer to me. Since I'm being really honest, it was also small. I just feel it didn't live up to The Body Shop name. Luckily I think I got it on the cheap with a 3 for $30 deal or something like that. Would I buy it again? Nope, no no no.

Almay Intense I-Color Eyeliner in amethyst: This is old, really old. The packaging has since changed, and a long time ago. So I must say goodbye to this well loved liner. I used to wear this almost everyday. Would I buy it again? Yes, I would, I will....must wait for a sale. Getting nervous that I don't have it now and want it.

Laura Mercier Secret Brighting Powder: I've had this for a while, I got it with some type of gift bag with purchase. I used it all up so I am happy about that. It was great for finishing my makeup and not changing the colour of anything like blush. Would I buy it again? I would, but for right now I am finishing up a MUFE HD powder.

NYX Loose Powder Shadow in Charcoal Pearl: Oh my I had this a while. I forgot I had it. Oh here it is way back when I hauled it, I meant to grab another colour and made a mistake. That being said I never used any of those, what the heck did I do with all of them? Ok So I never used it, so it's getting tossed. Would I buy it again? Never used it, so no.

NYX Jumbo Lip Pencil in 724 Chaos: I buy things and think they will look good on me, and never end up wearing them. This is one of those cases. While I like the product, the texture is a bit thick, I just don't reach for it Would I buy it again? No. I never wore it.

Ok, so there was another round of 10 I'm tossing. I actually used up a foundation, a mini powder and a setting powder. I feel accomplished this round.

Have you tossed anything lately?