Keep that sunkissed glow year round

bareMinerals-touch-up-to-glowBy now people are jumping into the winter scene, recommending how to take care of your skin during the colder months. Products that work on your skin during the summer months mightn’t work during the dry months. In fact, many make-up artists recommend you switch up your foundation when the seasons change. While I agree to it somewhat, I don’t agree that you should go from completely dewy and sun kissed during summer, to a flat matte face for winter. With the dry skin I have, matte doesn’t look good on me and I always prefer to have glowy skin year round.

Here’s the thing. You’ve searched high and low for your holy grail foundation, only for the seasons to change and make up artists are telling us we should switch out our foundation for the summer/winter months! What to do? Rather than go out and buy another foundation in a darker/lighter colour, I have a solution! If you are going into summer and your foundation is too dark: apply a gel bronzer to your foundation: instantly warmed up. If your foundation is too dark, I suggest adding moisturizer to it: creating a lighter shade suitable for your winter skin.

You guys know I have to be reppin’ Canada at any moment possible. Leave a comment if you guys have the exact same pair of mittens, from The Bay! Here are some ways I keep my sun kissed skin for a winter glow.

Glowing-Skin-in-Winter

1. Exfoliate. 2. Self-tan. 3. Apply serum. 4. Moisturize. 5. Apply foundation.
6. Dab concealer where necessary. 7. Add warmth to the skin with bronzer.
8. Apply highlighter. 9. Make your eyelashes flirty with mascara. 10. Add lipgloss.

While you should exfoliate your skin regularly to get rid of dead skin cells, it’s important to also do it when the air is dry and cold in order for your foundation to sit nicely on the skin. To prevent your foundation from looking cakey on your kin, try mixing it with a bit of moisturizer.

Swap out your lightweight summer moisturizer for a thicker one during the winter. I amp it up and use philosophy no reason to hide serum, and a thick moisturizer to really penetrate into the skin to achieve a youthful glow for that, I reach for philosophy back to nurture. I have been using philosophy products since 2011, I know it works so I don’t fuss with my skincare routine one bit.

bareMinerals-touch-up-glowTo make that glow last throughout the day I like to have my cheekbones catch the light. I dab illuminating powder from bareMinerals on the upper corners of the cheekbones, and sometimes if I’m getting really glammed up, I put it on my brow bones, and the inner corners of my eyes. Go for gold undertones if you have warm skin, and silvery pinks if you’re fair. Though, there really are no rules when it comes to applying make up.

close-up-touch-up-to-glow  touch-up-to-glow

Here’s what touch up to glow looks like on my cheek bones. I’m thinking it looks pretty decent, right? My skin definitely has a bit of a sun-kissed glow to it, but it’s not over the top. I’m definitely going to be sporting this makeup look tomorrow when I go to a fun blogging event in San Francisco. I’ll tell you all about it on Thursday though!Winter-Glowy-Skin

Most importantly: remember to hydrate! Your skin will suck up all that H20.

If you’re into wearing make up and don’t mind an extra step, use a primer before foundation as it creates a barrier for any dry spots you may have on your face. Foundation can often accentuate dry patches and if you want to look extra flawless, use a primer. I haven’t used many, and I have tried a sample of Benefit Porefessional, which I enjoyed.

Philosophy and bareMinerals products were sent for review.

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Our first American thanksgiving

Thxgiving-headerWe enjoyed our first Thanksgiving as a married couple, and our first Thanksgiving celebrated in the USA this weekend. We invited our other Canadian friends over to celebrate too, since they also recently moved to California. As Canadians, we were dyin’ for a bit of Thanksgiving grub as ours usually falls during the middle of October. We were overdue for a feast!

Thxgiving-food-prepI had the chance to order food at no cost to me, thanks to Walmart Grocery once again, so I took full advantage of that and placed my order over a week ahead a time so we would be prepared. It was delivered last Wednesday and we had our Thanksgiving planned for Black Friday. Unfortunately my order was a bit of a flop, as chicken wings arrived in replacement of two whole chickens. Walmart assured me that I should always check the box that allows substitutions which in any case they run out of food, they will give you an upgrade. However, I’m thinkin’ chicken wings are a total downgrade from whole chickens. They also didn’t include my chicken stuffing for the birds. In a panic I had to rush out before any of the stores closed early due to Thanksgiving the next day. Not something I had planned to do! I was disappointed in that, and of course had to go on a wild goose chase to find fresh not frozen, chickens. In the end, it all worked out and everything else arrived perfectly fine. Just not those dang chickens and stuffing! While my delivery did have a mishap, I’m still really pleased with the service and still recommend it to people. Especially those who live a busy lifestyle, don’t want to grocery shop on their time off or those who have newborns at home. Imagine diapers being dropped off at your door at a moments notice! Perfect, right?

Since our friends have a young child, we had our Thanksgiving meal earlier in the evening since the lil’ bud had to go to bed at an early hour. We had a really nice evening with loads of good food and wine. I made two whole chickens, mashed potatoes, baked asparagus with feta, carrots and cauliflower puff (which I still have to post a recipe on).

Over the course of a few weeks, I picked up some decorations from all over, and put together a nice spread for ourselves, and our guests. The only true decorating I did was these fancy looking but super easy to recreate napkins that I saw on Pinterest. But I picked up some flame less candles for the table which I totally forgot to turn on, and I also made a Christmas Ball wreath from a coat hanger, which is more like a triangle wreath, but hey — it at least definitely looks homemade, haha!

Now, I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking :)
Thanksgiving-table

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Old-fashioned-apple-pie

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Roasted-asparagus

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Thanksgiving-meal

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Thanksgiving-dessert

Napkins

Relaxing

What are some of your Thanksgiving traditions?

What’s your favourite part about Thanksgiving?

Favourite: Turkey, Ham, Beef or Chicken?

I’m really looking forward to continuing these traditions over the course of the years.

Are you wanting to try out Walmart’s grocery delivery service? Your first order delivery is for free – and if you want an additional 15 bucks off you can use my referral link.  I’ll get $15 for each friend who tries out their service, and YOU will save $15 too. Why not share, right?

Disclaimer: Walmart-to-go provided me with a gift card to try out their delivery service.

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Lipgloss Heaven!

Happy Thanksgiving! We aren’t having our first American Thanksgiving today, since my husband has a race today. So we’re hosting it at our house tomorrow, with two of our other Canadian friends and their baby. I’m so excited, I’ve been cleaning, decorating and getting the house overall organized. I’ll definitely be blogging about it. However today we’re going to talk about some beauty goodies again.

I know, I usually try to space out reviews with non-sponsored posts, but the bareMinerals and Buxom lip glosses are a must-see and only here for a limited amount of time. Plus, those who are doing Black Friday shopping, or Christmas shopping in general, may want to pick up some of these goodies for a friend, or open the entire package and separate them out for mini gifts to people. These would be so sweet to hand out as party favours if you had a few girlfriends over for a wine night, or a “just because” gift.

Pretty sure I have a lifetime supply of lip glosses right now. Buxom lip glosses are a product I have repurchased a couple of times, mainly in the colours Katie and Bunny. I have found they last longer on my lips than my NYC butter glosses, which are also beautiful but for $1.99 you get what you pay for. They simply don’t last.

So here we go. Let’s dive right into the lip gloss heaven!

bareMinerals KISSING boothâ„¢ ($54 value for $26US / $CDN) 6-Piece Mini Marvelous Moxieâ„¢ Lipgloss Collection

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xes-and-ohsGet it? Kissing booth? Lip glosses set up like X’s for kisses? I thought it was cute, lol.BMMarevelousMoxie

Left to right: Sweet Kisser, Major Flirt, Big Tease, Lucky Lady, Thrill Seeker, Jezebel

Kissing-Booth-swatches


Buxom-Winner-Takes-All2Buxom Winner Takes All ($32US / $40CDN) 6 piece Mini Full-Onâ„¢ Lip Polish & Lip Cream Collection

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Left to right: Chloe, Creamsicle, Sophia, White Russian, Trixie, Berry Blast

Winner-Takes-All-swatch


Do you save the best for last? That’s what I usually do. So good. So much happening. A few duplicates (two)  from the Winner Takes All collection, we have the Buxom Lip Gloss Roulette ($59US / $74CDN) Winning Collection of 15 mini Full-Onâ„¢ lip polishes and lip creams.Buxom-Lip-gloss-roulette

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Left to right: Claire, White Russian, Jennifer, Mai Tai, Rebecca, Zoe, Sophia, Katie, Julie, Dominque, Megan, Karen, Mudslide, Isabella, Lavender Cosmo

Roulette-swatches

What do you think of the whole slew of them? A lot of beautiful shades to choose from, right? Anything stick out to you?

What is your favourite thing about Thanksgiving?

Do you usually travel somewhere for Thanksgiving?

Is anyone hitting up the stores for Black Friday tomorrow?

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