curiouslycarmen, Author at Curiously Carmen

My Melody Face Mask

October 4, 2015

When Maki went to Taiwan and Hong Kong last month, she came back with an assortments of gifts and souvenirs for me! Thank you, Maki, if you’re reading this! I don’t buy many Asian beauty brands, but to my knowledge, I believe that they are a lot cheaper in Asia so it is a good time to stock up on them while you are there.

I received a bunch of facial masks from her, which I am slowly trying out.. as well as an liquid eyeliner that I really love! One of the facial masks that she got me was the My Melody face mask.

For those of you that don’t know, My Melody is one of the Sanrio characters. You can think of Sanrio as the Disney of Japan… their characters are very popular and everywhere in Asia! The most popular Sanrio character is probably Hello Kitty.

I grew up with a lot of Sanrio characters in my life, my favourite characters would have to be Hello Kitty, Keroppi, Little Twin Stars, My Melody… and the list goes on. I’m feeling so nostalic as I type this, I had Keroppi stickers all over my room and door when I was a kid!
This is what the packaging looks like – simple and minimalist, yet still very cute!
Although I took a Japanese beginners class three years ago, sadly I did not continue with it although I hope to be able to read fluent Japanese one day. That, or be able to travel to Japan and understand or get around!

With that said, clearly I can’t tell you what the ingredients are or what this mask claims to do. I’ll just leave it up here for you all to see and if you can translate the back, please leave a comment down below =D
I was very surprised when I took out the mask, and saw that it was an actual My Melody face! How cute is that?! Seriously, Japanese products are amazing and are so detailed. It also smelled like strawberries, which was an excellent delight.

At first, my skin reacted a bit with the mask as it stung a little, which went away in less than 30 seconds. I left it on my face for 15 minutes, and I thoroughly enjoyed the scent of strawberries the whole time. I am a big fan of strawberries, if you didn’t know 😛

I was a bit confused as to if this mask would fit my entire face, since it is more horizontal than vertical. It actually covered my whole face area, except for the tip of my nose because the nose flap was a bit too short for me.

Overall, I thought that this mask was very cute and I enjoyed using it. I really loved the packaging and design of this. The mask felt very moisturizing, although I wish I could read Japanese so I can tell what this mask targets.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

The Body Shop – Shea Body Whip

September 30, 2015

I have been a fan of The Body Shop lotions since high school, although I prefer the bottled body lotions over the tub body butter. I find that the bottled body lotions moisturize better, and I believe they are slightly more expensive since the amount you get is less than the tub for the same price. In the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that they’ve changed the name to a ‘body whip’ instead!

I’ve probably tried most of the scents from the body whip line, as it has been my go-to body moisturizer for many years now! I actually talked about the mango body whip two summers ago as well.

Compared to the other products I’ve used in their body whip lotion line, I find that the shea butter is my least favourite. Although it smells really good, I prefer their fruit-scented lotions more, such as the mango, satsuma, grapefruit, strawberry, cranberry, and raspberry. Wow, listing them out has made me realize how many I’ve used already!

This may sound a bit strange, but I also find that if I moisturize my hands with this lotion and then eat a snack with my hands twenty minutes afterwards, I can taste the lotion in my mouth. It tastes like soap.

I’ve found that this only happens with the shea butter, and not with the other TBS lotions I’ve tried. The same thing happened with Bath and Body Works lotions, which is why I tend to avoid buying their hand creams.

In terms of absorption, I find that it takes longer to absorb, which explains why I can taste it on my food as I said above. I haven’t had a problem with most other creams, so now I’m just careful to not eat oranges or other things that usually require your hands to eat after I put this lotion on.

Although the shea butter body whip lotion isn’t my favourite, I don’t mind using it up but I’ll be sticking with the other fruit lotions at The Body Shop instead next time. In fact, I bought the raspberry body whip lotion last month and I am quite excited to use it.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

The Fish Counter

September 29, 2015

Before summer ended, I spent the afternoon with Gin exploring Main Street. Both of us had been wanting to try The Fish Counter for a long time, and couldn’t find a better time to check it off both of our lists.
The Fish Shop serves up sustainable seafood, and all products are Ocean Wise. The place reminded me of a cool, local seafood shop.

Since it was a nice and sunny day, the windows were all open and so was the patio. The sun was coming in, the air was fresh and warm – what more could you ask for?

It took us quite a while to decide on what to order as everything looked so delicious! We ended up splitting three items for lunch.

The first thing we ordered was the special that day, the Greek fish taco. This caught my eye because I am a HUGE fan of Greek food and I can’t pass down anything with tzatiki sauce. Seriously, I don’t normally tend to finish all my dipping sauces with my food but when it’s tzatiki sauce… I’ll gobble it up so fast before you know it was there!

Everything tasted really fresh but unfortunately, we both found this taco to be lacking in taste and very plain.

We were torn between the chowder and BC bouillabaisse, and ended up deciding on the latter. This soup was seriously amazing and was a seafood lover’s dream. There was an extremely generous amount of seafood – with every scoop we had, there was an abundance of fish, clams, shrimp, etc that came along with it.

We really enjoyed the soup and would order it again in a heart beat! I must warn you though, if you’re not a seafood lover, you might find this soup a bit too ‘fishy’ but we thought it was absolutely perfect.
The last thing we ordered was the crab and shrimp baguette, or pretty much a shrimp/crabcake baguette 😉 Again, all the ingredients were really fresh and the flavours went well together. The baguette was nice and soft too, while the side salad came with fresh and crunchy vegetables.

I would recommend squeezing a bit of lemon juice on top to further accentuate the flavours!

Since this place is mostly self serve, you clean up after yourself once you’re done eating.

Overall, we really enjoyed our first experience at The Fish Shop and I would recommend this place if you’re a seafood lover. All the ingredients they use are really fresh and the quality of the food is definitely there. Since the seating area is a bit limited, this would be a good place to order take out as well. The staff are also extremely nice and welcoming.

On the other side of the restaurant is their actual fish shop! We didn’t buy any seafood to bring home to cook that day, but the option is there for those who want to.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Thyme to Indulge

September 14, 2015

During the last week of summer (wow, I can’t believe I’m saying that already), a couple of my friends and I decided to check out Thyme to Indulge for a late lunch. I’ve heard many great things about this place and love eating in this neighbourhood, which is a bit odd that I haven’t tried this place until now.

Thyme to Indulge is actually a catering business, with a small restaurant located in their office space. There were a few catering trucks parked outside. On the day that we went, there was only one person working in the front, which included greeting, busing, serving, cashier, barista – etc.

Because of that, service was a bit slow although the server was very sweet. I’m sure they have more workers on the weekends, and we weren’t really in a rush so it was okay for us.

I really enjoyed the interior design of this place – the inside was very clean and spacious, with lots of white wooden furnishing and a splash of girly accents.

Also, check out that cute macaroon pyramid, made out of real macarons that they sell! (Display macarons only of course)
There is also a cute little nook where customers can eat, separated by a slightly raised step. I absolutely loved the tiles contrasting with the wooden floor panels. Thyme to Indulge also has an espresso bar and mini pastry section, so this cute little area would be perfect for grabbing a small bite or enjoying a nice drink.

I ordered the BC benedict, but two of us ended up splitting our dishes because we both wanted to try them! I can never go wrong with smoked salmon, and this was no different. I requested the egg to be poached slightly hard and just a tad runny (full runny eggs creep me out) and it arrived the way I wanted it to!

I’m not a hollandaise expert, but I found the sauce to be very creamy and it went well with the smoked salmon. I loved every bite of the benedict and would order it again in a heartbeat!

The breakfast potatoes were decent, although a bit on the dry side but nothing a bit of ketchup can’t fix 😉

The other dish my friend and I shared was the crispy bacon poached eggs. This sounded amazing on paper, but unfortunately we were both disappointed with the way it came out.

There was barely any bacon on the egg, and we found the batter to be very bland. This definitely should not be called crispy bacon poached eggs because we were expecting more than a few specks.

Since the crispy bacon poached eggs were the star of the show, the rest of the dish was pretty plain and simple. The tomato provencal was a nice touch though – it was slightly grilled, sweet, and juicy and dusted with breadcrumbs and herbs on top! I haven’t seen many brunch places serve this as a side before so it was a nice surprise.

For those who have never had it before, I would describe a tomato provencal as a grilled tomato with seasoned breadcrumbs on top and came from the southwest region of France.
The third dish we had that day was the steak and eggs! I had a bite of my friend’s steak. The steak was a chargrilled 6 oz, and was absolutely delicious and mouthwatering. It was very tender, savoury, and packed full of flavour.

All in all, we enjoyed our lunch and I would definitely come back. I loved the ambiance, friendly service, and most of the food here. I would love to try some of their pastries next time too – in particular, the macarons.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Ceramic Glaze Nail Colour – Wonderland

September 6, 2015

I apologize for being slightly MIA this past week. A quick life update, I have started a new full time events/marketing internship this past week, and have been pretty busy with that along with trying to balance other things in my life. But, I promise I will get back to my regular posting schedule once I get the hang of things! ?

I received this Ceramic Glaze nail colour in the shade ‘wonderland’ at the lovely ACI Beauty event last month. To give you a quick rundown on the company, Ceramic Glaze was created by the same makers as China Glaze. Ceramic Glaze has been around for almost three years now, and is sold exclusively at Shoppers Drug Mart. This was my first time trying out their product.

I haven’t gotten a chance to use it until recently, but I quickly fell in love with the shade. I’ll tell you why below, so keep reading 🙂

Initially, I had quite a challenging time trying to capture the perfect shot of this shade, wonderland. The slightest angle change in my hand or the slightest movement in my lighting would drastically alter the colour.

But then, I realized that was what I loved so much about this product in the beginning! I shouldn’t have tried so hard to make it look like a uniform colour.

I would say that this shade, wonderland, is a combination of a bright, shimmery gold with a plum purple base. In different angles, it may look like a shimmery emerald green as well. The colour is also really rich and deep as well.

In the second picture above, you can see more of the plum purple base compared to the top picture.

I was also quite surprised at how long this nail polish lasted without chipping for me! If I don’t wear top coat, my polish normally chips under 24 hours (I know.. I suck) but this one actually lasted a good 3 days before showing signs of chipping.

This was my first time trying Ceramic Glaze products, and I am already pretty impressed with their line. This colour is well rounded and rich, perfect for the fall and colder weather, and would go magnificently with a dark and bold lip.

How would you describe the shade of wonderland?

Thanks for reading!

Carmen

Sample provided for review. Opinions are my own.