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Curiously Carmen

Beauty: Estee Lauder Perfectionist Pro Rapid Firm + Lift Treatment

March 9, 2018

At the Estee Lauder Spring 2018 preview event, I was introduced to their new Perfectionist Pro Rapid Firm + Lift Treatment with Acetyl Hexapeptide-8 cream! What a mouthful.

It is definitely a luxury cream, priced at $108.00. Here’s what I thought of it!

What it says (Taken from Estee Lauder website):

This high-speed formula delivers visible improvement to multiple facial zones—along the jawline, cheeks, around eyes and even stubborn laugh lines—for an overall natural, more lifted and youthful look. Instantly: Your skin is radiant, hydrated, rejuvenated.

In 3 Days: Your skin feels smooth, plumped, baby-soft. Gentle AHAs refine skin’s texture.

With a powerful concentration of Acetyl Hexapeptide-8—a custom-designed rebuilding peptide—the formula penetrates quickly. Helps skin boost its natural collagen and elastin to strengthen its vital support network.

Application: The cream comes on a stick, which I usually put on my hand and then apply. It has a somewhat gel/cream texture and is lightweight. I like the pearly finish as well. There is not much scent to it.

Wear: I find that my skin feels instantly hydrated, as the cream absorbs very quickly. The instant hydration and light weight factors are enjoyable for me, because it seems that I am in a rush more often than not.

-Instant hydration
-Leaves skin feeling radiant, plump and soft

-Products with AHA may cause skin sensitivity, so it is best to apply with sunscreen and limit sun exposure
-Not a big fan of the application stick, would prefer a pump

Yay!

Availability: Sephora, online, department stores
Pricing: $100.00 CAD


Filed Under: Beauty, face

Food: Smoke and Bones – Terrible Experience!

March 6, 2018

It’s been a really long time since the boyfriend and I were this disappointed at a restaurant. After attending Ribfest in July and going to their BBQ stand, we were counting down the days until Smoke and Bones opened their first location in North Vancouver.

However, our experience here was a total 180 from Ribfest… so many things, if not all things went wrong.
After a 30 minute wait, we were finally seated. The restaurant had a warm and inviting feel to it, although it did feel a tiny bit cramped. This is where the ‘good’ ends, although there wasn’t much good to begin with.

When we ordered, we were told by the server that they were out of BBQ ribs and brisket… the two main menu items. Okay, fair enough… new restaurant, busy Saturday night. We were a bit disappointed as they should have told us at the beginning but whatever, we will survive. So we ordered other things which were not good.
Pulled pork burrito: This sounded good on the menu, but it was abysmal. First, it was really small and definitely not a burrito size… more of a snack wrap. Secondly, it was bland and flavourless.

Thirdly, it came with a bunch of grocery store chips. We really regretted ordering this because it was NOT worth the money… but not like we had much of a choice since most of their menu had BBQ ribs and brisket.
Chicken & sausage platter: So since they didn’t have BBQ ribs and brisket, we opted for our second choice. The sausage was the only decent thing because it’s quite hard to mess up sausage. The chicken was VERY dry.

Only the skin had flavour, while the meat was just bland and dry. It definitely needed more marinade.
Bread: Can we just take a moment to look at this sad piece of white bread? The platter came, and we were told that they were out of corn bread as well… ok. So, she said that she could bring us a ‘Southern style white bread’. Well, not like we had any other options if they were out of corn bread.

IT WAS LITERALLY A PIECE OF WHITE BREAD. Nothing special about it, no ‘Southern’ style. Straight up plain bread that I can buy from Safeway. Not toasted, no jam, butter… nothing. Just plain bread. I can’t even call it toast because it wasn’t toasted.

THEN, I noticed that they had given us the wrong side. We ordered fries, which I confirmed with the boyfriend incase I said the wrong thing. So we decided to try the mashed potatoes, and if they were good, we would just stick with it and not ask for our server.

Nope, the mashed potatoes were equally as bad as everything else. Super bland, no flavour. So we told her about the mistake, and the server was quite rude about it. She treated us as if we were stupid, and gave us attitude saying “well you ordered mashed potatoes”. No, we did not.

After everything, we were just ready to leave this place ASAP. I’m not a picky food blogger and usually have good experiences. I don’t like to complain and cause trouble, but looking back, we probably should have said something. But we were just so done with this place that we wanted to leave.

Will we be back? Nope, and I don’t recommend coming here. Mistake after mistake after mistake.

Nay x100000000.


Filed Under: food & drink, steakhouse

Food: Trattoria Burnaby

March 3, 2018

It’s been awhile since I celebrated my birthday with a group of friends, so I decided to do that this time. I forgot how fun it was and should probably do it more often!

Anyways, I was wanting to go to a nicer place but didn’t feel like heading downtown. Trattoria was a good option since it is owned by Glowbal Group and is large enough for groups. The only thing I didn’t like was that they charged a cake cutting fee of $3/person ($3 x 15 = $45 extra) so we did my birthday cake somewhere else afterwards.

We were given a semi-private room for the fifteen of us, which was pretty nice. It was separated by a glass wall and a floor to ceiling wine shelf. Throughout the night, we had our own designated server as well.

Smoked Salmon Radiatori, $18.95: Originally, I had my mind set on their pizza… but after reading this on the menu, I changed my mind. It was absolutely delicious. If you love smoked salmon and dill, this is the dish for you. It was very creamy and came with a good amount of smoked salmon.

The only negative thing was that four of us ordered the same dish, and the portion sizes were not consistent. For example, two dishes were noticeably smaller than one of them. Pictured above is the smaller portion, while the other dish was at least 25% bigger!

Cheesy bread, $5.95: This was ordered as a side dish, and omg it was amazing. It was a garlic bread with lots of melted cheese on top. You seriously can’t go wrong with melted cheese.
Fried vegetables, $10.95: My friend ordered this and immediately regretted it after a few bites. It was definitely not worth $10.95 for a few pieces of vegetables. As well, they did not have any seasoning so it was quite plain.
Risotto of the day, market price: The risotto of that night was lobster. It looked really good and my friend said it was delicious!
Pasta platter, $23.95/person: Two of my friends split this, which was a really good idea. If you’re indecisive, you get to try four different types of their pastas! It comes with the truffled spaghetti & signature meatballs, gnocchi, garganelli pollo, and the linguine gamberi.

Cake: As a bonus, Trattoria gave me a complementary slice of tiramisu cake! 🙂 Thank you!

Overall I had a great time at Trattoria, and the food was good. There were a few hiccups with forgotten drinks but service was consistent and friendly. They have pasta specials on Tuesday so I would love to come back and order the smoked salmon pasta for a cheaper price!

Yay!

Trattoria Italian Kitchen Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: food & drink, italian

Beauty: Throwback Products I Loved in High School

February 28, 2018

While coming up with beauty content ideas, I thought it would be fun to do a throwback product post. These were my absolute favourite products in high school from Grade 8-10, I would say. Doing research and finding pictures of them online has brought back some major memories!

Do you remember any of these products?

Credit: Price Line Pharmacy

Maybelline Dream Liquid Mousse Foundation: My favourite foundation in high school! I remember how amazed I was at foundation. At any given time, I had a couple bottles of these lying around and in different shades too (not sure why….)

Credit: Amazon

Maybelline Dream Liquid Matte Mousse: This foundation is from the same line as above. But, I loved it for a different reason… the texture! It was so bouncy and spongey and fun to play with. I remember wearing this on top of the Dream Liquid Mousse Foundation!

Covergirl Wetslicks – Credit: Amazon

Covergirl Amazemint: I remember going to the mall with Sangria back in the day… and they were giving out free samples of these! They were infused with Colgate toothpaste/mint or something like that… It was advertised as ‘freshening your breath’ while giving you nice glossy lips!!! Fourteen year old me was sold and I had a couple of these too after I finished the sample… how cringy HAHA. I had a pink frosty one too LOL!!!

Credit: Style Caster

La Senza Beauty Rush Lip Gloss: My mom and I were obsessed with the lipglosses from La Senza too. It was an alternate between the Covergirl Amazemint and these. They often went on sale so we stocked up, and they made good gifts too. I really liked these because they had a fruity smell… I was so tempted to lick my lips!!!

Credit: Amazon

La Senza Beauty Rush Eyeshadow: Not kidding when I said we really liked La Senza beauty products… I’m not even sure if they sell them anymore these days?? Anyways, the eyeshadow came in a tube and I remember I had a glittery black one which was my favourite.

Credit: Amazon

MAC Fluidline: The last product was a ‘splurge’, I am using quotation marks because they currently sell this for $17.50 which isn’t that expensive. But as a teen, this was the most expensive product I purchased!


 

Going down memory lane is always fun! Hours can go by when I look at nostalgic products. The other day, I was looking at old 90s toys that I used to love as well!

Any of these products bring up old memories for you too?!


Filed Under: Beauty, makeup

Food: Sabra Hummus Review

February 25, 2018

Mmm, hummus. What is there not to love about hummus? It is a healthy, delicious, versatile snack. I was introduced to Sabra’s hummus line via my blog, here’s what I thought about it!

Sabra has many different flavours of hummus. The different kinds are the following: classic, caramelized onion, jalapeno, black olive, roasted garlic, roasted pine nuts, red pepper, spinach artichoke, sun dried tomato with Italian herbs, supremely spicy, and taco inspired! Which one sounds the best to you?

The boyfriend and I got our Sabra hummus from the Real Canadian Superstore. Superstore did not carry all of the flavours mentioned above, but we were satisfied with our two picks!

Classic hummus: You can’t go wrong with classic hummus. The hummus was creamy and flavourful. There was also a hint of garlic in this one which added a nice touch.
Roasted red pepper: This was the boyfriend’s choice! It was the same flavour as the classic hummus above. The difference was that there was some red pepper in the middle, which we ended up spreading around to mix the flavour.

There was a strong red pepper taste. I was not expecting it to taste that strong because it didn’t seem like that much red pepper, but it was yummy!

Photo Credit: Sabra Hummus Press Release

Sabra Hummus is vegan, kosher, gluten free and contains no gmo-s. I would recommend eating hummus with crackers, vegetables, or adding it in a sandwich or bagel. Hummus is high in protein, fiber and iron.

You can find Sabra Hummus at Wal-Mart, Superstore, No Frills, Extra Foods, and more. Use this store locator to find the closest location to you! They also sell hummus-on-the-go cups, guacamole, salsa, and spreads.

 

Yay!

Press product featured. Opinions are own.


Filed Under: food & drink, grocery

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Hello!

Hi and welcome to Curiously Carmen! I am Carmen, the girl behind the blog. You can read more about me here!

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