Jilo Spa - Bradford

Do you ever have one of those days when you feel like your face is just not clean enough? I experienced this last week, I just felt like no matter how many times I washed my face, it felt dirty and oily. I knew I was due for a facial so I scoured the internet to find a place in Bradford who offers such services but was disappointed when I realized most spas in Bradford close at 6!! (Not good business hours when majority of people work 9-5)!

Anyways, I came across the website of Jilo Spa, which is located in Bradford out of a lady’s home. I was skeptical at first since I wasn’t sure how good an in home spa experience would be, but out of desperation I emailed them and booked a facial for the following evening.
When I arrived at the house, I was a bit early so I waited in the salon. She had the salon done up in her basement and it felt very tranquil and relaxing.

Ambreem (the esthetician/owner) introduced herself and consulted me about any concerns I had about my skin. I told her my skin was very oily and very sensitive. She was very understanding and calming and made me feel at ease.

She was very nice and very gentle on my skin. I was very relaxed throughout the whole treatment. It felt good to have my pores open and cleaned out. She did everything that a typical regular salon would do, and I was very pleased with the work.

The best part of the facial was the mask. She put on a type of clay mask and left me to relax for about 15 minutes as the mask hardened. When she came back to wipe it off I was almost asleep!

By the time the whole facial was done, it was about 9:30pm and we started my treatment at 8pm. I was thoroughly impressed with the results of this spa. The price was very reasonable at $55 for this refreshing facial.

In addition to facials, Jilo Spa also does waxing and threading. I have been looking for someone who does threading. I prefer threading to waxing as it doesn’t cause premature wrinkles, especially around the eyes. The prices are very reasonable so I will definitely be booking for services here.
If you live in the Bradford area, I highly recommend this salon. Check it out at http://jilo.ca/Jilo/Welcome.html

Engagement Photos

As promised, here are some of the pictures from the engagement session.
Hair and Makeup: Chazz at Serendipity Salon in Bradford, Ontario
Photography: Melyssa G Photography www.melyssagphotography.net

Also, I created a wedding website, courtesy of www.mywedding.com. Check it out to follow us as we make the journey down the aisle!
Click here to view!

xo
Tasha

Serendipity Salon - Review

This past weekend Eric and I got our engagement photos done in downtown Barrie. I had set up the shoot over a month ago, so I was really excited to have them done. We went for a winter photo theme, as we want to use the shots for our Save The Dates. We used Melyssa G Photography and couldn’t be happier with her. Her photos are amazing and she is a very sweet and fun girl. She had great ideas and made us both feel really comfortable. For the shoot I bought a giant pink balloon from Michael’s and some fun signs that I found on Etsy. Just to be different!

Since we all know the camera picks up absolutely every detail, for the shoot I decided I needed to have my hair and makeup professionally done. It took me a while to decide where I wanted to have my services done. There are only a few hair salons in Bradford, and I have only been to one before but it was ridiculously overpriced.

So last week while I was getting my laser hair removal treatment done at the Serendipity  Beauty salon in downtown Bradford, I asked my esthetician, Shannon, if they offered makeup and hair services. I wasn’t sure because I had only ever been to Serendipity for laser hair removal treatments. (Which are amazing and the prices are very fair). Shannon said they just hired a new girl, Chazz, who could probably do my hair and makeup for me on the day of the shoot. I like this salon, so I agreed to book with Chazz.

When I arrived for my appointment on Saturday morning, I was greeted by Chazz, who consulted with me on what I wanted to have done for both hair and makeup. She was very friendly, outgoing and made me feel really relaxed. We decided to go for a natural look for the makeup and add some volume and shape for my hair. The whole appointment took a few hours, but it felt like I was only there for 10 minutes. Chazz was so much fun, dancing around to 80’s pop tunes on her Ipod, and telling me fun stories from her career as a hair and makeup artist. It felt like I was just kicking back at a girlfriend’s house, sharing some laughs and doing hair and makeup.

Chazz used a nice copper shadow on my eyes. I rarely use copper because I always just go for a dark brown shadow, but the copper really made my eyes pop. She also used some light powder around my eyes  to give me a bit of a glow.
My hair was really fun and full of volume. I felt like a Barbie doll when I was all done.

I was really impressed with the service at Serendipity. It was a fun experience, and I just loved being made up by Chazz. All the photos from the session are not fully ready yet, but I will post some so you can see the work when I am done.

Both Chazz and Shannon are sweet girls and I am glad I found a good place to go to in Bradford. If you are ever in my neck of the woods, check them out!! J

Product Review: Angels on Bare Skin

It's been a rough winter (compared to the last few we've had) and my skin is just not happy with this cold air. Flaky dry skin is not an attractive look so I went to pay a visit to Lush Cosmetics for a new face scrub. As I have mentioned in posts past, I do love Lush products. Not only are they made with all natural ingredients, but they really do work and the price is worth it.

I approached the sales lady and asked what she would reccommend for my combination/sensitive skin. She showed me her table of products (I love how everything smells so lovely in this store and how all the products are laid out for you to try out/test). She showed me two options:

Angels on Bare Skin and Dark Angels. Both are exfoliants, but the Dark Angels was a bit more heavy. Since my skin is sensitive I opted to go for the regular Angels on Bare Skin.

Some of the main ingredients in Angles on Bare Skin are almonds, chamolmile blue oil, lavender oil and rose absolute. It is sold in bar form where you take a pea sized amount and mix with water before applying to your face. The lady cut me off a piece of the bar and sold it to me by weight ($5 worth) which should last me at least a month or so. I wanted to test it out before buying a bigger chunk. (Another cool thing about Lush! Getting lots of samples and testers).

I used this litte miracle concoction as soon as I got home and fell in love. My skin has never felt so soft and the exfloiant really makes my skin feel nice and clean. And another bonus--it smells amazing, like a soft chamomile tea and a hint of lavender.

Already I can tell my skin is looking a lot brighter and balanced from using this amazing scrub. I highly reccommend as it is made for all skin types.

Fusion Follow Up!

It’s been 3 weeks or so since my fusion hair extensions were put in and I thought I needed to give a follow up review about them.

Let’s just say, you get what you pay for. Lesson learned.

While the extensions were fine when they were installed, that was the only day they were good. The next morning they were not straight but more so wavy. I figured that was just because of the way I slept on them, so I left it waved for the day.

As the week went on, I noticed the hair getting knotted and tangled constantly. After my showers, the hair would automatically start to curl (not what I thought Remy hair was supposed to do). I would put it in a ponytail and hope to wake up with nice soft hair, but only to find more tangles and impossible knots. It was unbearable. Even at work, when I would be sitting down, the hair would just knot itself up. At first I thought I was doing something wrong and not maintaining it properly, I even got it trimmed and thinned out at the salon, bought leave in conditioner, and brushed it every day but still no luck.

This is when I realized  this hair could not possibly be real human hair. I wore my “hair” in ponytails almost every day because I could not deal with the knots anymore. I felt like a dirt squirrel with my long shaggy knotted hair. It was a nightmare.

This was the week I was supposed to have my engagement pictures, but I had to postpone them because I could not handle the hair (amongst a few other reasons).

So last night I went to a hair salon in Newmarket called Studio Five where I met the nicest group of stylists who took me in right away to have these extensions removed. My stylist was Joey and he was a laugh and a half. He made the process and quick and easy as possible and gave me some great advice on my hair and colour. Conveniently he is a blonde expert, so he is going to help get my hair back to a nice blonde for the spring time.

So the moral of the story is: make sure you research where your hair is coming from when getting extensions. Due to my bad experience, I probably would not get extensions again. Clip-ins  work just fine for me.

Desperate Wax Remover

Sorry I haven't posted in a few weeks. I have been busy running around with wedding plans. I haven't even been engaged for a month and I already have my venue booked, my dress bough, a DJ selected and photographer booked :) Not too bad if I say so myself. With my superb organization skills and obsession with timing and schedule, I think I would make a good wedding planner.
But this post isn't about weddings...it is about a new beauty trick I learned today!

For those of you who wax at home, I am sure you are aware of how annoying it can be when excess wax is left on parts of your skin. Not only does it feel gross, the residue makes it look like there is dirt on your skin! Yuck!

For waxing at home, I normally buy the Veet facial wax strips from the drugstore ($7), which comes with 12 waxing strips. I find it to be way more cost effective to wax my own upper lip at home as opposed to paying $10 each time at the salon. I will only do my eyebrows at the salon because they can shape them better than I can, and that is worth the $10 each time. But for upperlip, no way.

Anyways, the thing that always bothered me abou these Veet waxing strips is that the box comes with 12 ready to use strips but only 3 wipes. The wipes are the most important piece of the whole process because they remove all the excess wax from your face once you are done. Since they only give you 3 wipes, I am forced to reuse them. I find it very odd that they do this because the wipes are filled with aloe vera oil, so when you take them out of the packet to use, the oil dries up very quickly and the next time you want to use it, it is old and dried out and there is no oil to pick up the excess wax.
I once called in to the company to complain about this...it's kind of like the hotdog and hotdog bun conundrum....why sell a pack of 12 hotdogs, but then only sell 8 buns? Of course no one ever called me back, but maybe there is something I am missing or doing wrong. Is there a special way to keep the aloe oil locked into the wipe after every use? If you know, please let ME know too because this is beyond annoying.

So today I used the last wax strip in the box and of course my wipe was dried out and useless in getting the wax off my face. I scrubbed and scrubbed my face with all my might but no luck, all I was left with was a big red irritated face...with the dirty wax bunching together and looking like dirt. I googled how to get rid of the wax and found a forum that said baby oil would work. Unfortunately I did not have any baby oil in the house and I was getting impatient so I grabbed the next best thing: Hair Serum! Yep. Hair Serum! That's all that I had that was close enough to baby oil. I figured that since the serum is oil based, it would work in a similar fashion. To my relief, after pumping some serum onto a cotton ball and rubbing it over the wax, it all came off nice and smooth. It felt like I had just went to the salon. The hair serum I used was one I had bough at the Superstore, from Organix. The one I bought was "Pomegranate Green Tea". It's nice and light and I use it frequently for my rough and staticy hair. At least now I have another use for it....Excess Wax Remover.

Desperate times call for creative measures...and this was definately a desperate time. Having sticky wax on your skin is never fun so if you plan to wax at home make sure you have some remover on hand.

So that is my big tip of the day. Do you wax at home? What are some things you do to take the wax off?

Fusion Hair Extensions!

As promised, here is the review for my new fusion hair extesnsions that I just got put in this weekend by Amy from HotHair.ca.

 

I always wanted to try fusion hair extensions, but just never had a good enough reason to do it. I have been pretty content with my clip-ins all these years, but sometimes they are just plain annoying! Especially when they fall out or stick out of your head and just the fact that they are not permanent! I decided to get my extensions put in now so I could have time to get used to them before my engagement photos, and to see how I liked them. Amy was very flexible as to when to book my appointment as she is a mobile stylist so she comes to your house at an agreed upon time and date (so convenient!) I have been pretty busy this week with wedding venue visits and work, so I was happy that Amy was able to come on a Sunday evening.

 

When she arrived, Felix and I greeted her at the door. We liked her right away when she told us she was a cat person and had a few of her own.

We decided to set up and do the install in my spare room (aka my Barbie room) so that there was lots of room to lay out all the hair and tools.

 

Amy was super friendly and very professional. We went over the colours of hair she brought. You will see that my hair is brown dyed red. Amy suggested using 2 tones of brown in my hair that had the same tone as the red dye. This way, when I dye my hair red again, the extensions will be able to pick up the colour very easily. She reccommended I buy the colour depositing conidioner from the line "Ice Cream" which is available at the drugstore. I plan to pick up a bottle this week.

 

I have never had fusion hair extensions before so this was an exciting appointment for me. Amy showed me the ends of the hair where the bonds are attached to the ends of my hair using a keratin based adhesive. She had a special heating tool that allowed her to bond the hairs together. This was a totally painless procedure that I would reccommend to anyone looking for luscious long locks! The hair is 100% Remy Human Hair. Remy hair is the highest quality of human hair you can buy since it has the least amount of chemincal processing done to it.

 

Once Amy made her way around my whole head with the bonds, it was time for shaping! Amy did a nice trim around the ends of my hair to give it some movement and shape. She even did the face framing layers so the hair looked nice and natural. I was thoroughly impressed with all the work that transpired in the Barbie room over the course of 2 hours. I really do feel like a Barbie now with all this hair! And what girl doesn't love long hair? This just makes me feel so glamorous and fun.

I was thinking of adding in some blonde peekaboo highlights. Amy offered to stop by anytime if I ever wanted to add a few in. I think I might add some more in as we move closer to the Spring. We were discussing how blondes do have more fun! But for now, the brown and red are working for me.

 

If you are looking into getting some amazing, quality and professional fusion extensions, I would reccommend Amy for the job! Let her know I sent you!