Hauling like the Sky is Fallin'!

I do not have a shopping addiction I swear! After Boxing Day though comes something called Sidewalk Sales where stores once again, drop their prices lower and I couldn't resist picking up a few bits and bobs here and there! 

David's Tea, Lasenza, and The Body Shop 

First up! David's Tea!

I stopped by David's Tea again to try some more of their delicious concoctions and picked up Bravissimo. A herbal tea that has licorice, peppermint and chamomile that's soothing for the throat and caffeine free so you can have this tea before bed! The tea was so light I had to get a full tin and a little in a bag to get the 100 grams I asked for!

Bravissimo Tea

I thought this tea would be perfect since my current tea from David's Tea (Honey Bee) has quite a strong dose of caffeine but blech! I really didn't like the taste of Bravissimo! It's a little nicer if extremely hot and mixed with sugar and milk but the licorice in it turned me off of it. I went back to David's Tea the day after I bought it to get an exchange and picked up Birthday Cake instead. They let me keep the Bravissimo though since they can't sell used tea. Perhaps I'll grow accustomed to the licorice flavor but I was happy to get Birthday Cake. It tastes amazing! Just like cake with it's sprinkles and freeze-dried ice cream bits; definitely an enjoyable treat! It's also caffeine free so I won't suffer from insomnia if I drink it before I sleep.

Birthday Cake Tea

Since I'm at home all the time now I think I'll be enjoying my new teas immensely! The tins from David's Tea are also really beautiful and I'm happy to add two more of them to my collection! I dislike getting tea in those little silver bags they have, they're not as visually appealing.

Adding these two rooibos and herbal teas to my tea repertoire!

Next up, The Body Shop!

Recently I've fallen in love with scent and benefits of coconut! I have the Body Shop's Coconut Body Butter and love it to bits so I also picked up the their Coconut Shower Cream! It smells exactly like the body butter  and was completely inexpensive at 10 CAD for a 750 ml Bottle! I tried it and love it! It makes my skin smell just like a dessert, not to mention coconut is very good for keeping your skin soft and hydrated! I'm even considering getting a tub of coconut oil just to remove my makeup with! I'll get to moisturize my eye area and remove the gunk off my eyelids too!

The Body Shop's Coconut Shower Cream

As for Lasenza...I'm not showing you what I got since underwear is kind of personal...XD

...and last but not least! A little book on dog care! Why would I pick up this book? BECAUSE OUR FAMILY MIGHT BE GETTING ONE!!! I really want to get a male pug and name him Fabio but pugs tend to shed like the dickens so we might need to reconsider the breed. We need to prepare ourselves and the home for a new member and this little guide should be quite helpful!

 

I may be doing full reviews on some of the products mentioned today! Be on the lookout for those!

Thanks for reading and ciao for now!

David's Tea, Good or Gimmick?

Hello everyone! So recently I discovered this really cool store called David's Tea that sells loose leaf tea. The store is beautiful! It's designed really well and is extremely eye catching! The turquoise and all the shiny tins drew me in...what is this magical place?

I stepped in with my friend Aileen (we were shopping at the mall and about to leave) and immediately a sales lady tells us she's making us some tea to try. She hands me a tea called Santa's Secret and Aileen gets Mulberry Magic. I sip it and think it tastes alright, I really love the minty feeling in my mouth and throat... it was like nothing I've ever tried before! Intrigued, I didn't know where to start in this store...and another sales lady (with the most awesome red hair ever) welcomes us and shows us the 5 teas she has on the counter that were from the Winter Collection. Aileen and I smell them and we were so amazed! Some of these teas smell like cake and candy! Others nutty, spicy and fresh! 

Curiosity piqued, I ask about the teas on the shelves arranged in neat rows with colored labels. Each color represents a type of tea such as rooibos and mate and they all have the coolest names! I mean, Countess of Seville, Fantasy Island, Brazillionaire! The names entice me even more! Somewhere in our olfactory explorations, Aileen and I mention we love sweet, candy like smells and our sales lady brings down Birthday Cake and Chocolate Rocket for us. OH MY LORD...there are sprinkles in Birthday Cake and Chocolate rocket smells like chocolate and bananas! This isn't tea! It's desert!

So...we were writhing in glee and wonder (and some confusion still)...upon seeing that we were such noobs, the sales lady asks us if this was our first time at David's Tea to which we said "....uhhh.....derr....yeah"

She gave us a free full sized cup of tea each (not the sample sizes we had earlier) just because we were new to the store and I thought: "Wow! What a nice lady!" It was more Santa's Secret's minty goodness which I thoroughly enjoyed.

After smelling about 30 different teas and loving nearly all of them! I ask for a recommendation that has a high caffeine content and is quite sweet. She says Chocolate Rocket is a pretty good choice but brings down two other teas from the shelves (which are looking pretty bare looking now since they're all on the counter being smelled). The one called Honey Bee smelled so sweet and amazing! After sniffing it I loudly proclaimed: " IT SMELLS LIKE LONDON!!" 

...not that I've ever been to London...but I wanna go...*off topic*

I buy 100 grams of Honey Bee since I'm obsessed with British accents and all their mannerisms (and because the tea smelled so delicious!) and I also get a small, 8 gram sample of Chocolate Rocket. 100 grams of tea gets you a free David's Tea tin, it's purdddyyy~ <3

Honey Bee Tea

Chocolate Rocket Tea

The perfect tin for keeping your tea dry and fresh!

I wish I knew our sales lady's name because she was such a sweetheart! If I know customer service, that was one of the best experiences shopping for anything that I've ever had! I left the store thinking I'd definitely come back!

...but now...I'm looking at things a little differently...

The one thing that bothers me the most about David's Tea is that it's SO overpriced! Sure you can steep the leaves a couple times to get 3 or 4 cups worth of tea but I can buy a box of 300 Orange Pekoe teabags at Costco for 10 bucks. That's a huge price difference from my 14 dollars for 108 grams of tea and 10 bucks for 300 tea bags. Is there a quality difference? Tetley or David's Tea...hmm...

My parents buy special Chinese loose leaf tea from a little family owned tea store that costs 20 bucks for 250 grams. That tea is amazing quality and each tea granule unfurls in hot water to become a whole leaf again. Honey bee is pretty minced in comparison. Is the tea I bought good quality? Are there better choices out there? 

David's Tea has an amazing variety with tons of creative concoctions. Their customer service is amazing and the store is both a visual and aromatic delight... but is it all worth it for the price?

Right now I'm still leaning towards going back to try more teas but I don't want to spend a fortune on a couple grams of cured leaves.

What are your opinions of David's Tea? I would love to know!

Thanks for reading and ciao for now~! <3

A New Year, a New Journey

Maybe it's a little late to be writing a New Year's Post but better late than never! Here's a little life update and some goals I have for 2013!

So school...I'm taking online courses now for anatomy and physiology since I'm pretty sure now that I want to help people. I want to care for people and seeing others happy makes me happy. Nursing seems like a pretty good plan to make that happen so that's what I'm aiming for now. Having only two online courses also gives me a little more leeway in time to do some soul searching. I'm a little burnt out from taking full course loads for 4 semesters in a row so a break is in order! Even though I just started to settle on a conclusion for my career future, going to uni and not knowing what I wanted to do with a degree wasn't a waste. I made so many cool friends there and everything I learned did enrich my life in some way. At least now I have something to work towards with post secondary education! There are only two  intakes a year for the nursing program I want to get into, hopefully I am accepted come application time!

Regarding work; I don't work at LUSH anymore, there were openings for the new year but they chose someone else over me. I'm not upset, I did love working there but just because they don't want me for 2013 doesn't mean I don't have chances to work elsewhere. I learned good communication skills, I was happy helping customers...perhaps someday I'll work there again and enjoy it as much as I did this year! 

I'm also volunteering more regularly now at my local care center for the elderly. I honestly LOVE volunteering there. Elderly people are treasure troves of wisdom and I love caring for them. I play piano for them, assist in recreational activities, talk with them, and help out with other odds and ends. The hours are good towards the nursing program but more than anything, I just feel satisfied that I am able to brighten up someone's day when they can no longer do the things they used to. Having a grandma that I am super close to, I know that when people get older they lose control of many things in their life and the people that love them need to step in and take care of them. I'm sad when I see an elderly person at the home that never gets visited so I try to talk to them to alleviate their loneliness. Nobody deserves to be lonely, it's a horrible feeling to have no one with you.

Prospects for the future are still uncertain. I have some goals I want to accomplish for the new year though. 

1) Finish what I start

I'm notorious for doing something halfway and never touching it again. I'll read half a book, I'll only vacuum half the house, I'll only color half a piece of art...no longer! I will see every project I being through to the end!

2) Be a better planner/ learn to prioritize

Sometimes I think I have the memory of a goldfish. By planning better, setting up daily schedules and being able to decide what is more important and needs to be done a certain day will help me never forget what's important. Life would be a lot easier if I wasn't always frantically thinking what I forgot to do that day!

3) Get into shape

A common new years resolution but one that I wish to pursue nonetheless. I've been heading to the gym daily this new year and I can already see my jaw line starting to be a little more pronounced! If I can keep up my workout habits perhaps I'll finally be able to wear a bikini and not look like a jelly roll in rags! Let's lose some weight and get healthy!

New Years is a great excuse to set new goals. It's a fresh start, you now have a clean slate to make your mark on. Let's hope these goals get accomplished and that 2013 is the best year yet!

Thanks for reading and ciao for now~!
Let's make this year AWESOME!

LUSH Review: Mask of Magnaminty

Hello everyone! Today's topic of interest...LUSH's fabulous face mask: Mask of Magnaminty! One of my all time favorite masks. I have many good things to say about this little green gem so let's get started!

When you look at this mask, it looks like the typical Hollywood mask all the movie stars wear in films. No wonder the stars have such beautiful skin! Mask of Magnaminty has really helped me with my oily, problem skin and is aiding in the reduction of breakouts. Ingredients wise, it includes bentonite as well as kaolin clay, peppermint oil, and honey. Bentonite and kaolin are excellent impurity removing agents while the peppermint is great for brightening up tired, dull looking skin (not to mention it feels very cooling when applied!) Honey is naturally antibacterial (that's why it never goes bad!) so it's good for killing germs that can cause breakouts on your face. Once all the impurities has been absorbed from your face, the mask doubles as a cleanser! Just add water and rinse away in circular motions with your hands! The evening primrose seeds in it help exfoliate and slough off dead skin while you wash off the mask leaving your skin bright and beautiful!

It's not only a face mask, you can use it for your body too! You'll get the same cooling affect if you use it on other parts of your body and I recommend using it on places where you break out like your back. No more back pimples for me! It shrinks your pores, makes you feel refreshed, and is a perfect pick me up for everyone! Use it two to three times a week and I swear people will be complimenting on how gorgeous your skin looks in no time!

Thanks for reading and ciao for now!