I Have Moved...

Hi everyone and thank you for reading my blog over the past year and half! I have decided that it is time to officially close this blog, meaning I will no longer be posting here.

When I started Just Cuz I'm A Girl, the contents and the things I wrote about reflected that particular time of my life. Based on that, this blog developed a specific tone and style with minimal personality.

A little over half a year ago I started The F-word, a blog that better reflects where I am... hope to see you there!

F is for fashion, fashion PR, and my fabulous life.

Cheers,
Melissa

Gap and FASHION Magazine Shopping event

L'oreal Double Extend Beauty Tube Mascara

Usually mascara, unless it is Lancome's Fatale, doesn't really do anything for my lack of eyelashes. Because the Lancome mascara is relatively pricey i've almost taken the putting mascara on routine out of my getting ready process every morning.

Recently I was given the new L'oreal Double Extend Beauty Tube Mascara to sample. Having no expectations and not optimistic that it will work on me I gave it a shot.

To get optimal performance out of the L'oreal Double Extend Beauty Tube Mascara I had to do the following:

- put 4 layers of the nourishing base coat on

- then apply 2 layers of the ultra lengthening coat 

- and apply 1 layer of Lancome's Fatale for the fullness effect

They were not kidding when they said this mascara is removable with water. I tried removing it with eye make up remover and as it turned out, water removed the mascara better.

If you have used the L'oreal Double Extend Beauty Tube Mascara, share your thoughts:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=dAs2aU15mNArGOQbChtfRg_3d_3d

How SMASHBOX saved my face

I have a confession to make. I totally left work early yesterday and went to Sephora, spent $50 and brought myself the SMASHBOX Foundation Primer. I know, with the financial state i’m in right now, which is a TAD bit of debt (not due to shopping believe it or not) but the whole investing my time into my future career thing, spending $50 on a small bottle of foundation primer is absurd.

But seriously, it is the best thing ever!

My sister was the one who introduced it to me, her logic being, “that is your face, and you will have your face for the rest of your life, so why not pay for one more product that will help you take care of it?”, and so I did.

Because the skin on my face is more on the oily side, I find my makeup (foundation, bronzer and blush) always ends up seeping into my skin. The foundation primer (has vitamin A and E), acts as a coat between your make up and your skin. Not to mention it also makes your skin super soft. I definitely noticed an immediate difference. My skin is not as oily and there is much more make up to wash off at the end of the day.

For $50 (well spent i’d say), SMASHBOX has temporarly saved my face… until it runs out.

The Fall 2008 Clothing Show - Is a NO GO...

This past weekend was the Fall 2008 Clothing Show at the Better Living Centre down at the Exhibition Place. Usually I tend to find unique little odds and ends like jewelry, belts, and purses for fairly decent prices. But throughout the past couple years I find myself more and more disappointed each time I attend.

For starters, admission to the Clothing Show is $8 online and $10 at the door with the addition of $12.50 for parking. If you make the Clothing Show a shopping excursion with a few girlfriends parking factors out to be nothing, so $8 or $10 even is not a ridiculous price to charge for admission.

According to the press release sent out for this fall's clothing show, it claims to "continue to celebrate the evolving spirit of fashion with over 300 independent designers, retailers and vintage collectors to shop from." But in reality, do not be shocked if you find yourself immersed in a flea market style with a few noteworthy Canadian independent designers trying to showcase and sell their products.

Although there definitely are still boothes worth shopping at, those were few and far in between. I found there to be ALOT of boothes selling knock off Gucci's, LV's, and just plain fake luxury handbags etc. There were also many boothes where I found myself saying, this just looks like a garage sale. All in all, the Clothing Show only took my friend and I an hour to walk through and for the first time in our lives, we didn't really buy anything except for the admission and parking cost. Which border line felt like a rip off for the lack of quality and misleading advertisements by the Clothing Show.

As a frequent and enthusiastic attendee of the Clothing Show, I genuinely believe there needs to be some sort of quality control over who can obtain a boothe at the show. If the time has come where they cannot sell all of the space at the Better Living Centre, then perhaps they should move to a smaller venue. But just having boothes and boothes of people selling knock-off's is unacceptable. They should keep the Clothing Show dedicated to a place for independent designers and retailers to sell and showcase their products and maintain the quality of the show.

When it's all said and done, I think this marks my last visit to the Clothing Show until some changes have been made. On that note, I would like to point out that I am not writing this to put down the Clothing Show in any way because I am a strong supporter of Canadian fashion, retailers, and designers, but I also do believe that it takes a little bit of feedback and constructive criticism for there to be improvements.

Product review - Hello I-Pod meet the Zune!

A friend of mine who works for a really cool marketing company, Matchstick, recently hooked me up with the new 8 gig, black, Microsoft Zune. She wanted to get my opinion on this supposedly I-Pod competitor. Having previously owned an I-Pod mini here are my thoughts...

Likes:

- It is very light and fits right inside the palm of your hands

- The sound quality is arguably better then the I-Pod

- You can listen to the radio and it's pretty clear

- The Wi-Fi capability to transfer songs between fellow Zune users

- Music syncs much quicker then the I-Pod

- The scroll button is up and down versus in a circular motion, less tiring for the thumb especially if you are scrolling through hundreds of songs

Dislikes:

- IT DID NOT RUN ON MY MAC BOOK, the Zune is only compatible with Microsoft Windows platforms

- It is not user-friendly, it took me 30mins to figure out how to use it, definitely was not plug and play or drag and drop

- In order to upload music unto the Zune, you have to go through a ridiculous process to open all click through your folders one at a time if you didn't want to upload all of them

- There were minimal instructions that came with the box

- It claims that the Zune 8 gig is supposed to have a 24hr audio life, DEFINITELY NOT the case, my Zune only lasted 4 hours..... not impressed

- The scroll button is too sensitive and it is very easy to scroll past what you want

- Navigating within the Zune can be confusing

- It is not user-friendly

- You have to go to their website and are forced to register before you can download the software

- ... and I can go on for another 10 points about what I dislike

Since my two PC laptops have died, I decided to give Mac a chance. Converting over to Mac from a PC was probably the best thing I ever did for myself. Not only was it more user friendly, everything is just more straight forward. Not surprisingly, that also follows through with other Apple products, such as the I-Pod. Microsoft's Zune, like there Windows operating platform is a little more tedious than I would like.

If this is Microsoft's attempt to compete with Apple and their MP3 players, they have some work to do. For anyone debating between the two, I would definitely still recommend the I-Pods.

TRYST Lingerie Sale At Queen On NOW!

Tryst will surprise you with their wide range of bra sizes from 28 to 52, AA to L. Not only that, but lingerie and sleepwear up to 3X. All Tryst staff are expert fitters as well as very friendly.