Thursday, June 7, 2012

topbox.ca

today was a good mail day. After being on the waiting list since Feb, I finally received my first topbox and I have to admit it made me much happier than with loose button. For $10 plus tax per month you get 4 deluxe samples and sometimes more of beauty products to try.

This month my top box contained:
-1 full size deborah lippmann nailpolish in "whatever lola wants"-a lovely pale pink w/ shimmer
-sample size stila mascara "forever your curl"
-sample size clear prep fx matte foundation primer and anti acne
-full size mark lipgloss in pop splendid-berry pink and wearable for my skin tone
-3 samples of garnier bb cream in light
-sample size of simple eye make-up remover

their sample sizes are what i'll call travel size. Although there is no personalization of the boxes (loose button has a sticker with your name on it), I have the impression that topbox does match your samples according to the profile survey you fill which makes me very happy. I'll watch my future boxes to further confirm that.

After getting 5 boxes from loosebutton, I am SO glad that I cancelled my subscription with them. Each time I was getting random products and 90% of the times I never used them since they were not for my skin type-hair type etc.. I got so many regenerist lotion samples from olay, shampoo for dyed hair, lotion for dry skin and I filled their profile survey 3 times but keep getting random samples. In addition so many of  them were drugstores brands like olay, pantene, nyx, etc..

I was rather pissed because their boxes were so inconsistent as some people would get dermalogica several times, benefit, china glaze while I kept getting lame ones. The only nailpolish I received from them as well was a stinky pastel purple from essie which I would never use. I know some people love loosebutton but the quality of the samples did not do it for me and it was more expensive than topbox. My first topbox has 3 items I know I will use which is something I never had with loosebutton. I guess to each their own.

I also had my studiocalico kit and it made me smile. The items are so well thought and lovely. journalling heavens. I am still working on my mini book from montreal and will use the incoming week-end to complete it. I took most photos from my fuji instax and it's more fun than my dslr. I realize that as much as I love high quality picture, carrying a dslr around is a pain in the ass..I might buy a new point and shoot camera as far as I am concerned although I love my Canon A570 IS powershot. It seems to me that most models coming out nowadays are divided into 3 groups: point and shoot-small and light, semi pro dslr-big and pro dslr-bigger. I can no longer find something small and in between like my powershot which has great manual options. bah we'll see.

I'm so tired as work is exhausting. It's been raining calls lately..jeez


Wednesday, June 6, 2012

perfect day

more thunderstorm and rain. I love the smell of the air: electric. I'm in a bohemian mood lately. I want to run away to some small village in the countryside and lie down on the grass in the field looking at the passing by clouds. Savoring the warmth of the sun against my skin. Just jump in a bus to destination unknown to the country side with roads that look endless, a bit like my trip to Maggog. 

The clouds were magnificient and it was a show of light and sound with lightning zigzaging through the sky. I could not help myself from counting the time lapse between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder. If my memory is right, the shorter the time, the closer lightning strikes to where you are. Jeez I really want to travel.

This trip to Montreal was too short..The most enjoyable was Mont Royal cemetery. I had no time to go to Mont Royal itself. I <3 the peace and quietness of cemeteries and in general cemetaries in Canada are like parks: green with silent old trees , birds and random chipmunks. I spotted a raccoon and I was SO excited. I started trailing it and it was like playing 1,2,3 soleil aka statues in english (I used to play that as a kid)

Each time the racoon would stop, I stopped too and it would turn back and look at me with its tiny masked eyes. Aaaaww. It made me think of Miyazki anime "Pom Ponko" . It look so cuddly. I wanted to lie down and sleep in the cemetery because the quietness was so nice and the shade of trees so inviting. Unfortunately I could not spot any interesting tombstones since i did not have the map with me. It'll be for next time. self reminder: to go to mt pleasant cemetery as well.

I don't find cemeteries macabre and some are gorgeous, like Pere La Chaise in Paris. I enjoy reading some tombs "listings" and you could spin endless stories about the people buried there. One tomb stone had a pilot and his family. what suprised me is that the wife stayed a widow for 49 or 39 years-can't recall exactly..At least this is what I deduced from the reading as it said pilot x and his beloved wife .I need to upload that picture later one. Wow..this is what I call devotion unless she did remarry but wanted to be buried with her first husband and the guy was really young when he passed away. devotion, love, loss, grief are things you can read from the tomb stones. sometimes i wonder if some of the dead don't feel lonely especially those who've been there for 100 years and who no longer have any living relatives to visit them..

I just finished "Les yeux jaunes des crocodiles" by Katherine Pancol. She reminds me of Anna Galvada in some ways. Her characters are attaching and her writings is very humane although i did skip some parts which were not needed in the book IMHO. There were some parts I did not like and found overdone-stereotyped-"are you kidding me"-could/should be removed- but I enjoyed the evolution of the characters. Josephine, it's a bit of me: insecure, naive and "gauche" but smart and yet so unsure of her capabilities. The parts where she spoke to the stars made me smile because I used to do it a lot as well although unlike her I don't pray to God via the stars.

I knew and still know their names, when to find them and where. Back home I would lie down on my balcony ramp (with a high risk of falling into my neighbour's garden) and watch the milky way and the constellations. I would wake up at 5 am to watch venus at dawn. I still love the stars . I believe that where ever you are, as long as you can see the same constellations as your love ones, it means that they are never far away. For me now, this constellation is Orion which can be seen in both the Southern and Northern hemispheres.

Each time we went to Flic en Flac for dinner, I would lie back in the car and stargaze through the back window. We had to go through an area surrounded by both sides with sugarcane and this was the best place to stargaze as it is darker.  It was like saying hello to old friends and it's weird to realize that the stars we see now are actually from the past and might no longer exist.

I miss watching the milky way because there is too much light in the Canadian sky but I can still see the Orion belt and the planets. I also thank whoever invented googlesky because it is my favourite app. Back home I used sky maps and would use well known constellation as my landmarks like sagittarius, scorpio, taurus, orion, the pleaides-7 sisters etc. Which reminds me I miss the trajectory of venus infront of the sun which happened a few days ago. Apparently it sort gave the sun a beauty mark. zut alors.

Jeez I'm craving for some serious stargazing and let myself fall into the hands of eternity while looking at a sky of twinkling diamonds.