Sunscreen in Canada

Having worked in cosmetics retail over quite a while now, the most common question I always get is why SPF is never written on a bottle even though there is sunscreen in it? Or why doesn't Canada carry certain products that contain SPF? Well, read on to find out (:

People are starting to become more educated on skincare and ingredients that are in them, such as parabens, and especially sunscreen. There is now more awareness that having SPF in your moisturizer, primer, or just having a regular sunscreen is very important to somebody's daily skincare routine. Whether you are an outdoor person or not, even if your job requires sitting in your office, believe it or not, that SPF 15 will still help to protect you against all the cancer causing light.

So why is it that Canada has so little products that actually have SPF in it, or maybe they do, but it's just not labelled on the container? This has always resulted in confused customers as well as sales associates. The reason is because in order for the brand to have the label of SPF on the box, the company must first register with Health Canada. In some cases, they just decide to leave the label out, and some just to not carry the products with sunscreen at all. Next time, to save yourself some time, just flip the box around and look at the ingredients to see if they have Iron Oxide or Titanium Dioxide listed, they are usually the last few ingredients. These are the two chemical ingredients for sunscreen that is most commonly used in cosmetics.

If you look at the Health Canada's website, over 500 restricted ingredients, or only a low percentage of the ingredient is allowed in cosmetics before it has to be prescribed by doctors. While in the U.S, they only have a handful of restricted ingredients, which means they have access to much more SKU numbers in retailers.

You can see the list if you visit the Health Canada Website. There will be an updated list of ingredients that you won't find in cosmetics that is retailed in Canada.

Next time you walk into a retailer, and they don't have cosmetics that have ingredients or a certain percentage of an ingredient you were looking for, it's not because the store hates you or because they suck, it's simply because Canada's strict regulations has prohibited these ingredients from crossing the border.

Now asides from the general use of titanium dioxide being used for sun protection, many products such as nail polishes, and other pigments use SPF to increase the opacity of the colours. It increases the whiteness of the cosmetic, which is why when you put on sunscreen or a moisturizer with SPF, you can see a slight white tint. So next time when you see something as odd as your eyeshadow or nail polish have sunscreen, you now know the purpose.

I guess in a way, it is a good thing that Canada is looking after Canadians and keeping out as much chemicals as they possibly can. After all, even though us cosmetic junkies do love all those products, we can't help to admit that when you flip a box around to read the ingredients, you only see a long list of unidentifiable chemical words you have never heard of.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day everyone!

Let me know what you think (:

Makeup post: Fall trends

With the Fall season just hitting, it's time to dress warm, and change up our makeup colours!
If you haven't already, let's take out the warm colours, browns, blacks, and you know, the new black of this year, ORANGE!

Yeah that's right, orange is the new black of the year, so besides the brown eye shadows and red lips, don't be afraid to pull out that orange eyeshadow (which I have done below), and orangey red lipstick.

What do I have in this look? 1) A matte complexion 2) Warm eyeshadow colours (yellow, orange, brown) 3) Matte red lips 4) Full, strong brows 5) Contoured cheeks

1) Ok, it's fall time, so time to put away your JLo Glow, and put on your matte face! Well, technically makeup shouldn't have any rules, and you can go do your glow if that's your thang I guess. 

But, I'm just telling you this year's trends ... So I put away my Nars Sheer Glow foundation, and took out my Nars Sheer MATTE foundation instead

Sorry for my oily forehead, it seems to have unfortunately taken away from the matte affect, forgive me. 

2) So carrying on, I combined eyeshadows from Mac in Gesso (yellow), Makeup Forever no.18 (orange), and Urban Decay from Naked palette 2 (brown). And surprise surprise, yess, they are all MATTE finishes as well!! I used the yellow and orange all over my eyelid, these colours were pretty much chosen to resemble the fall leaves falling off our trees. (surprise surprise) I used the brown all over my top lid and crease to create that more wide eyed look. 

3) For my lips, I'm using Stila's liquid lipstick in #10, aka Beso. This is one of the best and long lasting lipsticks that actually stay without staining and is a pain in an ass to remove. Nope, once it becomes matte, it becomes kiss proof. Next time you drop by a Sephora or something, try putting it on, allow it 30 seconds to dry, and then kiss your hand. I guarantee nothing is going to transfer over. So I guess it's boyfriend friendly too. The only thing you have to make sure is to not get it wet, so I probably won't guarantee a happy ending if your kiss is too wet........ haha anyways moving on...

4) As usual, for my eyebrows, I'm using Anastasia's brow wiz twistable pencil in Ash Brown to fill in and shape my brows. To set, I used the tinted brow gel in Brunette just to keep all my eyebrows in place, and so the colour does not get wiped off so easily. Using that mascara wand in the brow gel will also help to groom and comb down the fine hairs.

5) Lastly, on the contour of my cheeks, I used my favourite go to bronzer that I use all year long. It is the Nars bronzer in Laguna. It generally is matte, but it has a few signs of sparkles if you play with it on the back of your hand. But once it's applied on to your face, you really don't see it anymore.

This is my current everyday look for the fall, of course once in a while i'll be lazy and just use neutral browns on my eyes, or darker berry colours instead of bright reds on my lips.

I hope you guys enjoyed this simple look. 

Stay tuned next week, I'll be doing a look inspired by Kpop star Ji Eun from Secret for her new solo music video. 

Let me know how you liked it, and what other looks you want to see!

Now enjoy these pictures of my cute puppy~

-Carol

New hair & updates (braid obsession, Cle De Peau)

Interviews, projects, work, I need a day of break!! Well, I finally do get one next Sunday, I'm totally looking forward to that next week... but as usual on my days off, I'll literally just sleep in, do nothing, pig out on my bed, and sleep early. Honestly, that's what a comfortable day off sounds to me right now..because I have too little energy to do anything else anyways.

Last week, I kind of got a day off I guess, I had the whole morning off, until later in the afternoon when I got called in to work because of a big launch (that didn't even turn out to be as much of a hype as the company thought it would be). So I took advantage of the day off and went to get my roots touched up finally, my hair re-toned, and went for a nice walk in Yaletown.
As usual, I went back to Muse Hair Salon located on Cambie Street between 14th and 15th, returning to my trusty hair stylist Sally. Blondes are usually super hard to maintain, and dye evenly, but she does a great job every time! This time, we did a bit of a more darker ash brown as well, but it usually does fade into a lighter ash blonde by 2-3 weeks of wash. After a relaxing day at the salon, she finished off my pampered salon trip with beautiful beachy waves, and waterfall braids. Oh I'm still killing myself learning how to do those cute braids! And yes, they are also a current obsession for me... french braids, fishtail braids, and now these waterfall braids.

How can we not end a hot summer day without beers at the patio? That's obviously what I did before we headed down to the gorgeous summer seawalk at Yaletown Roundhouse. Summer feels to short...we literally have less than a month left.. I wouldn't say I wasted it, but I spent way too much indoors doing homework, going to school, and working. Next year, I can see myself working my way to the top, doing a full time job, and still moving up like I always push myself to do!

Oooh, as you can see, I did a fishtail braid today (continuing with my current obsession), and even when I'm just standing/sitting there doing nothing, my fingers just automatically start braiding. That's how much I've been doing it... but still sucking, there are days where I take an hour trying to figure out how to do a braid, and just unraveling it in frustration and putting my hair in a high ponytail. This is a picture of my little camwhore session before leaving for work. Today was a hot sunny day, of course it would call for a cute fishtail braid and a boho chic top from zara! Yes.. ignore my little sister at the back, she just likes getting into my photos all the time, at least this time it wasn't with her feet up or something crazy haha! 

Here's just a quick snapshot of today's makeup. As you can see I look a lot lighter than my usual days..and that is due to me trying some new products. I decided to try some Cle De Peau products, which to my surprise brighten your skin more than anything I've ever seen! You know them Asians and liking their complexion to be super light.. and being a CBC, I'm totally not used to that. I'm usually more into that tanned sun kissed glow. But I like experimenting.. so I thought I'd try. It literally was just the makeup base that made me this white, because I only put a thin layer of powder over it, which looked darker than it really turned out to be. As you can see I tried to bronze the crap out of my skin to make myself not so ghostly...Well, at least it made my skin super smooth and healthy. 

Cle De Peau sounds like a really luxurious brand, and  I'm looking forward to trying some of their other stuff, so please look forward to seeing some of their product reviews from me!

Thanks for reading, it's time for me to get to work! 

-Carol

#nowplaying: Holy Grail - Justin Timberlake ft. Jay Z