Memebox Thanksgiving Box - For You

I placed a huge order for Memeboxes on November 13th 2014, which ended up being the last order I ever placed with them. They no longer ship to Canada, only the US and Korea now. I am sad I can no longer open these open boxes full of packaging I can't read, but it's definitely been a savings on a bank account!

This box was the Thanksgiving Edition for You (they also offered one you were supposed to gift away, but it was sold out). Thanksgiving in Canada had already passed by a month before I even ordered this box (due to it being for the American holiday), but I still decided it would be worth it. 

Cost: $32.99, but I traded in all of the points I had and I had a promo for a percentage off the total order. This box actually cost me $24.52 (including shipping) 

I really liked the bright orange box, a change from their usual hot pink.

Inside lid of the box

They pack some of these boxes with so many things! 

These information cards are amazing! The translation doesn't always make the most sense, but it at least gives me an idea of the products I received.

Pure Smile Essence Mask Sheet

1x - Milk

1x - Strawberry Milk

I've received a bunch of different masks from Memebox, and I have used a few of them. They look super weird on, but they always leave my face feeling nice and soft! I kept these.

Value: $2/each ($4 total)

Saracen Gold glitter

This is thick, chunky glitter and not at all something I will ever use. It's meant to be put over a layer of nail polish, but isn't that why they make glitter polish? So much easier. This was passed along to a younger cousin who will use it.

Value: $6

Peripera Heart Glow Stick

This reminds me of Benefit's Watts Up stick. You just rub it on your face anywhere you need a little glow or highlight. I kept this, and have used it.

Value: $14

Vivito Illust Lumiere Primer

This is actually a really nice illuminating primer! It reminds me a bit of one of my favourite moisturizers - the Vitamin E illuminating cream from the Body Shop, but this also has a primer mixed in. I never wear foundation or concealer without applying a primer first, so this has been used.

Value: $50

Vivito Painting Sweet Lip Balm

This smells really good! I received the orange one, which is one of my favourite scents. I did keep this, but I have a million lip balms and glosses so I haven't even used this one yet... Also - I would NEVER pay over $20 for a lip balm.

Value: $24

Shara Shara Miracle Multi-Cream

This is described as a moisturizer which delivers an "instant moisture surge and glowing radiance to dry, tired face as if letting the skin take a rejuvenating winter sleep" but then it goes one to say "apply directly to face, body or hair". Why would I put moisturizer in my hair? Wouldn't that make it ridiculously greasy and like a WWE wrestler who uses a full bottle of hair gel before every match? (I just went to watch wrestling a few days ago, I couldn't stop looking at their greasy hair...)

I have kept this, but it has not been used yet. I think I might end up passing it along.

Value: $18 

Shara Shara Brush Set

Value: $24 for 5 brushes

These are decent enough brushes. I took them out of the pink carrying case they came with and stuck them with the rest of my makeup brushes - standing upright inside an Ikea vase filled with coloured sand from Ikea. For some reason, these are the only brushes I own that the sand sticks to completely, and every time I take one out to use it I get purple sand all over my bathroom counter :(

With Shyan Nail Polish

This is a very pretty colour, don't get me wrong, but I'm really trying to not use any polishes that contain Formaldehyde so I put this one into the go-away pile.

Value: $4

This Memebox contained 8 items worth $144 in total. Not bad considering I paid under $25! I also kept more than enough products to make it more than worth it.

xoxo,

Fallon

Post #100!

Wow, this is my 100th blog post! I'm kind of amazed I've stuck with it for this long - yes, I've had months with little or no posting, but I'm getting back into the swing of it again!

Hopefully my readers (all 3 of you haha) will stick around to see my 200th, 300th and 1000th posts!


Just for the fun of it, here's a picture of one of my cats dressed up as a dragon.

xoxo,

Fallon

Lip Monthly February 2015

Yes, I realize this is from February, which was almost 8 months ago, but I still wanted to blog it. When I was deciding which subscription services I wanted to subscribe to, I didn't look simply at the previous month they had sent out, but a few months back. I'm hoping that anyone researching subscription boxes will still be interested in reading these :)

If you have read any of my previous Lip Monthly posts you will know they had a lot of issues when they were starting out. I ended up being subscribed for 8 months, and it really wasn't all terrible. The full bag never once wowed me, but I did get some products I will continue to use!

Cost: $10/month + $6/month shipping to Canada

First of all - hooray for a much nicer bag than the hideous blue one I hated so much!

Be A Bombshell Lip Gloss in Hooked

I've received a few products from this brand from a few different subscription boxes, but this is my first lip gloss from them. It's really not bad at all! The colour is pretty, it's not too sticky and it is full size. I kept this, although I would never pay full price for it.

Value: $14

So Susan Lip Dome in Black Currant

This is another brand I've received from a few different subscription services. I really like lip crayons like this one, and this one goes on so smoothly and full of colour. The colour itself is a little dark, but oh so pretty!

Value: $12

Cargo Cosmetics Eye Shadow Single in Green Bay

Ugh. Every Lip Monthly has to have a major dud, and this is it for this month. This colour is terrible! I bought a similar colour years ago and tried to make it work - I just looked like I was deathly ill. This went into the go-away pile, I'm sure there's someone who can make a colour like this work. Also - I can't even find this colour on the website anymore, but I'm not worried that Lip Monthly sent out a discontinued item as I am almost 8 months delayed in writing this review. It's EXTREMELY possible that Cargo Cosmetics discontinued it this summer.

Value: $16

Jelly Pong Pong Supermodel Stain

This company is a sister company to So Susan, and I've been pleased with pretty much everything I've tried from either of them. This is a neat product, it has four different colours which can used on either your lips or cheeks. It's a very creamy formula! I haven't used this very often, but I did keep it.

Value: $15.95

So there you have it. The February 2015 Lip Monthly contained 4 items worth $57.95. Not bad considering I paid between $17-$18 with the exchange rate, and I kept 3 of the products.

xoxo,

Fallon

Disney's California Adventure Park - World of Color Dining Packages

Before heading to California, we did very little research on Disney. Neither one of us had ever been to any of the Disney parks before (and to be honest, we didn't really think of it as a high priority - just a "maybe someday once we have kids?"). Turns out we should have had this at the top of our list - we both loved it!

Even if we had wanted to research like crazy for this trip, the quick turn-around from booking flights to actually landing in Anaheim would not have allowed for it (we decided to go on the trip on a Monday, and flew down on Thursday that same week). I did however take some time to talk to a few co-workers who I knew had taken their families to Disneyland within the past few years. The one thing I was told over and over - don't miss World of Colour at California Adventure Park. One co-worker mentioned that he really regretted not booking a fastpass or a dining package for preferred viewing - so I went online and looked into it. There are three restaurants that participate in this - Ariel's Grotto, Carthay Circle Restaurant and Wine Country Trattoria. Ariel's Grotto appeared to serve a lot of fish (go figure), and anything that comes from the water is disgusting and I refuse to eat it. L also has a slight shellfish allergy, so that eliminated that restaurant. The Carthay Circle Restaurant had a weird menu (I'm extremely fussy and bland with my palate) so that left Wine Country Trattoria. When you book the World of Color dining package, you can not just order from the normal menu. You select from a pre-determined menu at a set price per person, but your meal will include an appetizer (such as soup or salad) as well as dessert. The menu changes from each location. Check out the Ariel's Grotto menu HERE (dinner only), the Carthay Circle lunch menu HERE and dinner menu HERE, the Wine Country Trattoria lunch menu HERE and the dinner menu HERE.

I made a dinner reservation (I didn't spend enough time researching to know that lunch at Wine Country costs only $29.99 while dinner costs $42.99), but I also would not have cared about that. For our starters, L chose the salad (there's not a single thing in that salad I will eat, gross). That left me asking for the soup selections - they had minestrone that day which is something I will eat! For entrees L chose the chicken breast, which he really enjoyed. I went for the filet mignon - but of course I insist on all meat being cooked well-done. I prefer my steak to not still be mooing on my plate, thank you very much. (I take so much heat for this all the time - "You just ruined a great cut of meat!"). The first time they brought my steak out, I cut into it and it bled all over my plate so I of course asked to send it back (I try not to send things back at restaurants very often, it's pretty much only steak). I then had to wait over half an hour before they brought it back out to me (so L was finished his meal before I even started eating my filet mignon. When I did finally get it back however, it was cooked perfectly! 

Then came dessert - and omg. It was fantastic! It was a sampler plate with 2 of each of the following: European macaroons, cream puffs, tiramisu and panna cotta. We were both full from our meal, and weren't able to clean off the dessert plate, but we did make sure we sampled everything. 

To make up for the long wait I had for my steak to be re-cooked, our waitress offered us a fast-pass for the Radiator Springs Racers which we gladly accepted (they didn't have to offer anything, and The Cars ride had by far the longest waits of any ride in the park - and was also one of the most impressive). We paid our bill and headed over to use our Fast-pass, only to find out the ride had broken down :( A cast member directing people told us we could come back the next day to use the fast-pass, but we weren't coming back so it ended up going to waste. Oh well! We decided to just head to the reserved area for World of Color even though it didn't start for another 45 minutes. Turns out we made the right decision - we ended up being front and centre for it! We could actually feel the heat off the flames and some of the water from the cannons ended up landing on us. 

The show itself is not to be missed - it is incredible. I was so caught up in watching it I ended up not taking a single picture of it (which is totally not like me at all!). For almost half an hour I just stood there in awe of what I was watching. The price of dinner was well worth having the best reserved viewing area - you can get fast-passes early in the day for the show, but the views are not as centred. 

Next time we go back to Disney's California Adventure Park I will absolutely be booking another dining reservation for World of Color! I highly, highly recommend it and am so glad it's the one thing I booked in advance!

Our day at California Adventure:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

xoxo,
Fallon

August Empties

It's been a few months since I've done this - August was actually the first month since we moved in to our new house that I insisted on tracking our empties again. I always enjoy doing this because it lets me know exactly what products are actually seeing movement in our house.

I didn't do individual photos this time like I have other months, it seemed kind of pointless.

Colgate toothpaste - this is one of the cheapest ones you can buy, but it's actually one of my favourites. It will always have a place in this house - and yes, there was a new one opened the same day this one finished.

Mandarin Blossom antibacterial hand soap - we really like Bath & Body Works soaps. There are currently 7 different options on the go in our house - two in each bathroom (an anti-bac and a foaming, and one in the kitchen). When we only had one bathroom, we finished off 1-2 of these each and every month, with 7 of them on the go at once they seem to last so much longer haha.

Ribbon Candy Anti-bacterial hand gel - I keep one of these in my desk at work at all times. That's where this one came from.

Cronies Moisture Cream - I got this in the Very Berry Memebox (which I blogged about HERE). For awhile, I had 4 or 5 moisturizers open all at once, but I'm trying to keep it to 1-2 now so I'll actually be able to make headway through my ridiculous backlog of products... This cream was good, nothing special and definitely not something I would pay $63 for. But it did its job.

Blush body wash - I wasn't a fan of this at all. I know it came in a subscription box awhile ago, but I don't remember which one now... I wasn't a fan of the smell of this, or the texture (it was super runny, almost watery) and it didn't seem to lather very well.

Lush Aqua Marina - I've been using this stuff for quite awhile now. However, I don't use it on a daily basis so I find the 100g pot to be way too much for me to try and use up before it expires (according the sticker). I still continue to use it well past it's expiration, but I really wish they would sell smaller pots of this.

Figs and Rouge Mango Mandarin Hand Cream -  This came in the October 2014 Ipsy bag I recieved (blogged about HERE). It's not a huge bottle, only 20mL and it still lasted me almost a year haha (obviously I wasn't using it everyday). It was in my desk at work, but I have 3 or 4 other hand creams in there as well. That being said, I did really enjoy this - it didn't make me feel greasy and the scent was fantastic!

So far we have nothing in our empties basket for September, but the month is still young! Check back in October to see what I was able to finish off this month! I'd love to see pictures of what products you are finishing off each month, link your blog post of your monthly empties in the comments section!

xoxo, 

Fallon

2015 Update

I've been really lacking in my blog posts for this entire year, but 2015 has been a little bit crazy. As mentioned before, we traveled to the Dominican in January for a week. In March we took possession of our new house. In April we decided spur of the moment to take a trip to California (we booked our flight/hotel on a Monday afternoon and hopped on a plane Thursday morning - I'll write a post about that at some point).  In June we adopted an 11-month old miniature dachshund named Jax. At the beginning of July we adopted a 3 year old shepherd-cross named Magoo (#adoptdontshop). At the end of July my best friend got married in the mountains. We still have a 10-day trip to the Maritimes happening this year. And we have booked a trip to Florida in January (which is technically 2016, but all of the planning is being completed in 2015). Not to mention all of the concerts, sporting events and festivals we have attended. It's been a busy year! The fall is shaping up to be much quieter though, and I look forward to spending some time updating this blog!

xoxo,
Fallon