LUSHious

Since I started working for LUSH months and months ago (15 to be exact), I had been under the assumption that I have oily skin. I have recently discovered that this is not the case at all. Ever since beginning to use facial products for dry skin, my visage looks brighter, clearer and better than ever before. Favourite face products at the moment?

1) BUCHE DE NOEL

Buche is one of our limited edition Christmas products which sucks something awful because it is brilliant and I wont be able to get it again until next Christmas (assuming we make it past Dec 21/ 2012 when we are all going to die apparently). It leaves your skin super bright with the antioxidants in the cranberries and soft with the ground almond scrub. DELICIOUS.

2) BREATH OF FRESH AIR

Inhale.....MMMMM...Exhale.... MMMMMMM. This water-based toner is exactly what my skin needs after cleansing and during the day as a refresher. Spritz your face in between cleansing and moisturizing to receive the benefits of antiseptic rosemary and hydrating rose. If you apply your moisturizer while this beauty is on your skin the effects of your moisturizer will be absorbed much more thoroughly by your pores. I also use it to set my powder foundation in the morning to give my face a very dewy appearance.

3) COSMETIC LAD

OH BOY, Cosmetic Lad is friggin RAD (yup I rhymed). The cherry on top of my already hydrating and soothing skin regime, CL softens your skin and is great for those of us who are flaky and a little bit acne prone. The aloe is incredibly soothing on any sensitive spots while the honey is antiseptic and hydrating. It also contains marigold which is great for the regeneration of skin cells (helping with surface scars and marks). Cosmetic Lad has seriously beaitufied my skin and I hope it will do the same for all you guys that suffer from a bit of winter dryness.

Obviously, as I said in my last post GORGEOUS face moisturizer has been helping to keep my skin intact as well :)

Go into your nearest LUSH store and ask them to give you a consultation. You can pick up samples to try before you buy. I promise you will not be disappointed!

Some Movie Reviews

Hello Earthlings,

So I've decided to do a post about some of the movies I've seen in the last couple months. I've been meaning to do a long rant about a couple of them but also have have some PRAISE, believe it or not, for a few others as well.

Tori's Rating Scale:

$- Just despicable

$$- That's a rental

$$$- Go see it if you're bored

$$$$- Pretty decent

$$$$$- Great

$$$$$$- Fucking Awesome!!!!!

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

Rating: $ $ $ $ $

First thing's first: the actress who plays the title character, Rooney Mara, was aesthetically perfect for the role in my opinion. She looked as I imagined the character should look from my few minutes of viewing the original film. I must say I have a massive lady-crush on the main character Lisbeth Salander. Her "I don't give a fuck" attitude and amazing hair, piercings and make-up make my heterosexual heart leap high in the air (alliteration FTW).

Daniel Craig also did a fantastic job playing Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist prosecuted for libel who is hired to uncover the mystery of the death of the young Herriet Vanger, ex-member of the wealthy Vanger family.

The film was excellent. Many surprises and a couple gruesome rape scenes shook me to my core. Though the movie started off pretty slow, it seems that David Fincher, who also directed Fight Club and Panic Room, purposefully began with a slow pace to make the mystery more of, well, a mystery. Instead of making all the plot points clear, Fincher developed a somewhat unclear storyline that ended in one of the most shocking twists I have seen in a long time.

Unfortunately, I did not get around to reading the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson until after seeing the movie, but while doing so I did notice that Fincher kept to the story very well. He left out only details that didn't have too much relevance to the plot line of the film making it both slow at the right points and exciting at unexpected points. The movie was a hit in my opinion and deserves to be seen by all feminists and those who can stomach the intense rape and violence of the film.

TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN
Rating: $
I must say that my rating seems a bit high. Maybe it is because I WAS a sucker for these movies before I saw Breaking Dawn. What a miss!
To start, the acting was just awful. Normally the acting is a bit cheesy, but not to the point that every minute you're in the theater you smell what you believe to be rotten parmigiana. The actors just didn't seem into it, almost like they are as sick as this franchise as all us regular people who are pretty much forced to stay with them until next November, when Breaking Dawn II comes out and we can finally finish this damn series and stop bitching about it.
The worst of the worst is undoubtedly Taylor Lautner, who jut cannot hack it in the wonderful world of acting. He is the pits (not Brad, just THE pits). It hurts to see him try to suckle at the acting teats of Billy Burke and R-Patz (yes, I do believe him to be quite awesome in the acting universe, even though he emits a foul pretension in his interviews that makes me want to vomit).
Though the movie had a few good parts such as Bella's wedding dress, their eerily cute almost-sexless honeymoon and the gory birth of a vampire-human hybrid, the bad definitely outweighed the good. One of the most obvious flaws was the music. It was awful and added a distinct cheddar odour to the parmigiana stench, farted through the screen by the terrible acting. Since, after leaving the theater, my eyes were bleeding from not only the stink but also the forks I shoved in them to end my pain, I believe that the film is the worst of the four currently released in the Twilight Saga.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Rating: $ $
HOLY CONFUSION BATMAN! Normally I'm good at figuring out what is happening throughout a movie. Wait, that's not entirely true. Sometimes it takes me a little while to figure out what's going on. BUT I always figure it out. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the exception. By the end I felt that maybe I understood 45%. That means that at least some of the movie-viewing population really did not understand ANYTHING. I went into the movie knowing I would have to follow along and couldn't let my mind drift but I left feeling ridiculously dense for not understanding the plot and wasting $10.00 on this snore-inducing film (I say this because my roommate and I literally heard snoring behind us).
To start off with, roomie and I realized it was difficult to follow because there was not one character that was in the dark about what was happening in the film. They were all in the know. Therefore there was no way for the context to be explained properly to the audience. Secondly, the time jumping throughout the film, combined with the sheer number of characters, complicated things to the extreme. It wasn't clear until maybe the last half hour who was where when. MOUTHFUL.
The only positive I could pinpoint in the entire movie was the acting. Unlike the preceding review of Breaking Dawn, the loaded cast of Tinker Tailor was a treat. Gary Oldman as the main character was a perfect choice since he portrayed the patience and wisdom of George Smiley perfectly. Colin Firth's role was also done fantastically (obviously). He played a mildly sarcastic suspect in the mystery of a Soviet Mole within the Circus, the highest echelon of the British Secret Intelligence Service during the Cold War.
The movie originated from the book of the same title by John le Carre. I feel as though maybe reading the plot and being able to go over it line by line would be a better experience than the confusion that is the film. Since there were so many characters it was impossible to flourish any kind of attachment to any of the characters except Smiley, who you feel sympathy for due to an affair his wife participates in. Really the only emotion I felt during the film was envy. Envy of any character that was murdered, since that is exactly what I wanted for myself to end the suffering I endured for two hours. You know how I said my eyes were bleeding due to the stench emitted from the cheese of Breaking Dawn? Well, my eyeballs were bleeding during Tinker Tailor because they were trying oh so hard to escape my sockets and run straight into the theater playing Tin Tin (yes, I do believe Tin Tin wold be better than Tinker Tailor).

I have seen a few other movies but I have exhausted the extent of my humour for the day (I am in class and extremely hungry as I await the hour in which I get to consume Mexican food at Ottawa's wonderful restaurant Ahora).
Stay tuned for a detailed analysis of the trouble that Breaking Dawn is causing for modern, gender-equal thoughts and rights (YA I'M PISSED AT THE MESSAGES IT SENDS YOUNG GIRLS)
Peace Out Home Skillets!

WE COULD BE THAT MISTAKE

Hello Earthlings,

Today was back to school. All in all classes are decent. The History of the Holocaust seems like it is going to be super interesting... although learning about a genocide on 8:30 Monday morning is a morose way of starting each week :/ HO HUM.

At the moment I am watching Superbad with my roomie and kitten. It is making this not-so-amazing day SUPERAMAZING (heh get it SUPERamazing... like the movie title). My roommate and I have just realized that we are the female equivalents of the two main characters. I being the brash, obnoxious Seth, roommate being the quieter, cute and intelligent Evan. I curse far too much.

A few bloggers I am following at le moment (on blogger and on other sites) have posted their favourite product purchases of 2011. I've decided to choose 1, which was close to impossible because I work for LUSH Cosmetics and always try new amazing products.

AND TORI'S PRODUCT OF 2011 IS...drum roll puhlease....

GORGEOUS FACE MOISTURISER! This beautiful, matifying facial moisturiser has literally saved my skin. The neroli oil has done wonders to help heal my surface acne scars while the cold pressed avocado hydrates and softens. It is the perfect consistency for a regular make-up user like myself since it is pretty thin and absorbs flawlessly into your pores. It doesn't leave a greasy feeling like many moisturizers tend to do but also gives enough hydration to eliminate those pesky winter flakes. Ultimately, it has made my skin soft, touchable, vibrant, matte and has cleared up the majority of my pimple problems.

Gorgeous is $85.95 CAD but is well worth the expense. It lasts around 5-6 months if used properly with a water-based toner. Apply Gorgeous to your skin while it is damp with your toner for maximum effectiveness. I would recommend this product to anyone with oily, combination or normal skin. If you are seeking a tightening, anti-aging moisturiser this one is for you too! I would not recommend this to anyone with extremely dry skin, as I have received feedback from people with this type of skin that Gorgeous is not hydrating enough especially in the winter.

I hope someone out there reads this and discovers the amazingness that is GORGEOUS just as I have. Go into your local LUSH store and ask for a sample to give it a try before you buy. I promise you will not be disappointed!

LOVE YOUR FRIENDSHIP, TORI!

Why?

Some food for thought. WARNING: IT'S NOT LIGHT-HEARTED

1) Why do people mess with your head so badly sometimes?

-Simple. It's because they can.

2)Why is it that it is so easy to scare people away when you try to get a bit closer?

-Simple. The answer for me is: IT WILL NEVER WORK OUT. Seriously, I should start getting used to cats and crazy work hours as a single, work dragon lady ice queen frigid bitch with no children and a frozen heart.

3)Why are professors so rough during exam time?

-Simple. It's because they can be.

4)Why can't I stop procrastinating?

-Simple. It's because, at this point, I have no motivation.

I could continue but unfortunately, this type of therapy, I think, is doing more damage at the moment.

Have a good night Earthlings

Some thoughts

Hello Earthlings

I'm sitting in 17th Century Literature learning about Emiliya Lanyer's defense of Eve, as in the Bible Eve. Analyzing certain aspects of Genesis the last few weeks, for the essay I handed in this morning, have got me thinking about deeper symbolism. Eve ate the fruit because she wanted knowledge however knowledge brought her from ignorance of mortality to mortality. She was no longer infinite. I'm thinking that perhaps Adam and Eve were never eternal beings physically. Maybe their physical bodies would have died regardless of their tasting of the sacred fruit and their spiritual selves, similar to what Christian belief states today, would withstand eternity and they wouldn't have been aware of any change since they were ignorant to death and, it would seem, the presence of their physical selves.

It is interesting to me that the moral of Genesis seems to be that ignorance is truly bliss since once they became aware of their mortality they became mortal and once they became aware of their nakedness they covered themselves in shame. It truly does represent a different time of writing in history, since today, even though some (like any government and parent) believe ignorance is bliss, many people try their damnedest to stay informed with world politics and religion. Surely, if someone discovered what happened after death everyone would try to inform themselves on it.

As an aside, I don't take the Bible as a literal, non-fictional recount of occurrences but merely as a fictional tale from which life lessons can be leanred in an interesting manner.

-Tori

Cat Love, Sebulbasaur and an Interesting Discovery

Hello Earthlings,

This is my new blog. Akin to Seinfeld, it' about nothing. Absolutely nothing except my life ramblings and jumbled thoughts.

As I type I am lying with my kitten and roommate watching Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace. I owe many laughs to this movie, the first being a new creature le roomie and I developed last year (that apparently someone else had also thought of since I found the picture online herehttp://www.kekkai.org/google/rants/archives.shtml):

Yup. A combination of my generation's beloved Pokemon character and an ugly, "slimo" from Tatooine. What a sexual creature HA.

On that note I would like to point out how amazing my cat is. BEAUTY. I didn't think it was possible to become a crazy cat lady at 20 but Eliot has changed my opinion. I call her Eliot Moose but the most endearing name is what Tina refers to her as, demon (because frankly, with all her toe biting and leg scratching she is one most of the time). This one's for you Ali.

In other news, a recent discovery has shocked me and rocked the hell out of my world. Are you ready for this? E.T. has returned to Earth...

That's right it appears that E.T ,the lovable Spielberg alien that we thought left our depressing planet, has returned as none other than washed up O.C. actress Mischa Barton. The resemblance is uncanny.

That's all for now puny humans but I will be back soon with more useless yet hopefully entertaining posts.

Live long and prosper

V