yeah yeah yeah

okay so I suck and I know it. I'm not even going to address how long it's been since I posted. But I'm turning over a new leaf starting now. Well, tomorrow. This week for sure.

Do I even have any readers left??

WOW

That's all I can say today.

It's been way too long since I posted and I can only apologize. I have no excuse except that I've been super-busy at work, I have a cold, and I'm caught up in excitement for my birthday. I'm going to be honest and tell you postings are going to be a bit slim around here until the end of the month. Bear with me please.

Hope you're all well!

max

xoxo

Cop This: Kardinal Offishall Not 4 Sale

Hey y'all,
I know this is a beauty blog, but sometimes - not often - there are some things more important than makeup. Or so I hear anyway. Either way, it's my blog and I'll stray off topic if I want to, right?

That being said, consider this a PSA: Kardinal Offishall's latest album hit stores on Tuesday.

Buy. this. album. Now.

If you don't know who Kardinal is, you're either living under a rock or you're not Canadian. Either way, you need this in your life:



Kardinal is an extremely gifted artist and producer who is blazing a trail for Canadian artists and has been for years. The man was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno this week, for goodness sake. That is absolutely unprecedented for a Canadian hip hop artist and no one deserves it more. Check the video and tell me you weren't doing the Dangerous dance in your chair:

Dangerous Jay Leno Live

And in case you're wondering, this is not a case of me shamelessly plugging something just because I know and/or like the artist - I have no connection to Kardi save a youthful crush and you ought to know by now I get crushes like other people get subway transfers. So this is my completely non-partisan opinion: Buy this album and do your part to support Canadian music. You won't be sorry. The album is hot.

Oh yeah - the wiwfm verdict on this one is hells yes!

Me, Myself, and My Beauty Regime

Hi Pretties!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! Mine has been extremely exciting and fantastically boring all at the same time. It started out Friday night with an invite to the "exclusive" ETalk party...at which I spotted my future husband Idris Elba, flirted shamelessly with former crushboy, and searched frantically for current crushboy. It was tonnes of fun but no pics because my purse was too tiny to fit my camera in. My new friend Killa took some pics of me, so if I get my hands on them I'll definitely post them here.

After that my weekend has been pretty quiet. I've pretty much spent it on "bed island" as I like to call it. I just stay in bed all day and do everything here. I got all caught up on Gossip Girls - Serena is gorgeous isn't she? - and did a little work as well. That's it. The one productive thing I did was to go for a "walkjog" - I'm trying to get more exercise so I walk the Kay Gardner Beltline Trail whenever I can but I'm always so jealous of the people who are jogging instead of walking that I've decided to become a jogger. So I'm alternating walking and jogging until I'm in good enough shape to be able to jog the whole thing. Wish me luck. Hopefully the whole thing will go a lot more smoothly once I quit smoking - whenever that may be lol.

Anyway, as I write this I'm on bed island again after showering and washing my hair. This is my favourite part of the week - I feel completely clean and reborn. It's definitely my "most beautiful" moment - mentally that is. Esthetically it's not a good look at all, let me tell you. I look a fright right now with bantu knots in my hair, Bio Oil schmeered over my face, and my feet slathered in Aquaphor and wrapped in plastic. It's all part of my weekend beauty regime, which is supposed to be the topic of today's post...

So like everyone else (I assume), I do what I can during the week to keep up my appearance, but with so little time and so much else going on, it's on the weekends that I do all the real heavy lifting. So here's a rundown of my weekend Beautification process. Some of it I've blogged about before:

-If I have no plans on Friday night I prepoo my hair using either coconut oil, olive oil, eggs, deep conditioner, regular conditioner, or some combination of all of them. I coat my hair (concentrating on the ends), stick a plastic cap on it and wrap in a heated towel. If I don't have time Fridays I do this Saturday mornings instead.

-Usually at some point during the prepoo process, I tackle my skin. As I may have mentioned a time or two, I have extremely oily skin and a lot of clogged pores so I start out with the OCM including the pore vaccuum, and then I hit my skin with the aspirin mask which refines and brighens my skin. After that I spread Bio Oil over it (check my Bio Oil post here) and go about my business.

-I wash the prepoo out of my hair in the shower, then put conditioner in, slap on a showercap, and go about my business in the shower while the steam helps my hair to absorb the conditioner. "Going about my business" in the shower means shaving pretty much everything, exfoliating my whole body (I do this everytime I shower though), and scrubbing my feet with the pumice stone. Then I rinse the conditioner out with cold water (yowtch!) and if I'm blowing my hair out straight I wrap it in a t-shirt (it's more gentle on your hair than a regular towel) for ten minutes. If I'm wearing my hair curly as I am this week, I put it back in the shower cap so it says extra wet until I'm ready to style.

-Slather my feet with Dr. Scholl's For Her Ultra Overnight Foot Cream and then with Aquaphor or Coconut Oil and then wrap with plastic and cover with socks. Lotion myself from head to toe with Nivea Smooth Replenishing Lotion in the summertime or Extra Nourishing Milk in the wintertime. These are the two best lotions ever in my opinion. At this point I usually need a rest, so I chill out for a little while.

-After tackling my hair - a drama so intense it needs its own post - I move on to my nails. I polish my fingernails every weekend and my toenails every other weekend. Once I've done that, I have no choice but to sit down and rest myself so that my nails don't get wrecked. They usually do though.

So that's it. I like to have one "grooming" day on the weekend and one relaxation day. When my weekends are too busy for me to do all that stuff I get really cranky.

What about you guys? Do any of you have special weekend beauty routines? Drop me a comment and let me know I'm not a freak :)

p.s. I have to send a shout out to my newest reader (and work neighbour) Daniela. She's hilarious, loves my blog, and is a whiz with the liquid eyeliner. What's not to love?

I Love your Blog!

Hi girls!
Big huge shout-outs to Kim at A Life of Style for once again showing me bloglove...she's so sweet and her blog is fab. If you haven't checked it out please do.

She tagged lil ole me as a blog one of her favourite blogs and I'm sharing the love by posting some of my faves. I currently subscribe to over 100 blogs so I can't share them all but these are some great ones:

• Scandalous Beauty
• Clumps of Mascara
• A Life of Style
• Not in My Colour
• Lipstick Powder n Paint
• Life of a Ladybug
• Beauty and Personal Grooming
  

And in the spirit of sharing the bloglove....

Here are the rules:
1. The nominated is allowed to put this picture on their blogs.
2. Link to the person who hearted you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other people and link to them.
4. Leave a message on those people's blog to make them aware that they're nominated

I'm on Alltop!

Hi everyone!
I'm so excited to announce to you ladies that my little blog has been included in the Beauty Channel of Alltop.com!

If you don't know about alltop, it's a very cool site that aggregates tonnes of blog by content. So if you go to the Fashion Channel, you see stories from a bunch of different fashion blogs/sites, if you go to the Beauty Channel, you'll see stories from a bunch of sites including mine!

And the best part is, I get to put badges like these on my site:

Could this site be any cooler?

These are a few of my favourite looks

Hi ladies,

Hope my Toronto ladies are enjoying the gorgeous weather while it lasts....cuz you know it's not going to last long.

So I have good news! Will it Work for Me has been accepted into the Essence Network! This is exciting as I'm now in the company of many great bloggers. Check it out and find some interesting blogs to add to your list of reads.

Which reminds me: thanks so much to all of you who read my blog regularly. I look at my site traffic daily and I'm astounded that my little blog that two months ago had only my sister and McKinley as readers is now building up its own following. I feel a little like Sally Field "you like me! you really like me!"

Please keep coming back and let me know if there's anything you'd like to see.

Also a shout-out to Kim over at A Life of Style who dropped by recently. Love your blog too girl!

Anyway, on to today's post....a few of my favourite looks. I thought I'd post a few of what I consider to be my best looks ever and see what you guys think. Seems a little egotistical of me though, doesn't it? Well looking at pictures is always fun - tha'ts why Facebook is so popular, right?

So without further ado, I give you the best of max fabulous!

The first picture is at my friend Mansa's birthday party...that's her in the pink. I did a Rihanna-inspired look - black eyeliner all around and hot pink lips. Pretty hot for a Wednesday night lol.

The next one is from my pre-32nd birthday party. I had a goldish-burgundy theme with both my nails and my eyeshadow. The polish is Revlon but I can't remember the name of the colour, and the shadow is Color du Jour by Lancome and that gold Shiseido Hydropowder.

As you may have guessed, the first picture is my favourite picture of me ever. I use it as my profile picture for everything! This look was copied from Christina Milian - hair and makeup. The shadow is actually this crappy silver Rimmel colour mixed with black Smashbox cream liner to look grey and the lipcolour is MAC Sweetie topped with a L'Oreal lip gloss called Pink Panther - it was LE when the movie came out and I loved it so much I bought like 3 of them.

The next one is my second favourite picture of myself. I got my makeup done by this fabulous lady named Ninia Nation - obviously she's very talented and also super nice. But I never saw her again. I heard she has/had a shop in College Park here in Toronto but I'm not sure...I have to find her because honestly this is the best I've ever looked in my life!

First one was my actual 32nd birthday. Makeup is nothing special but I love my hair here. As you can see, I used to be a weaveaholic - and boy do I miss those days. Don't get me wrong having a weave is a PITA but I think I looked so much prettier in those days...these days my hair stays in a ponytail all the time - see the next picture.

Oh I love these two pictures...the first one is with my friend Jemeni - and boy do I wish I could remember what the HELL I did to my hair that day because it looks amazing (if I do say so myself)! The eyeshadow is again that crappy Rimmel silver and Lancome The New Black.

On the right is my first Mansa-pic - we were at this hip hop party called The B-Boy Document (it was great). Shadow colour is again the gold Shiseido Hydropowder and Lancome The New Black.

So what do you ladies think? Any recos for me??

my daily look

hi lovelies!

check me out with all the posts, eh? told ya'll i would try my hardest to do better.

so the other day as i was rushing off to work it dawned on me to take a picture of myself so you could see my daily work look (and then take one when i got home to see how beat up i look after a day of work lol) so i snapped a quick one.

it's kinda dark but i wanted to give you a rundown of my daily routine for summer work days. it's simple and relatively quick but still fun.

prep:
-wash my face with Aveeno Clear Complexion Daily Cleanser

-tone with witch hazel or apple cider vinegar - this particular day was acv, undiluted cuz i'm gangsta like that

-curl lashes with a Tweezerman lash curler (it sucks, don't buy this, spend the extra money for a good one) heated with hot water

-MAC Matte applied to whole face

face:
-on the back of my hand i mix a pea-sized amount of olay age defying daily renewal lotion with a tiny drop of revlon skinlights instant skin brightener in gold light (this might be discontinued, but any highlighter would do) and a pea-sized amount of maybelline pure makeup foundation in caramel (equal to or slightly larger than the drop of moisturizer)

-wet a foundation brush (i use a crappy Quo one and you have to wet it for it to work decently at all) and then use it to blend together the mixture. i apply it to my face starting at my cheeks (because that's where i want/need the most coverage), blending outward, then apply to the rest of my face from the centre outward.

-MAC Studio Finish Concealer in NC50 on my upper lip and underneath my eyes and also anywhere else i may need coverage.


eyes:

-Urban Decay Primer Potion on my lids

-fill in my brows with an Annabelle eye pencil in dark brown, which i blend out with a MAC angle brush

-line my inner upper eyelids with a black eye pencil by Rimmel. try really hard to keep my eyes open so it doesn't smudge onto my lower waterline - this almost never works so i clean it up with a Q-tip.

-i rotate between two eye shadows - a gold Milani eye shadow (I think it's Antique Gold) or MAC Expensive Pink. choosing the colour is completely random...i wear whichever i feel like that particular day.

-one coat of Ardell Lash Growth Accelerator as a primer - the only thing it's good for

-two thin coats of Lancôme Hypnôse


cheeks:
-sweep the bronzer from Lorac's Hot Flash blush/bronzer duo on cheeks, temples, across forehead, and the bridge of my nose with a fan brush

-MAC Sheertone Shimmer blush in Breezy or Ambering Rose - usually it's Breezy but this particular day it was Ambering Rose


then i curl my lashes again with the curler heated with hot water. seems like the extra step is unnecessary but it really makes my lashes stay curled all day.


set the whole thing with MAC Blot Powder in Dark.


and that's it! it seems like a lot but the whole thing takes less than 10 minutes and it's a really pretty natural summer look. you could skip the eyeliner - i just do it to make my lashes more pronounced when i wear my frigging horrible glasses. it's now my go-to summer look when i just want to look polished and not like i loaded my face down with stuff.


what do ya'll think? critique me ladies but please be gentle ;)

The Salicylic Acid Challenge - can you see the difference?

Hi Ladies,

Not to toot my own horn, but sometimes I am really on top of things, even if I don't realize it. I was just going through my "blog pictures" folder on my laptop here and came across the pictures that I took of my skin during my salicylic acid challeng so I could show you guys and we could collectively decide whether there's a visible difference in my skin (hence today's title). I had even created the post in draft, even though I never actually got around to writing it lol.

So without further ado, I give you The Salicylic Acid Challenge - can you see the difference?

For a month I used only products with salicylic acid in them to see whether and intense attack on my pesky clogged pores would prove fruitful. I give you my soldiers:

1. Olay Age Defying Anti-Wrinkle Replenishing Night Cream

According to Olay's site, this cream "renews skin's appearance at night when it needs it most while visibly reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles..." It's got pro-retinol and beta-hydroxy, and Vitamin E and is oil free and won't clog pores.

Sounds good to me.

2. Olay Age Defying Protective Renewal Lotion
Olay's site says this is "proven to reduce the visible appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and protect from the sun...". Contains beta hydroxy complex and a broad-spectrum SPF 15 sunscreen. It's also oil-free, greaseless, and non-comedogenic

3. Aveeno Clear Complexion Cream Cleanser

Y'all already know how I feel about this stuff right? This "creamy cleanser with moisture-rich soy extract" is the business. I would love this even if it didn't have salicylic acid in it but thank G-d it does.

The only other thing I did was an aspirin mask about once a week. What - you don't know about the Aspirin Mask? You better ask some-BODY! I guess that's going to have to be my next post, but in the meantime check out a cute and quick YouTube video on it.

Other than that, there really wasn't much to my regime. I washed with the Aveeno cleanser morning and night (in the evenings I used it after using MAC Cleanse-Off Oil to remove my makeup), used the day cream in the day and the night cream in the night. Asprin mask on Saturday mornings, and tried to avoid wearing makeup unnecessarily and also to remove it as soon as I got home from work. And of course I never ever ever sleep in my makeup. Never. So let me show you the results and then I'll tell you my thoughts:

Week 1 - just before I began the challenge:

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Okay right off the bat I have two thoughts: 1)why the hell are the pictures so small? Hope you can even see them and 2)I look awful in these pictures. But oh well.

I really don't know whether you guys can see a difference in my skin from these pictures but in real life I certainly do. I have fewer clogged pores and the ones I have aren't so big, my skin feels a million times better, and it's ever so slightly less greasy than usual. I read online today that Linda Wells says you have to give every skincare product at least six months to work so I'm going to continue with this plan of action at least until I run out of the stuffs. I'll update you then on my progress.

Oh and I'm sure quitting smoking wouldn't hurt either, but we're not going to get into that right now ;)