My Silk Naturals Haul

On Thursday, I received my super-fast shipment from Silk Naturals - 9 days (given it was only first-class not priority). My small order ballooned to over $30 again!

How pretty is all came:


Here's what I got:

• Perfect Harmony Foundation Sample Kit, contains Original Coverage Ivory plus 4 base shades in Buttery Gold, Warm Gold, Peach and Ebony, with scoop, empty 10g jar and sponge
• Medium Coverage Ivory Kit, with scoop, empty 10g jar
• Heavy Coverage Ivory Kit, with scoop, empty 10g jar
• extra Ivory samples in Original and Medium Coverage
• extra base samples in Buttery Gold and Warm Gold
• Tinted Oil Control Primer sample
  
• Oil Control Blur Finishing Powder sample
• Tinted Perfecting Powder in Love Lure and Tempt Tryst samples
  
• Sheer Bronzer in Tahiti Sweetie sample
• Sheer Blush in Lovelace
• Cream Eyeliner in Film Noir
  
• Flavoured Lip Gloss in Breathless and Skinny Dip
• and for free....a Cream Blush in Loverly and eyeshadow Terra, and a sample of Myst eyeshadow
  

I haven't tried formulating my custom foundation yet (waiting for a sunny day!) but I've tried out the lovely lip glosses. These two lippies are so nice...I like them more than Birthday Suit and Bliss.


Breathless is described on the SN website as a pink satin shimmer organic lip gloss. It's pink with a little brown in it, a neutral pink, made to look good whether you're cool or warm toned. Skinny Dip is described as a pinkie brown satin shimmer lip gloss, a medium tan colour with just a hint of pink.

SN says these two are hybrid colours: enough colour in them to almost call them a lipstick but glossy and shimmery enough to classify them more in the lip gloss category.

I love these lippies! I'm not a pink lipstick kind of girl (though, I must add, the very first lipstick I ever received was a Cover Girl frosted pink lipstick --- hey, it was the 80's!) but Breathless leaves me breathless! I like Skinny Dip over Bliss and Birthday Suit, maybe because it's got a little twist to the boring brown. I'll be buying more of these next time around.

I may hold off playing around with the foundation and the other powders I bought, until I pick up some samples of the foundation correctors Karen recently added to the website: a green colour booster for olive skin tones and a pure yellow if you need more yellow.

You see, SN's foundation is pretty ingenious, in that you mix your own foundation. There are 5 bases to choose from and you mix them with the appropriate scoops of Ivory. For instance, I might try mixing 1 scoop of Buttery Gold to about 4 scoops of Ivory and if it's too dark I can add another scoop of Ivory until I get it just right. And as I know I do have olive tones in my skin, I'll probably have to add a scoop of the olive too in there. I can't wait to start mixing...I feel like a mad scientist or something!

If I don't end up putting another order with SN soon, and I cave in to my urge to sample, I'll post my personal review on SN's Perfect Harmony foundation in a month or so.

Meanwhile....more shopping to do....Earthen Glow Minerals is having a BOGO sale that ends Tuesday night!

Hmmm, do I need more foundation?

Parallel Parking

Some people can't...really....take a look around.

Just the other day from my livingroom window, I watched a nice, black Mercedes SUV attempting to park between two cars. She had about a half-length behind and in front of her. I don't know if she pulled into the spot or actually parallelled, but she was still going at it five minutes later: I watched the clock.

Back and forth, back and forth. I actually found myself doing a play-by-play of her manoeuvres.

- Now go ahead...a little bit more.
- Turn that wheel, slowly..no, not THAT way, the OTHER way!
- Stop, stop, stop, you're gonna hit that car behind you....stop, already!

Then I watched her remove her "driving shoes" and put on a pair of knee-high high-heeled boots (ooh, what kind were those?....) and she got out of the car, pulled up the collar on her beige wool car coat, and with her Gucci purse strolled away to the stores that I live close by.

Sigh. I think there should be some kind of rule that you can only buy a car based on driving experience, not how much money you have.

Sponsor-A-Child

At church today we had a visiting priest, Deacon Ron Jenkins, from Nova Scotia. Whenever we have one of these visiting speakers come to the parish, I always feel obligated to be a little bit more attentive and alive.

The deacon's homily drew me in. Many of these homilies I've heard from visiting priests inspire me, and this was no different. As a deacon, he's ordained not into the priesthood but to service, charity being a major life commitment. He has a passion for all things...especially candy bars. I thought that was a funny comment to make. So did he, and the more he got to thinking how many candy bars he buys, he would go and sponsor a child instead, at the cost of 1 candy bar a day.

When he sponsors a child, he would end up eventually visiting them, spending time with the child, the family, the community. He would then return home to Nova Scotia, and he'd close his eyes, see the poverty he left behind, and end up sponsoring another child.

By the end of his homily, he must have showed us pictures of at least 5 sponsored children. He invited us to come up to the altar after mass and consider sponsoring our own child; sponsor packages complete with children's profiles and photos were laying humbly on the altar steps.

So after mass, I made my way over to the front of the church and tried to find an opening in the crowd: there were so many people hovering by the altar steps that I couldn't even pick up a package to read. I could see the kids were grouped according to Country of Origin.

It's funny to think of how one picks a sponsor child: How do you prefer someone from Africa over one from South America or Asia? Who's more deserving of your money? -- who is more impoverished over the other? Does a picture really speak a thousand words? In 5 minutes, you're supposed to select from the "limited" selection (there were about 30+ profiles available) the one kid who you want to have, potentially, a long term relationship with (though sponsorship can stop at any time...but why should it?).

I had wanted to sponsor before, but didn't know who to trust with my money. This Canadian organization, formed in 1996, is called Chalice, a Catholic Sponsorship Programme, formally called Christian Child Care International. They changed their name recently to promote the organization as a Catholic charity, and to erase confusion with all the other child sponsor programs available worldwide. The deacon had mentioned that almost 90% of the funds go straight to the children, and upon examining their financial statements online, he's right (why would he lie?). That was a big one for me...I want to give my money where it'll work for the kids and not administrative costs.



So, I wanted to pick a child, but which? The photos all pleaded for our help, anybody's, but who would I reach out to? Upon quick reflection, I wanted a girl, since I may not be so lucky as to have a little girl of my own, having already two boys. There actually weren't too many girls: mostly from India, some from Chile, or Guatamala. There was one pretty looking girl from the Ukraine. Ukraine? Are they an impoverished country?

The profile was of a 10-year-old girl, whose dad passed away recently, and lives with her mom and paternal grandfather. Her mom, an accountant, works little (unstable employment) and doesn't earn much. The little girl loves math and wants to be a banker one day. Her name is Khrystyna.

Apparently, Ukraine has a really high unemployment rate, and there are thousands of children orphaned as a direct result of this. And, I had to look this up, but Ukraine has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in Europe. I was going to put Khrystyna's profile back down on the altar steps, but I took it home with me, contemplating my desire to give.

Is she less deserving because she doesn't live in a clay hut in the desert? Should I ignore her plight, even though her mother has a job? Should she be denied because her skin colour isn't dark and she doesn't have to farm to make a living? These were my preconceived notions of what a sponsor child was, as portrayed so graphically on TV. But if I "return" her, what will be of the "what ifs" that'll pop up for me later? It's not like I already made contact with her, but I'll always remember her face...it's so angelic, yet so sad.

I sometimes wonder, however honourable the cause is, if our society exploits these kids, despite anti-exploitation efforts, just to make a buck, further their own ventures, to seemingly make things "right" in this world. To put a face to the poverty most of us inadvertently ignore can't be wrong though, right? And with so many issues in our own backyards, does it matter if we do good elsewhere, where its impact may go unnoticed during our daily grind?

But despite all these debatable issues, I'm making a commitment to sponsor Khrystyna, in an effort to give back to the world, and to thank God for the blessings he has already given me in my life. If I could afford to commit to more children in this world, I would. God's given me two beautiful children already. I hope even helping one more child counts for something.