Makeup & Beauty
Listen up Stimulistas. No matter how exhausted you are, you MUST remove your makeup before falling into bed. Your skin needs to breathe and you need to clean the oil and pigment from your pores to prevent acne issues. We know, we know…it's just seems like to much some nights which is why facial cleanser cloths are so amazing.
We like the Kaia Bamboo Cloths; they contain gentle ingredients to cleanse and remove dirt and makeup without stinging or burning. No rinsing required! Each cloth is made from 100% natural, biodegradable bamboo (great for the environment) and contains no alcohol, fragrance, parabens or sulfates. Each package contains 30 cloths so you'll have a month's supply and you can use both sides of the cloth - one side for eye makeup and lipstick and the other side for your facial makeup.
As is the case with most items that are good for the environment and a more healthy option for our bodies, Kaia Bamboo Facial Cleanser Cloths are more pricey than the brands available at the drug stores. You can buy Kaia at Canadian online retailer goneshopping.ca for $20.99 per package.
Happy New Year Stimulistas! The beginning of a new year is a time to set goals, change habits and start something new. Let's kick 2012 off with a fresh, new product to boost your spirits and add some colour to your life. Normally we'd only tell you about one great product in a Stimuli Scoop, however, Revlon has launch two new products that we just had to tell you about.
In November we attended a special preview launch party at Sugar Studios in Vancouver that was hosted by London Drugs and Revlon (Almay) to showcase the new additions to the Colorstay™ line and we were very impressed.
Favourite #1 - the Revlon ColorStay™ Nail Enamel. This 3 step system includes a base coat, colour and top coat. The thing that makes this polish so much better than any other is that is wears just like a Shellac but does not need a UV light to cure…it dries in 5 minutes! The product promises 11 days of chip-free wear and while we've not kept a colour on that long yet, it did last 6 days over Christmas with hands in dish water regularly. Oh, and did we mention the colour choices? They are fabulous. Our new fave is the Blue Slate.
Favourite #2 - the Revlon ColorBurst™ Lip Butter. It is the perfect combination of a lip balm with gorgeous colour built in. There is no sticky feeling, no caking and no goopiness. Our lips feel smooth as silk with a hint of sheer to medium colour.
Both products are available at London Drugs, Shopper's Drug Mart, Superstore and other retailers. The Revlon ColorStay™ Nail Enamel retails for about $9 a bottle and you do need to purchase all 3 steps for the system to work properly. The Revlon ColorBurst™ Lip Butter retails for around $10.
Check out more photos from the London Drugs/Revlon event on our Facebook Page.
We are giving away a 3 step Revlon ColorStay™ Nail Enamel set to one lucky reader. To enter, post a comment on this editorial and share our Revlon post on our Facebook page with your friends. Winner will be announced on Friday, January 6, 2012.
The cold weather is here and while the consensus in the Stimuli Magazine office is that while it's better than the rain, it is definitely doing a number on our hands. Our skin is dry and flaky which means we have been on the hunt for this season's best hand lotion and we found it!
Barefoot Venus Save Our Skin (S.O.S) lotion is a wonderfully rich cream that leaves our skin feeling soft but not greasy. Containing no parabans, it is the combination of macadamia nut oil, sesame seed oil and wheat germ oil that gets the job done. Oh..and the fragrance of Pear Amour is to die for!
Barefoot Venus bath and body products are sold at a variety of boutiques in the Fraser Valley including The Passionate Home, Milsean Shoppe, Winks, La Belle Vie, and Montage Home Style. HINT: they also make a great stocking stuffer!

Malanoma is the mostly commonly diagnosed cancer in people ages 15-29 and it is the 7th most commonly diagnosed cancer overall. As much as we love to soak up the Vitamin D, we can't stress to you enough how important it is to protect your skin from the sun's harmful rays. We know that one of the most common complaints about using sunscreen is how terrible our skin feels with a heavy cream on it. Even the newer spray-on sunscreens leave a nasty film on the skin's surface. Until now.
Normally we would tell you about something a little less mainstream than a big name brand, however, we were so surprised by Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch we just had to share. Never, in all our years of lathering up, have we come across a sunscreen that absorbs into the skin just like a good lotion does. The light-weight, waterproof formula leaves your skin feeling clean; no residue, no filmy layer and no urgent feeling of needing to shower. We love the light coconut scent too - very exotic. After a weekend spent under the harsh Okanagan sun, this Stimulista is a convert.
You can find Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch in the sunscreen section of most pharmacies and grocery stores for just under $10. It's a small price to pay for your health.
Interested in learning more about how to help prevent skin cancers or to sign the Tanning is Out petition? Go to cancer.ca for all the details.

Summer is here! That means time on the beach or by the pool in a swimsuit. That also means that certain personal grooming habits we've let slide over the winter need to be resurrected.
Yes, we're talking about hair removal and more specifically, waxing. Keeping the "surgical field prepped" (thank you Grey's Anatomy) is painful. Dr. Edna Ma knew she wasn't alone in dreading the regular trips to the salon, so she decided to use her years of eduction and experience in anesthesiology to create BareEase & Cream, a kit that will ease the pain that comes with bikini waxing.
With Lidocaine as the main active ingredient, BareEase & Cream will topically numb the area prior to waxing which results in a painless hair removal experience. There are other numbing creams on the market, however, Dr. Ma points out that if you look at the active ingredients you'll notice that it's the same ingredient used in cold sore medications. We love how she likens that to using toothpaste to wash your hands. Doesn't make a lot of sense, right?
Each BareEase & Cream kit contains a latex panty which helps isolate the pain-relieving cream to the desired area while protecting your clothes, a tube of numbing cream and a full instruction pamphlet.
BareEase & Cream is a huge hit with the hollywood celebrity set and readily available at salons across the United States, but we haven't been able to source it here in Canada yet. It is,however, available online at dermastore.com for $25 plus $5.95 shipping to Canada.
If you've seen it somewhere in Canada, post a comment and let us and our readers know where you've found it.
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