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Roxymandy January 15, 2014

Our Review of a Wine Tour with Crush on Niagara

Colaneri Estate Winery

I used to be more of a wine-hater than a wine-lover. I would drink it at parties and events, but would find a way to somehow lose the glass so no one would notice I didn’t finish it!

I didn’t really find my love for wine until I went on my first wine tour. Each winery I visited would ask me questions like, what was my regular drink of choice? Or, what did I like better – something fruity or something very dry? By the time I was finished the day I knew exactly what wines I liked, and which wines I should stay away from because they weren’t for me.

Since that first time we have done many different trips to Niagara wineries either on our own by driving from winery to winery, or with a company named Crush on Niagara.

Crush has a list of tours they offer which include transportation, tours and tastings at a selection of wineries. Some tours offer lunch as well. We tried three different Crush tours and all of them were amazing! The guides were always very knowledgeable, and at each winery we visited we were taken care of immediately like we were VIP’s.

The best part about taking a wine tour versus touring on your own is that you have a DD! It’s no fun to have one person not be able to experience the tastings, so having someone drive you around for an afternoon and to make sure you are taken care of at each winery right away is very valuable.

After sampling a few tours we decided to book our own private tour for the first time, Crush offers the opportunity to book private tours by contacting the company directly to make arrangements. Because we had done so many tours with Crush previously and have also visited many wineries on our own, we arranged to have a few wineries in mind to visit, and along the way we agreed to have the driver suggest a few we may want to visit.

The day of the tour we were picked up in one of the Crush Land Rovers which was great because it was a very comfortable ride! Our guide actually ended up being a driver we had previously which was great because he was very knowledgeable about the regions wineries.

The Crush Land Rover

This tour was one of the best yet since we were able to do exactly what we wanted. We visited some wineries we always wanted to, plus our driver took us to wineries we had no idea even existed.

We spent four hours traveling around Niagara on the Lake, Vineland and Beamsville and were safely picked up and dropped off at our hotel in Niagara Falls. We also were able to spend our time at the wineries doing tastings and looking around on our own instead of doing introductory tours which are often included on a regularly-arranged wine tour. On our first tour it was very interesting to learn about the wine making process, but it’s not as fun to go through the same lesson with each tour. On the private tour we didn’t need to worry about who’s was a first timer on the tour and needed to hear that sort of information, which was nice.

For an introduction to Niagara on the Lake wineries I would recommend contacting Crush to arrange a tour and get an idea of what sort of wines they have to offer. Once you are a bit more familiar with the area, I would recommend booking a private tour like we did so you can go where you want, or you could venture out on your own to wineries you are interested in. Here are a few of our favourites:

Megalomaniac is our favourite winery, not only because of the wines, but the winery itself. It’s situated on a high hill with an amazing view of the lake. The winey has a large set of gates that lead to a door that takes you inside the hill to this underground winery. It’s really amazing to see, and it helps that their Riesling is amazing.

www.megalomaniacwine.com

Vineland Estates Winery is very picturesque and even has a market with cheeses and food to pair with your wine, plus a restaurant on site. We have found the staff to be very nice here, and during our tastings they let us try a few wines that weren’t on the regular tasting menu. They even have a special Girls Just Want to Have Fun deal where for $15 per person you will receive a wine and cocktail tasting, which finishes with some chocolate and a shot. What’s not to love about that!

http://vineland.com

Between the Lines Winery is one of the smallest wineries in Niagara, but it is where we made the most purchases on our latest trip. Normally we don’t like blended wine, but we made an exception and trusted them with a tasting, and we made sure we left with a bottle.

www.betweenthelineswinery.com

A relatively new spot is Colaneri Winery. It was built to look like it belongs in Italy instead of Niagara, and in the summer they have a wood-burning pizza oven outside with live music. Although the winery itself is something to see, they have a large number of wines they produce and each label represents a family member and has a story behind it.

www.colaneriwines.com

: Colaneri Estate Winery

Creekside Estate Winery is a place I will never forget because the person who hosted our tasting had me try practically every wine they had until I finally found the first wine I liked! They take customer service pretty seriously there, and their Cabernet Rose was the big winner for me.

www.creeksidewine.com

For more information on booking a wine tour in Niagara and the surround area, contact Crush on Niagara. www.crushtours.com

Roxymandy January 14, 2014

Review of Benefit Cosmetic’s They’re Real! Mascara

I have to admit – sometimes I buy products just because of the packaging. Benefit Cosmetic’s gets me every time because I think their packaging is genius. Who wouldn’t want to buy a set of products called How to Look Best at Everything, or Primping with the Stars? It’s all so clever and cute that I find myself pulled to the Benefit section at Sephora and Shoppers Drug Mart.

The one thing I am always buying is mascara. I honestly think I have tried them all. Ultimately my goal is for my lashes to be as long and curled as possible without wearing fakes. I’m also that girl who has a mascara for a year instead of 2-3 months like the experts say the shelf life should be.

When I saw Benefit’s They’re Real! Mascara I of course laughed to myself because the first thing I thought of was, well you know what women are usually judging if they are real or not. The packaging had all kinds of research results on it too which you don’t usually find on mascara so I was intrigued.

I splurged the $29 for the mascara and gave it a try at home. The first try didn’t go super well because I am the worst for cleaning my lashes. I always have second day mascara, and because I didn’t want to wait to try this one I had a bit of a disaster on my hands. This mascara loves clean lashes, so if there is anything on your lashes already then you are just looking for a mess. Because it separates and lengthens the bristles are very concentrated, so I just ended up making a lumpy mess. Fast forward to 20 minutes later after trying again with clean lashes and my life was changed – this mascara was amazing! It separated my lashes like I had never seen. It was like I had lashes where I didn’t know I had lashes! The more coats I put on the longer and more separated my lashes became.

I think the only set back I found with the application is that it didn’t make my lashes as thick as I wanted. I actually paired another mascara on top to add some volume, and then used the Benefit mascara again to get rid of any clumps.

For second day use you really need to have totally clean lashes for this stuff to work, so I either go through the trouble of actually removing my eye makeup from yesterday (this happens from time to time), or I skip a day with it. Wow does this stuff stay on! You really need a good makeup remover to take it off your lashes because it’s not going anywhere otherwise.

It only comes in jet-black which works for me, and the brush allows you to go vertical or horizontal because of how the bristles are designed which is nice.

As for the research results I mentioned, Benefit claims that in a consumer panel survey, the following results were reported:
– 94% saw dramatic length and volume
– 90% saw base-to-tip curl
– 94% saw visible lift
-100% saw long-wearing results

I think I could agree with all of these results except for the curl part. Sometimes I saw some curl, and sometimes I couldn’t get it. I think it depends on how skilled you are with the brush.

As I mentioned before normally I have a mascara for about a year because I have so many, but because I use this one so much it really only lasts me about 3 months. For me that’s a bit of a splurge since I’m not used to spending that much on mascara that often, but when I don’t have it my lashes seem a little depressed. And I don’t want to see anything on my face looking depressed.

Photo #1 courtesy of www.benefitcosmetics.com, photo #2 courtesy of www.sephora.ca

Roxymandy January 7, 2014

Where to Shop – baby Gap’s Collaboration with Paddington Bear

Gap has announced that this January they will be launching a collaboration with Paddington Bear for Baby Gap.

It will be a limited edition collection of clothing and gifts inspired by the bear. In 2014 the Paddington Bear movie will be released as well with my British crush Colin Firth as the bear’s voice.

The collection will have 36 pieces in total, and will run up to size 24 months. The one piece I will need to get my hands on is the classic toggle jacket which mirrors the one Paddington wears, which will go for $50 USD.

The collection includes onesies and classic yellow rain boots as well. I snagged some photos below of some other pieces in the collection which have already been launched in Europe.

Photo #1 and #2 courtesy of Paddington.com, Photo #3, 4, and 5 courtesy of gap.eu

Roxymandy January 6, 2014

My Review of Ojon’s Dry Recovery Revitalizing Moisture Mist

I tend to neglect my hair. I’ve always been a lover of shampoo that smells good and is on sale instead of purchasing based on the actual needs of my strands. I am really cheap when it comes to buying new pairs of socks that match, and my hair care. I’m starting to take better care of my hair (I’ve moved up from Herbal Essances to Joico!), but my socks remain mismatched and full of holes. It’s my Achilles heel.

Anyway, back to hair! I’ve heard good things from people about Ojon’s (how do you pronounce that?) Dry Recovery Revitalizing Moisture Mist, and I had a gift card to Sephora so I thought I’d give it a try. Normally I stick to shampoo, conditioner, and a bit of Moroccan Oil with each blow dry. What I liked about the Moisture Mist is that you can spray it in while your hair is damp, or you can even spray it on while your hair is dry!

It retails at Sephora for $29 which for me is a little steep considering how I feel about spending cash on my hair, but with all of the flat ironing and curling I did this holiday season I figured it was worth the extra cost to repair some damage.

I was able to check the smell of the spray right in the store because you could spray it on your hair dry, and it had a pretty light scent that I liked. The first time I used it, it was on my damp hair before a blow dry and I didn’t really see a difference, and the next day I used it on my dry hair and still didn’t see much going on.

At the end of my first week of using it (both on dry hair and damp hair) I couldn’t believe what a difference it made! I only sprayed it on my hair below the roots just in case there was build-up, but it didn’t make my hair look or feel greasy at all. My hair felt so much better, and actually looked healthier! My hair felt a lot less dry, and it looked less damaged at the ends. I really didn’t expect to see these results after only a week.

My new routine with it is I use it on my damp hair before a blow dry, and on my second day hair I spray my ends after straightening. There really seems to be some recovery going on which I love, and it seems like the bottle will last a long time so the cost was worth it.

The spray is also supposed to detangle hair, and tame frizz and flyaways, and I have noticed that it’s doing all of those things for me as well. The spray claims that in research results that the study found that it improved the ease of combing by 66% (after paired with Ojon’s shampoo and conditioner) – I found it to be a great detangler, but I’m shocked they could not release any study results on it’s ability to hydrate because I had such amazing results!

Photo courtesy of Sephora.com

Roxymandy December 30, 2013

Where to Shop – NYE Outfits

Zara Sequinned Top – $35.99

This is the best time of year to do some online shopping with all of the after-Christmas deals out there, and the best excuse for purchasing something (an excuse is something I often do not require!) is New Year`s Eve. It seems appropriate to start the New Year with something new, even if you are doing something casual like staying in. Here are a few of my favourite pieces I found while scowering the internet for something to buy!