Withdrawal, Graduation and Meeting Joyce!

Hi everyone! ❤

I thought a little update on everything would be nice since I haven't blogged in so long...

For a few months now, I've been in the process of changing epilepsy medications and gradually introducing a new medications. Since I had been taking the old one for years, the process had to be done very slowly and had to be monitored. Not going to lie, it wasn't easy but I am much happier now on the new medication. I've lost a considerable amount a weight as a result of the withdrawal and some other minor side effects but I am much happier now in regards of my health!

I lost over 10 pounds in this process. 

*disclaimer disclaimer*

 this weight loss was a side effect, not something I wanted. I was happy with my body,

 still am. I ate like a pig and still pig ;) blablabla

Since we are on the topic of happiness, I FUCKING FINALLY GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE. Some of you might remember that last year, I wasn't able to graduate. I went back to school anyway, worked hard and now I can finally be in University full time. I already got in at UdeM for East Asian Studies and History.

Finally, a few weeks ago, I met Joyce from Sparkly Playground! Joyce is in Montreal for her dream job but since she's far from home, I thought it might be fun to cook breakfast for her since she has probably been eating hotel food for a while. We had brunch at my place and of course, had to take some photobooth picture together :)

Finally, some changes are coming to the look of this blog so please bare with how it looks like right now. :)

So that's pretty much it for my life and blog update!

I'm leaving for Toronto in 2 days for Anime North! If any of you are doing, let me know, I would love to meet you!!

Ragequit

So I ragequitted my hair last week... well not quite. I didn't shave or drastically cut my hair. I'm too much of a whimp to ever do something like that... But we went to the Polar Bears Club Spa with Dominique to celebrate our birthdays and my hair turned an icky grey/white/purple colour from all the baths action! It was horrifying, considering I had touched up the colour the week prior!

I realized that I was always dying my hair, pretty much every two weeks, or less! Gurl, ain't nobody got time for that! I also had 200$ worth of Headkandy pink extensions, in very good condition sitting in box that had barely been used... so I decided to dye my hair back to pink. I just had enough of the constant hair dying!

Instead of going to a salon to get the rest of of my hair bleaching, I  decided to do it at home, using vol 20 peroxide and blue powder bleach. I had my father help me apply the bleach to the back of my head (isn't my father super awesome? It was his first time and he did an amazing job! He was so proud!) and only left the bleach on for only 13 minutes.

Once the purple was out, I WAS SO HAPPY! I have to admit, I was tempted to leave my hair blonde/white... but then I thought...

200$ EXTENSIONS, CUSTOM DYED PINK, IN A BOX, NOT BEING USED! 200$ EXTENSIONS, IN A BOX!!! NOT BEING USED!!!!

Soooooo.

I dyed it back to pink.

:D

Blogger's block + looking for some help

I never thought I would hit this but I have hit an inspiration block: I don't know what to blog about these days. I've been wanting to revamp this blog for a while now but oddly enough, everyone I've contacted has let me down.

Seriously, what's the point of having a portfolio and a website showing off all the blog revamps you've done if you cut the line of communication after 2 weeks... rather rude... plus one of them has been updating their blog so I feel like an idiot inquiring for their services... Good thing I haven't paid them yet, AH!!

In any cases, while I go recharge and rethink of what direction I want this blog to take, if any of you or one of your acquaintances has knowledge and experience in blog revamping, please contact me by email at write2shmuberry@gmail.com ! I would definitely be interested in working with you!! :D

Only requirement: reply to my emails ( come on, I don't even send a lot, maybe 1 or 2 a week...)

Your sacrifice will not have been in vain

Do you have siblings? I have two brothers. You've seen my older brother Etienne in my travel pictures in Korea but I've never really talked about my younger brother. I love my younger brother but he has a terrible, terrible attitude sometimes. Most of the time, he's 21 going on 16. Picture that high school kid, who's loud and oblivious in the bus making a ruckus and bothering everyone with his equally loud and oblivious friends.That's my brother. Except he's of legal drinking age and can drive. Soooooooooo that's just great.

My younger brother and I are polar opposites. I like a quiet and peaceful home whenever our parents are away and he sees an opportunity for hangouts, booze and drugs. Soooooooooo that's also just great.

But what kills me, sometimes I think my brother skipped that line when they were giving out empathy. My brother has been back from a ski trip for 3 days now and his luggage has been in the dining room ever since. In order to do to the kitchen, you kinda have to go through to the dining room so it's in the way. And being oblivious, he not only left it there, but also left it there opened. And we're not talking teeny tiny luggage, we're talking HUGE ASS SKI TRIP luggage.

I didn't say anything about it but I just literally RIPPED MY WHOLE TOENAIL OFF FROM HIS STUPID LUGGAGE that has been there for THREE FUCKING WHOLE DAYS.

So here I am, missing a toenail. And it's bleeding. And I hate blood. And I'm thinking: " Oh hell no. Your sacrifice will not have been in vain. He will learn from this, he will learn pain. MY PAIN"

So I call him up, still sobbing;

" 'Ssup"

"I just ripped my entire toenail on your luggage and it's bleeding every where."

" K. Well it's not my fault. Bye"

...

Sooooooo going back to that part where my brother has no empathy. Yep. BUT one of his friends, Simon, has some. A little bit. In fact. of all his douchy friends, he's the only one I like. So instead, I'm hoping Simon was around when I called him. Since my brother couldn't even say " Oh my, I'm sorry, I should have cleaned it up earlier, are you gonna be ok?" I imagined the following post phone call conversation to make myself feel better;

" Wtf my sister is weird"

" What's up "

" She just called me to tell me she ripped her toenail on my luggage."

" Ouch that hurts man, happened to me once. How did it happen?"

" Iunno man, don't care."

" Whad'ya mean? Wasn't she snooping in your room?"

" No, the luggage was in the dining room. "

" Wait, you left your shit there since you got back?"

" Yeah. So what?"

" Come bro... that's kinda your fault if she ripped her toenail. Clean up your shit man."

" Are you serious? "

" Dude, do you know how painful it is to lose a toenail? I'm dead serious man." 

So now I feel a bit better. Thank you Simon for making my brother a bit less of a jerk by being nice... at least in my head. And now, I'm gonna go tend of my ripped toenail.

DAT DRESS

A few weeks ago, Mitsu from Universal Doll was selling some items from her Liz Lisa Fukubukuro. It was a steal because, DUH AND/OR HELLO, Liz Lisa!!!  and her price was so extremely reasonable that I went crazy on Twitter to buy it!

@miss_mitsu I'LL TAKE THE DRESS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
— Marie Frédérique (@shmuberry) January 11, 2013

I'm just so happy right now, this dress is so feminine and cute! It is a bit cold to wear it right now but I can't wait to wear it out. To top it off, Mitsu added a pair of her favourite lashes and a sweet card! <3

My friend Julia asked me on Twitter what were my favourite Lush products... honestly, 180 characters are not enough to talk about my favourite products considering how Lush crazy I am!

Why I love Lush so much?

I could tell you about all that amazing vegan and eco-friendly stuff that have going on... but you already know that. The reason why I like their products so much is because the fragrances are nice. Simple as that. I'm also REALLY picky about customer service and there's nothing more annoying then a pushy sales person; every time I walk into Lush and ask for help, I feel like I'm hanging out with my best friend and just talking about beauty products. It's silly, but it's extremely important to me!

Bubble bars

Lush is really popular for their bath bombs but I'm really into their bubble bars! I like to take bubble baths while watching Netflix in my iPad! Bath bombs are a one time use kind of products whereas bubble bars, you don't have to put the whole bar at once. Protip: I like to use a pair of scissors to cut a bit of product every time I want to take a bath! My favourites are; The Comforter, Blue Skies & Fluffy White Clouds, Superstar (unavailable?) Candy Mountain (available during the holidays) and Christmas Eve (available during the holidays).

The Comforter and Blue Skies & Fluffy White Clouds (pictures from Lush.ca)

Massage bars

I mentioned before that my left arm is weird and how I have to constantly massage it so it doesn't hurt as much. I like to use their massage bars for that: helps relieve pain in my muscles AND smells so nice. Boyfriend associate their scent to me as I use them instead of perfurme! My favourites are; Shimmy Shimmy ( but I wished their also made a non glitter version of this one! ), Hottie and Tender Is The Heart.

Tender Is The Heart (picture from Lush.ca)

Hair & Others

Daddyo? Daddyo. Daddyo! You have blonde hair? Use this. You have crazy funky hair colour and you hate it when your bleached yellow tones start peaking through? Use this. That is all. Daddyo. Dry lips (damn you winter)... Mint Julips to the rescue! Given you could probably find a DIY version on this product online, I like how this tastes like mint instead of Olive oil...plus you can eat it once you're done scrubbing your lips!

Daddyo and Mint Julips (pictures from Lush.ca)

I've also just received other products so I don't have an opinion on those yet but I'm looking forward to trying out their solids soaps; Snowcake, Mr Punch, Queen of Hearts and Snow Globe (available during the holidays)!

Snowcake and Mr Punch (pictures from Lush.ca)

What are some of your favourite Lush products? I'm always looking to try different products :)

Lilac Dream

I'm not going to lie, going lilac was a bold and ambitious move. I had grown attached to my pink hair but realised that I was ready for something else... besides, every other day, someone would come up to me and tell me about some other girl's pink hair they saw....

At the end of November, I asked Noah from Paris Coiffure to bleach my hair as white as possible; we both thought it was going to be easy but we were so wrong! Given I had been dying my hair pink for a year, we knew there was going to be a lot of colour deposit but we didn't know how stained my hair was! In the end, there was still some pink left but after some toner, it was faded and would be barely noticeable under a purple colour.

after the bleach: still a bit pink.

I was in a hurry to dye my hair: I didn't want to have pink/silver ish hair so I used Manic Panic Ultra Violet since my La Riche Directions' hadn't arrived yet. It really helped kill some of the pink that was left in my hair and gave it a nice lavender shade!

using Ultra Violet: I was hospitalized later that day for the crazy rash you can see on my face and arms :(

The color was nice but I wasn't quite what I was aiming for: too pink, not lilac enough so when the La Riche Direction dyes arrived, I dyed my hair again, this time using a whole jar of Lilac!

using Lilac: uneven due my hair not being white everywhere, but still quite nice!

I then realized how painfully hard it was to maintain purple hair: pink hair was a breeze when I look back! With pink hair, I would go at least 4 weeks without touching up my colour because it was fading and uneven. With purple hair, I can't go beyond 3 weeks because by week 3, the colour is extremely faded and uneven! So I decided to use La Riche Directions in Violet and added some Manic Panic in Shocking Blue and the result was really nice! A bit dark but if there is one thing that's true for all funky hair colours: IT WILL FADE!

very dark and even! Guaranteed to last longer!! :D

11 days later, it was still looked A-MA-ZING for New Year's Eve!

SSSSUUUUPPPP

In the end, lilac hair is a lot more challenging compared to pink hair and I will definitely be blogging more extensively about it once I'm done experimenting with dyes and ratios. Which shade do you like the most?  :)