grocery store wars

My friend Elizabeth's 6 year old son told me about this earlier tonight. A great educational tool about organic farming that is very funny. Enjoy!

bonus time

I've been a loyal Clinique customer for a couple of years now. I was lured in by their perfume 'Happy' after trying it a duty free shop while traveling to the Dominican Republic 3 years ago. Steve gave me some for Christmas that year and it became my perfume of choice. When it was time to replace the first bottle I discovered and incredible phenomenon. Clinique Bonus Time! At several times during the years at Sears and Holt Renfrew stores in Canada, when you purchase a minimum dollar amount of Clinique product, you receive a handful of samples sizes of other Clinique product in a lovely cosmetic bag. Quite often, one of the freebies is a full size lipstick. That alone retails at about $18. Clever marketing! They suck you in with the bonus, you try the sample products, and then you buy them. I went from just the perfume to the the make up remover, toner, cleanser, eye cream and moisturizer. Up until that point, I was strictly a drug store brand customer. I could not justify $30 for moisturizer when I could get something at Shoppers Drug Mart for $10. But the Clinique people "had me at hello."

So I received a flyer from Holt Renfrew a couple of days ago advertising the latest Clinique bonus. It just so happens that I am almost out of moisturizer. So I surfed on over to Skin Deep to check the ratings on my current products. The news was very bad. I won't go into the details. Let's just say that I likely will never be enjoying Clinique Bonus Time again. While this does make me a bit sad as a woman who is a bit addicted to shopping for cosmetics (even though I don't actually wear a lot of makeup), I am happy that I am now purchasing choices that are healthier for me.

So I paid a visit to Goodness Me! This small chain of natural food stores recently opened up a location in Burlington, where I live. I was blown away not only by the selection of products, but also the price. Most items where comparable in price to drug store brands and much less than department store brands. I picked up a moisturizer from Alba Botanica and a powder from Ecco Bella. The specific products I bought are not listed on the Skin Deep site but the companies rate way better than Clinique so I figure that's a good start. I'll give a full report once I've had a chance to test them out.

new look

I had to change the look of the blog. I was finding the previous style a little tough on the eyes.