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~~Time to Celebrate Your Body!~~

How to Walk the Walk

Skin Talk Diagnostic
“The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.” ^Anonymous

I quickly found that the most essential ingredient to the perfect day at the spa is when the moisturizing and exfoliating products used were designed for your skin type; which is not necessarily the same products designed for the Angelina Jolies and Penelope Cruzs. Our skin types are different, that should be a no-brainer; but have you found the right ingredient composition for yourself?

Up until this point, I would have said I have “combination skin,” though it was always hard to express exactly what all of my difficult areas were in a way that anyone selling cleansers and moisturizers could understand.

First, I had started out with what Mom used for ages, but quickly found that it wasn’t for me; so that had left me searching for the next “best thing.” And believe it or not, it’s really difficult to determine merely by the sparkly translucent labeling if the regular unscented day cream for $50 will work better for you than the sensitive combination variety at half the price.

That is, until you read the label; but even then, if you like what you see and try it, you’re not guaranteed to enjoy the result.

I’ve also found that drug store estheticians aren’t always helpful either. They may be great individuals, thoroughly dedicated in helping you find that super product that will fulfill all your hopes and dreams of day creams, but they’re not psychic (or at least, 99 times out of 100 they’ll most likely not profess to be clairvoyant) and without this sixth sense, eyeballing your skin type will not conclusively help you find your specific daily protection and enhancement requirements.

It also gets a little tricky because our skin types change over time due to several factors; your “simple”, ever-changing hormones can play havoc with your skin. Remember that first time you wound up with ridiculous cravings and hormonal imbalances that left your loved ones guessing and even occasionally hiding? And whether you smoke, drink and/or exercise can be detrimental to the health of your skin.

While these internal factors may be something to be concerned over, there are also the external factors too; such as whether you apply an SPF cream on a daily basis to combat harmful UV rays, or the type of atmospheric contaminants you’re constantly breathing in.

So, you’re stuck with certain internal and external conditions that would invariably mean that what’s working for you now, might not work just as well three months later!

Luckily for those in or around the GTA, Dove Spa has made great strides in taking out the guess work for us, by implementing four diagnostic gadgets that measure the oil, water, elasticity and pigmentation levels in your skin.

So despite all of these harrowing factors, Dove manages to provide a complimentary Skin Talk Diagnostic as a baseline for where to start your better treatment of your skin. With this quick and painless seasonal assessment, you can map out and keep track of your skin’s development towards an even healthier looking you.

Remember that the summer sun kissed oily you is not the same you that we’re all gifted with during the dry winter season, (and we wouldn’t have it any other way!) Which means that this analysis is something I would try to take advantage of four times a year (once per season) to get a better understanding of the skin you live with and love.

It’s also good to remember that with this information in hand, the Dove Spa skin care specialists will determine what would be the best products to use on your skin specifically on that day for your facial! With the guess work gone, you’re on a better path to healthier skin.

After the quick assessment, Rachael (my skin care specialist and goddess of foot care – more on that later!) was able to pick out the best products to use for my upcoming facial… keep an eye out, for this post is coming soon!

Where to find Dove Spa online:
Find Dove Spa on Facebook and Tweet with them on Twitter!

Are You Okay Annie?

It comes to a complete shock for so many fans of old that Michael Jackson passed away today, especially since most of us were already trying to digest the news of Farrah Fawcett passing away earlier in the day as well.  Two generational iconic figures passing away from two completely different situations is a little hard to bear if you spent a vast amount of your youth idolizing them.

Of course, this brought up Michael’s more recent sordid tales again.  And some had speculated that he was just ”faking it” on the ambulance ride over to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles in hopes of not doing the upcoming tour; a tour in which a 5 hour exam earlier this year had announced him completely fit to undertake.

With this news, I can’t help but think of all the times I had fun because of his musical talents.  I still clearly remember dancing carefree in a friend’s basement to songs like Thriller, Bad and Billie Jean; and this is a memory that will last always.

Right now on Blip.fm probably 80% of the songs are from Jackson’s greatest hits.

What fond memories do you have of the King of Pop?

No Longer Just Your Mom’s Bar of Soap

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. . . and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.” ^{Miss Piggy}

As a now six-months-to-thirty year old, I’ve been idly watching Dove make progress over the years in their refreshing attempt of enhancing self-esteem in girls of all ages.

I was just starting out at college the first time I noticed the Dove campaign; the local drugstore had pamphlets near their soap products for free t-shirts with purchase. If I remember correctly, I had sent away the store receipt with proof of purchase for two different products and soon received a plain white and really soft cotton tee in the mail, stating “EveryBODY has a best feature”. It became my well loved comfort-shirt for several years.

I believe that was the infancy of what is now the Doves Self-Esteem Fund: Campaign for Real Beauty; a fund that is striving to reach out to 5 million girls by 2010 to convince them that they’re already beautiful naturally.

Last month, I had written a short article of Dove Spa’s grand opening in Toronto, something that I had long anticipated when I had first heard about their North American expansion to Oakville (the first Dove Spa in North America after opening 40 locations around the UK). I had a really great experience and I knew I’d go there again soon.

Turns out, I didn’t have to wait very long at all for that next time! Soon after publishing my article online, I was contacted by Dove Spa and asked if I wanted to try something more. I answered, “Yes!” of course, and a few weeks later I found myself at their Oakville location, enjoying a four hour treatment experience that I’m going to share with you now.

When I had arrived, I was introduced to Oakville’s Spa Director Silvana who showed me where to change from my street clothes into a plush-white robe and slippers. Their locker system is fairly easy to use, with no key to worry about holding onto while you walk around the spa. I was left to dump my clothes, shoes and purse into the locker (and locked it by creating my own 4-digit pin number on the key pad), then I travelled the short distance of five feet to the lounge while I waited for the personal skin care expert to find me…

Stay tuned so that I can tell you all about it!

In the meantime, if you want to find out more about Dove Spa for your own *exciting* experience:
Find Dove Spa on Facebook
or Tweet with them on Twitter!

If you’re an AMEX card holder then you’re one step ahead of me, as you can book your reservations two days earlier (June 16th & 17th) for this year’s Summerlicious!

What is Summerlicious?

It’s just like Winterlicious, only now it’s in the Summer!

If you didn’t get enough of President’s Choice 1000 Tastes over the final weekend of Luminato ($5 an item/plate food offerings from some of Toronto’s finest restaurants); you now have a chance to try a three course prix fixe (fixed price) meal from $15 to $45 per person at one (or more) of Toronto’s 150 participating restaurants.

These delicious fares are available at both Lunch for $15, $20 or $30 and Dinner for $25, $35 or $45 depending on location.

So Which Restaurants Are Participating?

Well Spring Rolls isn’t…

But if you’d like to check out the 150 participating restaurants, you can find them on City of Toronto’s website. If you look to the upper left sidebar “Special Events”, you’ll see a wide assortment of search parameters to hopefully make your selections easier to find.

Yeah, What are You Going to Try?

Mmm… good question!

I’m definitely aiming for Alice Fazooli’s Italian Grill, seeing as I have a $50 gift certificate lying around here somewhere… and seeing as how I’m a sucker for sushi, I was going to say I’d try Gossip Restaurant, but I hadn’t found anything sushi-wise in their menu, hmm…

Follow @spotlightcity for as in depth as 140 characters coverage allows on Summerlicious participating restaurants.

Which restaurants interest you?

Cirque du Soleil’s event was well underway at 7PM last night! According to Luminato’s website, CdS has two camps (opposites in every way) that will merge together as one large group by Sunday night.

We were wondering about what they could mean about “opposites”; my best guess is that one looks more in tune with nature, whereas the other band looks more materialistic. I guess time and the Cirque will tell over the weekend!

This weekend is Luminato’s big finale, be sure to check it out!

Here are some photos from last night:

Or, my head iz pasted on yayz!

City Hall has recently published a new Fun Guide for its residents. This bi-annual publication is a directory of sorts, illustrating all the fun activities that people of all ages can go out and try, like: sports clubs, museums, arts & crafts, day camps, etc.

Now I hope you’ll say yes right from the beginning, but do you see anything wrong with this picture?

No?! Okay, well how about when it’s compared to this one?

I know a photoshop college instructor who would have had a field day marking up this “enhancement” on all the wrong ways to paste on someone’s head (ie. lighting, saturation, crop marks, etc), but that’s not the point.

WHY in what has been reputed (mostly by Mayor Miller and City Hall) as the most diverse city in the world would we have to resort to photoshopping a man’s head onto another body to make us look diverse? What kind of fake sentimentality are we trying to play at?

I’ve got wedding photos taken in Toronto that would clearly show a diverse culture, and I know I’m not the only one. I would just have to look at my facebook profile to find many more.

And you know what? I know that you’re all saying, “Me too!”

I’m wondering if they ever saw this photo during their momentous quest in search of the illusive diversity…

It’s not like Toronto is short of photographers either! Look up Craig’s List and you’ll find hundreds of photography listings. In fact, I got a few on Twitter and another on Facebook who probably already have what you’re looking for in their portfolio.

And you know what? I know that you’re all saying, “Me too!”

Is it just a Fun Guide? Should we not be all worked up over such a stunt?

I’m going to say no, because this “Fun Guide” is used by our residents of Toronto (new and old), so what kind of message are you trying to portray here?

• That even though your city is too lazy to do the “hard” work, go out there and exercise!
• Toronto *swears* the city is diverse, *honest*!
• City Hall is just so busy, they couldn’t find the right image of the best looking Toronto family having fun in time of printing!

I could go on…

And here’s another question, WHY did it have to look diverse in the first place? The Original Daddy looked like he was having fun, so what was wrong with him?

Alright, weigh in with your thoughts!

Some would say, “Are you all that shocked?” And I guess I would be one of those some.

This past Saturday, under the Luminato Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity umbrella, the city grandly attempted to beat a Guinness World Record for most guitarists playing one song together. And for not much more than word-of-mouth promotion, the TdOt didn’t do too badly.

Toronto had wound up filling Yonge-Dundas Square with 1623 guitarists of all ages, but unfortunately Germany remains as the reigning champion for the Guinness title with 1802 guitarists playing “Smoke on the Water” together in 2007.

As a consolation, we did create a national record if not world.

Call it a believer in superstition if you will, but honestly, having a band called The Heartbroken playing a song called Helpless and hoping for a great outcome was a little bit of Canadiana Irony. It’s right up there with Canada’s darling Morissette and her ironically misjudged song “Ironic”.

Not that The Heartbroken did a bad job; I enjoyed their time on stage and am interested in hearing more from them, but…

Where Did We Go Wrong?
Word-of-mouth is great an’ all, but try a couple of commercials or ad boards sometime. I personally hadn’t heard about the event until a couple days beforehand; and although I did my part in promoting, it just wasn’t enough time to prepare.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen random Luminato commercials on TV, but promoting some specific events instead of merely the L’Oreal sponsorship would be a great way to get people interested.

For instance, did you know that Cirque de Soleil will be performing by the waterfront next weekend? Wouldn’t that be an incredible sight to see? Or that top chefs in Toronto are running an outdoor Bar-b-Q lunch at $5 an item during the same time? Well, now you know about it, go!

Baby, One More Time
Hopefully, this wasn’t a one-off. With enough promotion, I believe next year we could pull together the right amount of string to break this record. And I vote for Taking Care of Business, ‘cause that’s what the villagers of the TdOt do.

And if they choose to switch the instrument to bongos, I’m so there!

A Little Less Conversation a Little More Action
Alright, listen up peeps! I want to know what events you’ve seen or are planning to attend this coming week as part of the Luminato festival.

And what’s your favourite bit of Canadiana Irony; we’re a funny group of peeps, so you’ve gotta have something!

Want to see articles from past months?
View the Past Issue Archive

#FollowFriday / #FF

If you’re new to twitter and not particularly tech inclined, the hashtag (#) entries can be a bit confusing at first. Hashtagging is used in a way to link like-minded entries together. For instance, using the hashtag #StarTrek will allow people who are looking for opinions on the latest movie a way to see all twittering thoughts of Star Trek (2009) within one search page.

Mid January 2009, Micah Baldwin said “let there be Follow Fridays” and it was so; with the hashtag #FollowFriday being conceived not that much later.

Unfortunately, it has been quite a nuisance ever since.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the concept of introducing new people/twits to your followers; I’ve even played the game myself a few times. What I find bothersome is when the same twit uses #FollowFriday and the next hour to list every person known on their extensive followers list to “introduce” them to each other.

That there, is a useless waste of bandwidth my friends.

I would like to encourage the use of #FollowFriday, if done so sparingly. Pick a few names that you’ve seen or @Replied to recently and actually introduce them to your fellow twits. That was, believe it or not, the original concept. What Micah Baldwin really said was, “I am starting Follow Fridays. Every Friday, suggest a person to follow, and everyone follow him/her. Today its @fancyjeffrey & @w1redone.” So, with only two characters to spare, Baldwin created a socialable meme that has spread globally over a mere few months time.

This meme has become so popular that there is now a #FollowFriday program designed by The Twitter Tag Project that will give you suggestions on who to introduce.

But, don’t be lazy on this. There is a lot to be said about a twitter name, but would it be too much to add a short blurb to go along with it?

Something like, “#FollowFriday I’d like you to meet @Shrek, he’s currently writing a vegan cookbook!” would go a long way.

Writing only one of these type of intros every Friday, instead of craming as many names as possible into one entry, would be much more beneficial; not only to the person your introducing, but also to your followers. They will actually get a tidbit as to why they may want to research this fellow twit further.

The New F-Bomb

Being bombarded by dozens of cramped #FF entries weeky is bound to make anyone go crosseyed. It actually gets to the point where if I see the words #FollowFriday followed by ten @ signs in one entry, I just skip it without much thought.

Do you #FollowFriday? Or do you automatically ignore any entry on friday that begins with “#F…”?