Beauty March 20, 2014

Pantene Pro-V Product Launch- Hair is what happened..

Let’s face it, we all love our hair and have tried Pantene Pro-V products at least once before.

I’ve tried many brands of hair products, from the high end to the low end and honestly, I believe in changing up your hair products anywhere from 3-6 months. Whether it is a whole new brand or within the brand.

Just like our face and every other part of our body and lives, everything changes over time. I remember about 8 years ago I had really curly wavy hair. I would wash my hair, air dry and POOF! curls and waves galore! Now it’s different. Air drying gets me minimal volume and waves. Just the natural evolution of hair.

Feb 13th, a day before Valentine’s Day, I was invited to the Pantene Pro-V product launch on King street, downtown Toronto to be pampered. If you’re familiar with Toronto you’ll know this venue. Right across from Shoppers Drug Mart at King & Peter and was used for marketing TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival.

Upon entering, I was approached to have my coat taken and my information. Everyone invited, had registered ahead for an allotted time to be treated to their ‘Pantene Beautiful Hair Bar’ services. The venue had a pristine ambiance. Furniture, tables, counters, make-up station and the waiting lounge were all white, to fit the salon look and feel.

Here’s a vine I made on the day of:

While you wait in the lounge, you’re welcomed to do your nails at the nail bar, help yourself to treats and Starbucks hot drinks; all complimentary.

The lounge:

The blow dry bar was set up with 6 stations and had a featured chalkboard wall, where guests left positive, uplifting notes of their beautiful hair experience.

My hairstylist, talented Matthew Lill from Shagg salon in Yorkville styled my hair.
First, he went through a questionnaire to find out what hair solutions I was looking for and then matched my needs to Pantene products. We both agreed that the Ultimate 10 all in one Pantene line was perfect.

My finished look thanks to Matthew was wavy, bouncy curls, all done with a straightener. I loved the result!

The products I went home with:

I’ve been using these products for about a month now to write an honest review and love them!
Here’s a list of the Ultimate 10‘s solutions:

• Repair for Rough Hair
• Strength Against Damage
• Silky Softness
• Brilliant Shine
• Smoothing
• Moisture
• Frizz Control
• Gentle Cleaning
• Manageability
• Detangling

The only solution I’m unsure about is Frizz Control. However, because of our unforgiving cold weather this winter, I suspect nothing would be able to battle the frizz I had to deal with.

Overall, great event and excellent products.

TOP 7 FRAGRANCE FOR MEN AND WOMEN

Events February 20, 2014

SMW NYC Official VIP Opening Party – Hosted by Nokia

To kick off Social Media Week (SMW) in NYC all insiders were invited to attend the opening party. The SMW reporters and I picked up our insider passes ahead of time and had the privilege of getting a glimpse of the venue, Highline Stages. The venue is so fitting for SMW NYC. It has this loft like layout, with exposed brick and wood features. (The interior designer in me wants to elaborate but I’ll stay on topic.)

7pm and the line-up of people to get into the opening party were already getting antsy. So glad the weather wasn’t too bad. I can’t say the same for the reporters who came all the way from Singapore, India and even New Mexico which at this time is 16°! I have way too many -30° wind chill warnings to compare too.

The SMW NYC Reporters & I:

As soon as you enter Highline Stages you’re welcomed by SMW representatives to sign in and then have your picture taken, emailed, shared to social platforms via 3 available tablets and printed! Picture taking couldn’t have been any more interactive.

Okay, where should I start?! There was an abundance of food everywhere. Vendors like Chipotle had tortilla chips with guacamole, other stations had pretzels, Whole Foods had bread with different spreads, candy and Kyotofu Bakery had lots of gluten free desserts. My favourite was the rich and smooth Miso Brownie. It was an open bar for those who wanted to drink. As some of you know I do own a turn table and enjoy mixing beats here and there. Not to brag or anything, but I can definitely recognize a great DJ. We had DJ Mick turning beats for us.

Poppin’ stationary had set up booth there and were giving away bright colored notebooks a long with pens. They set up a colorful photo booth area with some pretty awesome props! Additionally they had a twitter contest for those who tweeted an image of the freebies a long with their hashtag #Workhappypink (depending on which color of stationary you wanted you’d change pink for blue in the hashtag etc) The winner received a full desktop set from poppin’. Then there was Yelp giving out red sunglasses and sweat bands to spread the social cheer along with other brands that gave out freebies as well.

One of my favourites were the #NokiaPods! Brilliant idea of creating these hideaways from noise to charge your phone or take notes from the events. They worked great as working stations during the week.

If you haven’t checked out SMW NYC, you should make your way there tomorrow and catch the last day!

Events February 15, 2014

Social Media Week: SMW Reporter Competition

I’ve been following social media week ever since I attended my first Social Media Week (SMW) event in Toronto at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Yorkville. If you attend the seminars that can benefit you or the company you work for, than you really leave the event with great ideas and with a fresh outlook of what social media can do for you and where it’s going right now.

If you think about it, it’s a brilliant idea! Everyday there’s something new coming out. There’s so much social noise and no one to set the rules and help you understand it all. People new to social media are either looking the other way or just stunned, like a deer caught in the headlights. SMW brings it altogether in informative seminars, interactive workshops and live feeds.

Roughly 2 weeks ago SMW posted on their site and tweeted an opportunity for Social Media fanatics of the world for a chance to win a week-long adventure. They wanted to see how much you can do with only a few seconds of video on Vine, Instagram or YouTube. Three winners would have a chance to be a #SMWReporter in New York City! Even better, since Nokia is sponsoring SMW NYC, we’ll be bringing you the news with the awesome Nokia 1020. 41MP *drool*

Competing against the whole world I didn’t think I had a chance, but I did it because I enjoyed the challenge. After all, Vine, Instagram and YouTube are supposed to be fun. And that’s it. I had a lot of fun coming up with the story and compiling it together for one submission.

My take was that Social Media is EVERYWHERE. I found it everywhere I went. In the few days that I had, I tweeted different Vines of where I was finding SMW and on the last day put them together to tell the whole story on YouTube. Here’s the story:

UPDATE: I won the competition and I can’t wait to attend SMW NYC!
Check out Nicky Yates post about the SMW Reporter winners: here.

Follow the hashtag #SMWReporter on Twitter, Vine & Instagram to keep up with our live updates from the event. Those of you who are attending, see you there!

Follow up video of SMW 2014: