Living raw bliss at Organic Lives

I’ve wanted to visit Organic Lives for a long time and especially since food blogger Mijune Pak highly recommended their Coconut Cream Pie… after all, Organic Lives is said to be the city’s best raw vegan restaurant, and desserts recommended by non-vegans are all good in my book.

The main location is at Quebec Street and 2nd Avenue, but I planned out my Chinese New Year to eat with company downtown, so ventured to the brand-spanking new location at the Chopra Yoga Centre on Granville of Hastings.

At the downtown location, it’s more of a take and go. There are seats, but no tables, so unless you’re having a quick bite, it’s probably best to take your meal with you. I ordered the Pecan Sushi, Pad Thai, and Ridiculous dessert to share with my sister. The menu is definitely more limited than the main location’s, but some of the selections are the same. The counterperson was still getting used to the computer payment system and the order took about 10 minutes to make, but good god, was it worth the wait! I wasn’t even going to take photos, but I had to show you how beautiful this stuff looks, even in to-go boxes. Great photos is one reason why people should convert to vegetarianism!

Pecan Sushi: Pecans, alfalfa, cucumber, carrots, mango, tomato, seaweed, wasabi 

There was also a side sauce with the sushi whose flavours I can’t identify, but it was more on the sweet side. The sushi didn’t taste like your average Japanese sushi, as there was no rice. This baby is all good stuff and I was even ok with the dash of wasabi, which I normally don’t like. The mango was also a nice punch of sweetness.

Pad Thai: Noodles, peanut sauce, spinach, cabbage, carrots, cilantro, parsley, red chili sauce, nuts

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Triple natural beauty product review

Heeeere we go!

CONSONANT ORGANIC FACE WASH

The search for my new cleanser was an interesting one. I swear by the Belmondo Organics line made by Daniela Belmondo right here in Vancity, but when I tried her face cleanser “The Rain” I went through it like *that* and also had to buy tons of cotton pads to apply it. It’s more of a cleanser that wipes away surface stuff rather than a facewash where you wash your face with water. I understand that water contains impurities, but I just couldn’t do with only using The Rain to take off the junk that I put on my face daily, so I went on a search for another facewash.

I considered AVEDA’s cleansers and also discovered Juice Beauty’s Green Apple Cleansing Gel from Murale at Oakridge ($26  for 4oz.). But I remembered GreenBeauty.ca from Twitter (thank god for Twitter!) and checked out the selection there. It was here that I found Consonant’s Organic Foaming Face Wash ($18 for 125 ml). At this price – and without a trace of toxins – I couldn’t resist.

The shipping cost ($18) would have taken me to a $36 purchase so I was going to just leave it altogether. Because I was already in contact with the CEO Donna Bishop due to tech issues in purchasing, she let me pay without the shipping – then hand delivered the product to me when she was in Vancouver for Eco Fashion Week! (Greenbeauty.ca is based in Toronto.)

The cleanser is mild: LOVE. Unscented: LOVE. The only things I might mention are that it’s a bit on the drying side. So I find my face oily in T-zone area in the afternoon. But I still experienced this with my other cleansers. It’s also not strong enough to take off my eye makeup, so I had to get a makeup remover to do the job (which will be in another post).

Other than that, Consonant is great. I hear the UK-based line just opened a store in Toronto. Now to find a local supplier…

HATHOR APHRODISIA LUBRICANT PURE
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Lace, silk & corsets – Dreamy formal at EFW

Last Friday night I went to the Magnolia-Shefelt-Anna Talbot show which was a great grouping of formal and boudoir-ish designs by ladies from right here at home.

Photo credits: Peter Holst for Pure Magnolia, Peter Jensen for Anna Talbot, and Shefelt
Big thank you to Anna Talbot for the leads on the photos.

PURE MAGNOLIA

I’m a huge fan of Patty Nayel‘s designs, which range from traditional to edgy. I loved the blue-laced and the dark purple silk bodices, which were much more dramatic than the traditional white.

Bridesmaid’s dress

There were also some really low-cut, strapless necklines, which only models could probably sport. But I’d never go for that style anyway.

Cocktail-style dress

SHEFELT

Shefelt is the brainchild of a designer named Hamideh who is a friend of a friend. I don’t really know how to describe her line – but the vision of the collection was definitely there. There was one ghostly soundtrack that kept playing over and over again while the models walked excruciatingly slow to it. Then the track changed to something more upbeat, but they weren’t walking any faster. So that kind of threw me off. But you weren’t bored by any of it.

Some of the models came out with masks, echoing the ghostly ambiance.

Formal dress

Dress
(I would totally wear this as a wedding dress outdoors in a field)

It sucked that I couldn’t see most of the bottom halves of the dresses, because what I saw on top was completely different than anything I’ve ever seen. Upon visiting the Shefelt website, I’ve learned that her primary technique is felting: “Felt refers to a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing woollen fibres and that is the main medium for my designs.” So Shefelt refers both to the technique and the emotion that the collections convey. Nice!

Though there were not nearly enough pieces to see, there were lots of things going on in each piece – ruching of different materials form wool to silk; corset work; torn fabric for a touch of imperfection; wisps of soft fabric that reminded me of pussy willows; and extremely intricate sewing.

The standout piece for me was this one collar.

And one of the models came out with a black feathered outfit and did a bird dance thing at the end.

It’s hard to see this line selling in Vancouver because it’s so different from the lines that people buy here, but if Shefelt can attract the same crowd that are fans of Jeff Garner, I could see it working.

ANNA TALBOT

Emily Carr University grad Anna Talbot has a bright future ahead of her. Unlike the first two lines, her work was very simple, soft, airy, and incorporated some interesting photography and typography work I’ve never seen before aside from t-shirt printing. I only knew after receiving the photos that the models were not wearing shoes. And very minimal hair and makeup as well – very fitting for this collection.

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