Face, meet World

Beauty, cycling and silicone collide at the make-up counter

I'd rather be Audrey than tawdry

Published in the Sept/Oct 2008 Style issue of Momentum Magazine.

“What you need,” Christopher murmured, peering into my face, “is a silicone primer.”

Oddly, he wasn’t talking about bike frames. I had run into a department store to escape the rain and a handout In the ladies’ room had caught my attention. “Come by the Calvin Klein counter,” it suggested, “Receive a FREE Foundation Consultation and Sample!”

I wandered the maze of make-up boutiques until a red-haired woman at the Clinique counter with eerily perfect skin asked if she could help me.

I motioned at my handout. “I’m actually looking for the Calvin Klein counter but…” I offered, “you could show me what you’ve got since I’m here.”

“Well sure,” she said as she opened a tube of foundation, “We can dab a little on your hand if you like.” I looked down as she spread the flesh-toned liquid on the meat of my thumb. It blended in fine, but bits of lotion stuck in the lines of my skin. It reminded me of women I’d seen (usually in the late-night food and beverage industry) who walked around with tiny, tawdry channels of makeup dried into their eyelids.

I showed her the bits and told her that’s why I’d been avoiding foundation up til now. “Well,” she said sweetly, “That’s why you need to exfoliate.” I thanked her and headed for the Calvin Klein counter.

Keep it natural with “green” sex products

Put some environmentally virtuous lovin’ into your healthy living

A more environmentally virtuous way to get some healthy lovin’ into your healthy living

Published in the February 2006 issue of Shared Vision Magazine.

Designer Christi York was thinking about her organic lifestyle one day, when she had a naughty thought. “I’m really into organic foods and the learning process of what we put into our bodies,” says the founder of Vancouver-based Buenostyle, “so the idea for this graphic just popped into my head.”

That idea was a bright, stylish response to the “granola-coloured boring styles” and “depressing environmental messages” she saw on store shelves: a line of sassy, organic cotton panties emblazoned with a just-try-me challenge to Eat Organic.

Organic lingerie it’s not, but cheeky entrepreneurs like York are starting to put the “wheeee” into green: her natural panties join the products of a swelling rank of daring marketers who bring you a more environmentally virtuous way to get some healthy lovin’ into your healthy living.

Shared Vision went in search of off-the-grid toys, trends, and tidbits and selected a few that seemed particularly playful, guilt-free, and non-intimidating. These mostly local treats are chock full of healthy goodness in one way or another, so go ahead and try a sample.

Blood, Blisters and Bears: one woman’s Odyssey Tour

A 1,600 kilometre expedition by kayak, foot and bicycle through B.C.’s north

Day Two of a 10-day hike...no trail, no boots, no turning back.

ISKUT, B.C. — Gregg Drury is a Minnesota-raised outdoorsman, social activist and eco-entrepreneur who ~ I discovered ~ has a lot to say about menstrual products.

I’d agreed to join him on an exploratory section of his 60-day self-propelled Odyssey Tour and inquired ahead of time ~ as any inexperienced gal about to go hiking through northern B.C.’s grizzly country might ~ if it was okay to bring “Aunt Flow” along.

“Well,” I could hear him deliberate over the phone, “There is no doubt in my mind that a woman who is menstruating while on a wilderness trip increases the risk associated with a bear attack ~ both for herself and her travelling companions.” He went on to describe the dangers of conventional disposable tampons, the benefits of reusable menstrual cups and where in Vancouver I could get one.

Simultaneously terrified and impressed, I made the necessary gear adjustments and met Gregg, assistant guide Fiona Brodie and fellow guinea pig John Harrison over topographic maps in Gregg’s Iskut, B.C. base about 320 kilometers south of the Yukon border. We’d be helped along by Tahltan elder Pat Etzerza, his nephew Clarence Quock, and five of their pack horses.

Soloists Team Up to Beat Singles’ Fees

Would you like a good spanking? Would you? Because if you’re single and like to travel, expect to get spanked hard when you go to pay for that fabulous all-inclusive holiday. In addition to the taxes, surcharges, and fees everyone else pays, solo travelers must submit to an additional smack called the “single supplement” merely because they have the cheek to journey alone.

A single supplement, in case you’re not experienced, is an industry convention that allows cruise, resort, and package-tour operators to pass on up to 200 percent of an accommodation’s double occupancy rate, on top of the rate. According to Paul Noble, an industry veteran and instructor at International Travel and Business College, “Most pricing for tour product is based on two people so [singles] have to pay more than if they were with someone.”

Roger’s Pass and Me

A web-footed West Coaster ponders snow, slush, and sickening spins on black ice

I’ve lived in Vancouver for thirteen years and naively believed I’d left winter driving behind. It waited for me one December weekend at the crux of Yoho, Kootenay and Banff National Parks. Winter road report: packed, slippery in sections with occasional panic patches.

Toqued and goretexed, Jen and I bravely slushed into Revelstoke after a couple of hours of front-wheel driving along the Trans-Canada. While I concentrated on keeping the Mazda inside two furrows on the road, Jen ~ fresh from a stint in internet marketing ~ remarked how the endless flakes of alien snow looked like a screen saver flying into the windshield.

“When does snowmobile season start?” I asked a Chevron attendant, noting the parade of Ski-doo-toting pickup trucks gassing up at the pumps. “Honey,” the attendant drawled as she handed me a tourist map, “It’s been snowmobile season for two months“.

Monthly salons draw fans of flying solo

Where do you book an off-season college-dorm bed in Edinburgh? Which cruise lines don’t charge single travellers an extra fee for a cabin? Is it really possible to experience a fulfilling, worry-free adventure if you travel by yourself?

Advice, anecdotes, and appetizers fly across the table at the Solo Travellers’ Cafés. For those who have journeyed by themselves –or want to– this monthly salon offers up servings of solo-oriented tales and information at an eatery near you.

Created less than a year ago by “returned” traveller and workshop instructor Deborah Tiffany, the roving café, usually held on the second Wednesday of every month, has attracted up to 50 participants to neighbourhood tapas, dessert, and ethnic restaurants. A table of 20 café-goers joined Tiffany at Commercial Drive’s Artistico Greek Café recently. Prompted to describe their latest trips, the chatting travellers recounted tales ranging from a Canadian studies work term in Scotland and a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas to a road trip up the Yukon’s Dempster Highway and a cross-country tour of France’s valleys.

Gals’ Sexual Enhancers a Long Time Coming

Do “orgasm creams” give mens’ blue pills some stiff competition?

Good morning, good morning! Your fella is kicking up his heels on his way to work and and it’s terrific that Viagra is helping men get their ED thing sorted out, really. Unfortunately, only 25 per cent of their female partners report that they experience orgasm during intercourse and nearly a third acknowledge a complete lack of sexual desire. That leaves a few dance partners asking, “Hey, what about me?”