Category Archives: Hair

Halloween 2015: Harley Quinn

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I’m a little overexcited about Halloween this past year: I got to be Harley Quinn! Being Harley Quinn had been an idea I’d had a years back after watching Julia Graf’s Harley Quinn makeup tutorial. Although I didn’t actually know anything much about the character, but I loved the look of her!

Let’s go back though – when our costume planning started in September, our group thought we were going to be characters from Star Wars, but after a few (shameful) people hadn’t seen the movies and didn’t immediately fall in love with it after we made them watch A New Hope, we went back to the drawing board. We decided on Batman villains, but it quickly evolved into Batman & Robin, plus assorted villains. Since last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy costumes had been so incredibly arduous and time consuming, we thought this would be a bit simpler to do and also a lot more individual. (Building Groot’s costume last year was almost a full time job for three people throughout the month of October.)

Halloween 2015 Squad: Batman & Robin + Villains
Halloween 2015 Squad: Batman & Robin + Villains

I was also really happy to incorporate my husband (The Joker) this year and longtime friend Alison whom I had known since I was in high school in Ottawa. (She has an awesome DIY/cooking/everything blog that you can check out here: Ali Does It.) Alison just happened to be in Toronto that entire weekend and was able to construct her costume on her own in Ottawa!

I’ll be recapping a few of the costumes that I had a part in making/creating over the next week or so. Today we’re starting out with mine:

Harley Quinn

Halloween 2015 - Harley Quinn
Halloween 2015 – Harley Quinn

I based my version of Harley Quinn on the Arkham Knight video game because that was the one that appealed to me the most and it didn’t require me to expose my midriff to the world.

Harley Quinn from Arkham Knight
Harley Quinn from Arkham Knight
Halloween 2015 - Harley Quinn
Halloween 2015 – Harley Quinn

Although most of the outfits in the group were homemade, I was one of the “lucky” few that got to buy their outfit. Well, at first I thought I was lucky, then I realized I was going to end up shelling out an arm and a leg for everything altogether but there was no way I could’ve made that outfit on my own. I purchased my outfit from Cosplay Sky and it was $149 USD. (And then there was an additional $30 USD shipping charge…) I ordered it mid-September and it arrived well before October from China. I was surprised at how quickly I received it, but really, really pleased.

Halloween 2015 - Harley Quinn
Halloween 2015 – Harley Quinn

I was also concerned about fit, but it worked out in the end. I ordered a medium and most of the costume fit just fine. The only piece that didn’t was the back shoulder strap grid thing which comes over the shoulders and across the chest. I ended up not wearing it and it didn’t really change the appearance of my costume.

Halloween 2015 - Harley Quinn - face close up
Halloween 2015 – Harley Quinn – face close up

My makeup was really, REALLY simple for this one. I first primed my face with Make Up For Ever‘s Step 1 Smoothing Primer to even everything out. I used a little bit of Revlon‘s ColorStay foundation in 180 Buff with a lot of Inglot‘s white concealer mixed in. I sponged the concoction onto my face using a Real Techniques Miracle Complexion Sponge and set it with Hourglass‘ Ambient Lighting Powder in Ethereal Light.

After priming my eyes with Milani‘s eyeshadow primer, I covered them with MAC‘s Blacktrack fluidline. I let that dry a bit then covered the fluidline with Urban Decay‘s Blackout shadow. I basically covered my entire lid with it, blended it up through the crease and lined my lower lash line with it – smoking it out as much as possible (I think I used a bit of MAC Cork to help out). I tightlined both water lines with my Marc Jacobs Highliner Gel Crayon in Blacquer, applied essence‘s get big! lashes (waterproof) mascara and then popped on some House of Lashes Bombshell falsies. I used a little bit of Lit CosmeticsHeartbreaker glitter on my lower lash line, but it didn’t really show up in pictures. I filled in my brows with Anastasia‘s Dipbrow Pomade in Taupe.

The only thing remaining was my lip colour – I ended up going with NARS matte lip pencil in Cruella.

Halloween 2015 - Harley Quinn
Halloween 2015 – Harley Quinn
Halloween 2015 - Harley Quinn with matching nails!
Halloween 2015 – Harley Quinn with matching nails!

One of the things that pleased me the most were my matching nails. I had some KISS fake nails in RIP which were PERFECT for this costume. Not only were they a red and black gradient, but they even had a little bit of glitter on them! I cut and filed them down to a more decent length for my hands, making them a lot easier to wear. (I saw that tip on someone else’s blog by the way – super useful!)

Dying my plastic wig with Sharpies
Dying my plastic wig with Sharpies

Dyeing the wig I got off Ebay was one of the more concerning things for me – especially since it was plastic and not something that would take colour well. Thankfully, Zubie of Living The Grey pointed me towards this YouTube tutorial that did the trick.  The gist of it is that you drain the ink out of Sharpies into an alcohol base and then paint it onto the wig.

Dying my plastic wig with Sharpies - first coat
Dying my plastic wig with Sharpies – first coat

Since my wig was so bright, I had to do about three coats before I got it looking decent enough to wear. At first the red came out quite pink and the black was honestly quite purple. Multiple coats of ink worked though!

The only other thing remaining was the baseball bat. I picked up the cheapest wooden bat I could get from Canadian Tire and spray painted the whole thing solid red. Once it had dried, I taped off a swirl pattern and resprayed it black. After the tape was pulled off, I let the whole thing dry and then tapped up the base like a hockey stick and tada! DONE!

Halloween 2015: Harley Quinn, The Joker, Two Face, Batman, The Riddler, Robin and Poison Ivy
Halloween 2015: Harley Quinn, The Joker, Two Face, Batman, The Riddler, Robin and Poison Ivy
We spent our evening out on Church Street in Toronto for the block party (thanks for the photo Paulyne!)
We spent our evening out on Church Street in Toronto for the block party (thanks for the photo Paulyne!)

All in all, this was my absolute favourite costume to wear for Halloween and I was SO FREAKING SAD when I had to take it off! I not only thought I looked adorably spunky but I also felt like a badass. I’m totally up for wearing this to a con or something because I just want to get right back into that outfit!

Chillin' like villains
Chillin’ like villains

Click through to see some of the other costumes: | The Joker | Poison Ivy | Two Face |

Irresistible Me – Honey Blonde Hair Extensions (Review + Pictures)

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This post is all kinds of stupid exciting for me. Makeup may be my true love now, but hair is the one thing I really HAD growing up. I’ve got great hair (in my not so humble opinion) – it’s naturally blonde, it’s medium bodied, it can hold a curl like nobody’s business and it can grow fairly long but it pretty much conks out around chest length.

Because it just doesn’t seem to grow past my chest, I’ve often dreamed of having princess long hair. I’ve watched more hair extension tutorials than I can even begin to tell you about. I just loved the way they gave you so many more options with your hair!

Irresistible Me Hair Extensions
Irresistible Me Hair Extensions

Along came Irresistible Me and their gorgeous hair extensions offering to give me that perfect princess length hair! I opted for the Royal Remy hair extensions which are part of their deluxe lineup. Remy hair is essentially human hair where the cuticle layer is still intact and the hairs are aligned so that all the cuticles face the same way (like your own hair lies on your head).

Irresistible Me Hair Extensions in Honey Blonde
Irresistible Me Hair Extensions in Honey Blonde

I hemmed and hawed over the colour to get for a long time. My hair is blonde, but I’m not BLONDE like some people are. Platinum was an option but I had seen just how white the blonde came off on Stephanie of Beauty Infinitum (who is whiter-blonde than me) so I didn’t think I could carry off platinum. Additionally, Irresistible Me‘s video tutorial on which colour to use was of no help when trying to see the difference between Golden Blonde and Honey Blonde. Go look at the video – they look EXACTLY the same (also, it’s instructed by an all time favourite YouTuber of mine, I was so surprised and pleased to see her!). I took a chance and opted for Honey Blonde.

Irresistible Me Hair Extensions in Honey Blonde
Irresistible Me Hair Extensions in Honey Blonde

They showed up at work (I have everything delivered here) and it was a glorious, GLORIOUS colour match. I even freaked a coworker out by grabbing a loose weft of hair and held it out to her demanding that she tell me if it matched my own hair or not.

So the genius thing with Irresistible Me is they provide a Ziploc bag that has two compartments. The left side contains all your extensions. and the right side contains a weft of hair that you can take out and make sure that it matches to your hair colour. If it doesn’t match, send the whole thing back (left side untouched) and they’ll send you the correct colour. This saves a lot of heartache because you’ll be able to get your own colour without too much hassle (or wasting 200 bucks or so).

Irresistible Me Hair Extensions in Honey Blonde - one weft
Irresistible Me Hair Extensions in Honey Blonde – one weft

Above is the weft of hair I took out first to make sure it matched the colour of my own hair. The hair is predominantly blonde but there are a few layers of colours in there to ensure it looks natural. There are some black hairs thrown in there though. It was a bid odd to me (as I’ve never spotted a black hair on my own head), but they don’t change the appearance of the extensions whatsoever.

In reality, my hair is slightly more yellow than the hair extensions I got. You may notice a slight colour discrepancy in the photos if you’re super observant, however I could not have asked for a better match.

Natural Hair compared to Irresistible Me extensions - front view
Natural Hair compared to Irresistible Me extensions – front view

I ordered the 20 inch Irresistible Me Royal Remy Hair Extensions in Honey Blonde. My hair is fairly long to begin with so it’s not like I had to worry TOO much about blending it in lengthwise with my own hair. I do feel like it’s a lot harder to blend in extremely long extensions with short hair unless you’re doing a half up/half down hair style – then you can get away with pretty much anything.

The extensions definitely kill any natural highlights/lowlights I have in my hair. In the shot above, my natural hair it looks kind of like I have low lights. In reality, that’s just my hair curving over the top of my chest and it displays a different colour than the rest of my mane. In the shot with extensions though, literally everything looks uniform because it removes some of that natural colouring.

Natural Hair compared to Irresistible Me extensions - back view
Natural Hair compared to Irresistible Me extensions – back view

The extensions gave me about 2-3 inches (maybe even 4, but I didn’t measure) of length on top of my natural length and a RIDICULOUS amount of volume. The 20 inches only come in the 200g volume and let me tell you… that is a LOT of hair. In the shots where I’ve got my hair down, I’m only wearing maybe 75% of all of the extensions and it was HEAVY.

Wearing Irresistible Royal Remy Hair Extensions in Honey Blonde (20 inch)
Wearing Irresistible Royal Remy Hair Extensions in Honey Blonde (20 inch)

When I wore my extensions to work, I wore the huge 4 clip weft (the base one), a three clip weft across the middle at the back of my head and two single clip wefts on either side of my head to help blend in the layers. Even then, I felt like I was wearing a cape (which, let’s be honest, feels pretty fucking awesome) – It’s a LOT of hair. More than I was expecting really. I’m not complaining, but DAMN, think twice about getting super long hair and about going for the heavier weight. For comparison, at 18 inches, you can order the 140g weight hair instead of 200g. If you have especially thin hair, I would recommend going for a lower weight since your roots won’t be able to sustain the heavier extensions.

At work, I wore my hair two different ways to test the extensions out. From insertion to removal, my days were roughly ten hours in length. With my hair down and wearing only four wefts I definitely felt like my hair was luxurious, but there was a definite weight to it. However, something about the clips made my hair feel very “secure”. It was an odd sensation, not something I’ve ever felt in my hair before. So, while heavy, it felt like my hair was “tucked in for bed”. I KNOW THAT’S A WEIRD DESCRIPTION OKAY. But honestly it was quite comforting.

Natural Hair compared to Irresistible Me extensions - ponytail
Natural Hair compared to Irresistible Me extensions – ponytail

When I wore it up in a ponytail it was exceptionally gorgeous. In fact, I kept playing with my hair like it was a horse’s tail (yeah… I freaked a few people out). I did experience “ponytail exhaustion” pretty quickly though. You know that feeling… The one where your hair just feels a bit too bent out of shape. Like you desperately want a shower so you can “reset” your hair. For the ponytail, I’m wearing two three-clip wefts, two two-clip wefts and two single-clip wefts so it was definitely weightier than when I wore my hair down.

Final Thoughts

  • Is this worth your money? YES. A million times YES.
  • Should you spend more money on getting Remy hair instead of artificial plastic hair? YES. Especially if you want to be heat styling your hair. Remy hair can be used just like your own hair! I didn’t do it, but at some point I will definitely be curling my extensions to see how much volume I can get in a curled hair look!
  • Is this quality hair? YES! It’s thick, voluminous and seriously glorious. It actually feels similar in texture to my own hair which is really reassuring.

Honestly, I couldn’t recommend these hair extensions more if I tried. They make me feel like a princess. Yes, I was sent these for consideration, but had I known how much I would love them I would’ve dropped the money on them much sooner in my life. I was always, ALWAYS hesitant because I knew it was a lot of money (I think this length starts around $200 USD) but had I known how incredible they would feel I would have flat out purchased them a long time ago. Irresistible Me has free international shipping over $150 and they do free exchanges and returns.

And of course, I used the first weft I took out as a cat toy....
And of course, I used the first weft I took out as a cat toy….
Get it, Kolme! GET IT!
Get it, Kolme! GET IT!
And now they're both not so into...
And now they’re both not so into it…
This post features a press sample sent for review.