Sunday Best: Bouffant Zoo

Today's Sunday best is once again brought to you by my early 60's style hair piece adventures. I think I got a little closer to that Mad Men Joan Holloway hair, but still haven't had chance to actually set my hair in curls to really do it justice.

Outfit Rundown:
Dress: Day Trip Sundress
Shoes: Miu Miu Teacup Shoes
Accessories: Society Pearls in coral and white, and my favorite handmade elastic belt!
Hair: soft wave hair piece turned under into a bouffant ponytail, and blended with curled rolls (tutorial to follow on how I get all my rolls and curls in my stick straight hair without a single hot iron or roller set!)

Sunday Best: Classic Curls

Started experimenting more with different hairstyles lately. This one was actually a rush job using my new hair piece! I'll hopefully have time to do something a bit more sleek and stylish next time, but still loving this thing!

Outfit Rundown:

point of style: Curls!
Dress: Sage Green Pinstripe shirtwaist
Jewelry: vintage pearls, vintage mink brooch
Shoes: Kurt Geiger
Hair: new hair piece and simple rolls to blend
Lipstick: Besame Coral

Shop Improvements!

One thing that has been sitting on my to-do list for a while was streamlining our online store. I've been slowly working on it bit by bit for a while now and after a super intense design and coding marathon it's up and running!

Before the site was separated into 3 shops, Candy Violet, Cute Salad and Boudoir, now on the same page. I've also been cleaning up parts of the shopping cart which I hope will be easier to use.

The design was rather fun, the look was based off fashion catalogs and magazines from the late 1950's. I love the graphics and colors from that time, and I thought since Vivcore is all about creating the experience of shopping for vintage style like the ladies did it when the styles were new, the mail order catalog/magazine was the best way to capture that retro experience in a modern way.

There's still some tweaking to do which will happen gradually, but I hope you guys like the new look and that the new format makes shopping with us that little bit more fun, and a whole lot easier. So come check it out!!!!

Big Hair Hopes

I'm a very fine haired girl with big hair dreams! For so long now I have lusted after Joan Holloway hair, and whilst I'm not ready to go red head yet (so much up keep!) I did want to go big!

Now the good news for my fellow fine haired girls is that back in the early 60's the volume was often helped along with the addition of extra hair, rats and falls. Browsing the web the other day I ran into a neat 60's hair piece and was inspired to make my own for that Holloway hair!

60's Hair Piece

A few years ago I made a couple of falls out of human hair to get some nice big puffy pigtails, and this week I re-dyed one and styled it up to hopefully match the 60's originals.

From the photos it looks pretty close. To wear the plan is to put a little bit of my hair up in a bun and pin the piece over the top, then curl the rest of my hair and bobby pin the curls up around my little pre-prepared pouf!

My hair helper

I used to love using things like this because it not only helps with hair envy and finally being able to get the looks i want, but also because they are typically a snap to use! The hair style always looks like it took hours, but in fact it usually only takes 5 minutes or so to complete since the heavy lifting is done ahead of time.

I'm looking forward to practicing a few styles with this fella, and hope to be able to write up a tutorial on how to make and use them for any one else out there interested in early 60's hair, or just pumping up their fine hair.

In the meantime I'm going to get back to work, but more on this topic soon!

Brassed Off!

Yellow blond before, cool blond after.

I stay on top of my hair color pretty well, so I've never had a good way to photograph one of my favorite hair products before until now. I know a lot of blonds can have a hard time keeping their platinum tresses from turning to brass, so here's my little secret! Aveda's Blue Malva.

It's a colored conditioner with a pretty potent purple pigment in it. Kind of like Manic Panic's Virgin Snow dye the lilac toned neutralize the brassy yellows for a nice cool blonde. I've used a few different conditioners like this one such as John Freda's, but liked this best because it made my hair softer, and seems to have quite a bit more pigment in it.

I was originally put off by it because it is a little pricey, but the nice thing I found is because it's so strong I don't need to use it every day, in fact I tend to only use it once or maybe twice a week tops, usually if I'm taking a long shower, so one bottle usually lasts me about 2 months or there about.

Yesterday I pulled out some old hair pieces I made a while back, and used the Blue Malva to tone one of the pieces to match my current hair (or a bit closer, the wefts I used were darker than my current hair), so you can see the difference! (both pieces are from the same weft only one hasn't been conditioned, the other has) I don't do a lot of product reviews but after seeing my 2 hair pieces side by side I thought it might be useful for any other blondes out the fighting the brass!

So there you go, for all the people who have asked in the past how i get my hair the color it usually is, that's how!

New Foundations

We've added a few new foundations to the shop today to complete that perfect vintage silhouette! Long line bras with that "perky" retro shape perfect for sweater girls and pulling off a super hourglass figure, plus the perennial pin up favorite the full length girdle for a super slinky smooth vintage shape under even the clingiest of dresses!

I've been teaming up my bra from this line with the waist cincher lately for the pulling power of the 2 together love the results with my favorite belted in dresses. I hope you guys will enjoy the new items as much as we do here at Quaintrelle HQ!

Much of our boudoir shop items are items I've bought, tried and loved for myself (the only exceptions are things we make and love!) and wanted to be able to offer to all the lovely peeps that shop with us so they can get the most out of the designs the same way I have. I figure if I love them then hopefully you guys will too! I even got a bit of a kick when I started noticing some of these items (or something super similar) popping up in the Mad Men episodes I was watching last night.

Click here to Visit Our Boudoir shop for these and our other foundation wear offerings!!

J'adore Montreal

Hi again everyone! Back from Montreal and back to blogging! The trip was a bit of a lucky one all in all, my husband had a work trip out there and it was the perfect opportunity for me to tag along and see a city I've always wanted to visit.

The area is such great blend of North America and Europe, it felt a lot like being back on my old continent.

We got to check out some great vintage shops filled with some wonderful clothes from the 20's through the 60's, and also neat nicknacks. One great little pocket was on Saint Laurent  street far off the metro that had Kitsch n Swell (40's-50's house stuffs and clothes) Rokokonut (60's-70's kitsch and clothes) and Fripperie (20's-80's clothing and accessories) all next to each other kind of like a vintage super shop!

Kitsch n Swell and Rokokonut are both run by a super vintage loving couple and were such fun shops I wish I lived close enough to visit every week! My haul from there was 2 pairs of 50's/60's cat eye glasses frames. My eyes are starting to be a little less sharp these days and after finding such cuties at such a good price I figured I'd pick em up ready for when I need to call upon them for ultra swanky visual correction!

Another great place we found was Retro-Ville, literally floor to ceiling fantastic finds! The lady that runs the place was so friendly We spent ages in there going through the shop and looking at her personal collections of fantastic vintage buttons and purses, extra bonus points for Treasure, the friendly fluffy in store cat too! Couldn't take the shop cat home but check out the neat cat cookie jar we found there! Now the new home to out everyday tea stash (no more standing on tip toes to pull down tea bags from my on the hour decaf brews)


More than just great old stuff was some great new stuff, my figure I owe in large part to a love of interesting food! We managed to get some reservations ahead of time for some of the cities best restaurants and got to enjoy all kinds of things I've never tried before (sweetcorn sundae for eg). The markets were also stellar. Got some nifty local ground cherries I'd never seen before and tea! the place was a surprisingly wonderful tea destination! Kusmi tea is probably one of my new favorite tea companies I found on the trip, it's every where and they have some really interesting blends once enjoyed by the Czars of Russia.

All in all we ate, walked alot, saw a ton of cool things and met a lot of cool people. I already have a list of things I want to do on our next trip out here, I just can't wait to go back!

( for now though, I have a head full on inspiration and a cat head full of tea, so I'm going to ride this wave and turn this great trip into a Montreal worthy collection of designs for the Fall/winter season ;p)

I got a few posts to write up so we should be back to regular blogging once again!