At Home with Kim Vallee
Montreal-based lifestyle/entertaining expert, design maven and tastemaker Kim Vallee scours Canada, the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, and Australia to bring the best in design and food trends to her readers on a daily basis. A blogger since 2005, she founded At Home with Kim Vallée in 2007 to provide daily inspirations, unique finds and tasteful solutions for easy entertaining, home décor and modern living. Kim specializes on how to host stress-free stylish parties at home.
The success of At Home with Kim Vallée placed Kim 5th on the Top 25 Web stars in Quebec, a list compiled by Radio-Canada journalist Bruno Guglielminetti in February 2009. She wrote food and entertaining articles for FoodTV.ca before becoming a collaborator for Style Sheet, the blog segment of HGTV.ca where she writes about home décor. Major Canadian newspapers and magazines, including The Gazette, Le Journal de Montreal, The Province, Clin d’Oeil and Elle Quebec, seek her advice and tips on entertaining, home decor and social media. Other credits include a live interview for TVA and another for Radio-Canada.
A trained interior designer and mathematician, Kim’s career history includes more than a decade as a successful web designer and web strategist. Very active on Twitter and Facebook, she participates in many events by the Web 2.0 communities in Montreal and in Toronto. She lives with her amazing husband and their two energetic cats.
BeautyEditor.ca
Michelle Villett is a Toronto-based freelance beauty and health writer. Previously, she was the beauty and health editor at ELLE Canada and the beauty editor at The Look (and before that, she was probably applying her eyeliner all wrong.) Michelle contributes regularly to ELLE Canada, Best Health and Today’s Parent; previous writing credits include pieces in FLARE, FASHION, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Chatelaine, Glow, Oxygen, enRoute, WHERE and Wish. She’s also appeared as a guest on “Canada AM” and “Breakfast Television.”
Michelle launched BeautyEditor.ca in spring 2009 with the goal of sharing insider beauty news, reviews, tips and tricks.
BeautyGeeks
Janine Falcon is a freelance writer and the founder of BeautyGeeks (imabeautygeek.com), the first blog by a former magazine beauty editor in Canada and winner of the 2009 P&G Beauty Award for Best Beauty or Fashion Blog. Her background includes seven years on the beat at Canadian Living and Homemakers magazines, a stint as a plus model, and a longtime successful side gig as a makeup artist with a freshest-you approach.
Janine’s television appearances include two episodes of the ’08 season of “Canadian Idol” to discuss grooming with the guys, and appearances on “Canada AM,” “Steven and Chris,” “ET Canada” and “E! Weekend.” Her byline’s been in Canadian Living, Homemakers, FASHION Magazine, Chatelaine, Metro News, CanadianLiving.com, Homemakers.com, Best Health and BestHealthMag.ca. She’s also the Shopping Channel spokesperson for a well known Canadian bath and body company.
BeautyGeeks has been mentioned in Best Health and on Chatelaine.com as a beauty site to consult. Janine has also been quoted as a beauty expert in the Toronto Star, Chatelaine, Canadian Living, Hello! Canada, Good Times and 24hrs.
ChickAdvisor
Nothing beats a good recommendation, and that’s what ChickAdvisor is all about. We are a social media platform for women with user-generated reviews on the best products and local services in North America. In addition to our online presence, we host local events a Product Review Club and videos.
Our goal is to help women make better purchasing decisions by getting advice first on a wide range of topics from electronics to electrolysis. Our members determine the hottest trends, the best local services, and the coolest products, and we deliver the location and purchase information to make getting what you want faster and more affordable.
ChickAdvisor launched in September 2006 by husband-and-wife duo Ali and Alex de Bold as a solution for Ali’s constant search for the perfect hair salon. The company has been profiled in many major on and offline publications including CBC Newsworld, GlobalTV, The Toronto Star, CBC Radio, Canadian Business, Media in Canada, Slice.ca and Rogers Media.
Coco & Lowe
Friends Coco and Lowe are Toronto’s chic girls-about-town with candy-red fingertips on the pulse of everything social and hot with a major dose of fabulous. Obsessed with music, fashion, movies, costumes, travel, parties and champagne, the duo offers up slices of Toronto’s hipster beauty, style and glittery nightlife, and keeps their in-the-groove urban readers plugged in with up-to-the-minute pop culture news.
Gifted
Alison Lawler-Dean is a Toronto-based style writer, stylist and publicist with a great love for unique gifts. After graduating from McGill University in 2002, Alison joined the team at FASHION Magazine, first assisting the fashion department and then editing photographs and producing photoshoots for the art department. A strong interest in writing and styling took her to Wish Magazine where she became intricately involved in both the fashion and beauty sections. Most recently Fashion Market Editor at Wish, Alison has made the switch over to PR to help offer clients an editorial perspective on working with the media. Gifted was born as a creative outlet for Alison in the fall of 2008 with the goal of helping people give good gift.
The Style House
Creative Director of inspirational fashion-and-beauty blog The Style House, Afiya Francisco has been reporting as a style and shopping expert for top-tier Canadian publications such as LOULOU Magazine and Canadian House & Home for the last six years, and, more recently, as an on-air guest expert on shows such as “Breakfast Television,” “CityLine,” “Entertainment Tonight Canada,” and “Steven & Chris.”