I’m really loving how vibrant military green looks in all the fall photos. Sadly I think I’m decided that I’m returning the First Mile Jacket despite loving it so I’m going to need to find a military green item in a more palatable price point – maybe the military green Align Crops or pants. 

First Mile 1/2 Zip

 Inspire Tight

First Mile Jacket

Pace Rival Crops

 Rest Less Pullover

 Inspire Tight

Inspire Tight Mesh Spray Jacquard 

High Times Spray Jacquard

What is going on over at Lululemon HQ???! Another dump to the WMTM section with items that where uploaded brand new to the website last week! I wonder if this is Lululemon’s pricing strategy failing catastrophically, and this is the only way for them to reverse such a big blunder. Usually when a company increases prices, they cannot then go back and bring prices back down to what they where previously, so they take a risk and then rely on having to use markdowns if the market didn’t bear that price increase. This trains customers to only ever buy product on sale from them. I think this is starting to happen now with Lululemon as I’m second guessing all of my purchases, and items that used to sell out online are still full size runs several weeks after uploads. 

Another possibility is that these Fall 2016 items arrived late to stores (as I had said several times; this fall has been very light on product) and now the Fall 2016 items are butting up against a large drop of Winter 2016. 

Anyways, lots of items on tonight’s upload that I’m interested in. I tried on a few of these items in store and really liked them but passed on them because of pricing. The Moonlit Magenta Sculpt Tank is calling to me, and the Paisley print WUC’s and Run Sun Seeker LS on the US side. Did you guys buy anything on markdown? I’m really happy with my Tech Tights I got with last weeks huge WMTM upload. 

WMTM

First Mile Jacket, Speed Wunder Tights ‘Florence’

First Mile Jacket , Florence Speed Wunder Tight

First Mile Jacket, Ready To Rulu Pant

I had an excursion to the new Lululemon Lab  store in Gastown Vancouver today! This was my first time going to the new location. I happened to have a Dr.’s appointment very nearby today and had caught wind yesterday from the groups that the Lab had a new pair of Nulux tights in so I thought it was the perfect opportunity. It turns out the pants where actually NULU (like the align pants) and not the NULUX I was hoping for, but I found something else I liked better. Good thing too because as I waited outside for the doors to open, I saw that the other tights where being purchased up by phone orders. By the time I got in at the 11am opening they had a stack of the NULU tights behind the counter and they where fielding phone calls like crazy. When I was chatting with the educator it was really funny to hear the ed refer to the lululemon groups as ‘the arena’. 

I got to the store at 10:30 but it turns out they didn’t open until 11am. 

Rubato Tight (NULU) $128

These where really nice and soft NULU but they felt like the original version of the align crops with the soft really fuzzy (and pill prone) aligns. They had really nice seam detailing across the front and a high rise but I decided that these aren’t really very different at all from my much cheaper align pants so I passed on these. 

You can sort of see here what I mean about the NULU. It’s incredibly soft but lacks compression and I feel like these will pill a lot faster than the new Aligns in store. 

Nootka Tight (Sculptec) 

These Nootka tights where way better for me. The material is something called ‘Sculptec’ which is apparently only used at the Lulu Lab. It feels like a luxtreme that is a tighter more compressive knit, and a matter finish. The finish on these is matte in the way that raw silk is. I found these a lot more slimming on me with very similar seam details and very smoothing compression. I purchased these because I see myself wearing them a ton not only to work out in (lifting specifically, not metcon) but also because they are matte I like the look of them for outfits. The seam detail on these was very similar to the above tights. 

**I just tried these on at home and they are quite sheer in a  deep squat so if I keep these I can only wear them casually, not for workouts. 

Here is a cute puppy playing with my kids while I was in the fitting room. 

Really nice compressive and smoothing fit without feeling binding. 

First Mile Jacket

First Mile 1/2 Zip, First Mile Tech Tights

Rest Less Pullover

First Mile 1/2 Zip

3 In 1 Toque

First Mile Jacket

Pencil Lace Wunder Under Pant High Rise

First Mile 1/2 Zip

Rest Less Pullover, First Mile Tech Tights

First Mile Jacket

Rest Less Pullover, First Mile Tech Tights, City Bound Hoodie

Insculpt Jacket

Yesterday a reader pointed out that you can no longer leave comments on the Lululemon Athletica Facebook page. I didn’t think much of it until later that night I remembered to take a look. I assume that the heavy handed moderation was due to comments being left by people against the use of down, which happens each year at this time when down products are released. Those posts are prolific on the page and really sidetrack the content. I was actually more surprised by a new ‘house rules’ post lululemon has made. Something that struck me in that list of rules was the ‘Keep it PG. Make sure images you share are appropriate‘. At face value this seems like a harmless rule, but then I remembered that last week my blog was flagged by somebody for ‘lewd content’. 

Google ads contacted me and had me immediately remove any images that contained bent over sheer pants pictures, or have my google ads account terminated. I use google ads to monetize my blog which offsets the amount of time I spend working on my blog. The amount I get monthly is pretty small, but it’s enough to justify to my family the amount of time and resources I spend creating this space. In the seven years of maintaining this blog I have never been contacted by google ads before over any of the sheer pant photos I’ve posted over the years (informative photos) but suddenly these posts are being flagged as ‘sexual content’ and ‘lewd images’. This occurred immediately after I posted the photo of the sheer Speed Wunder Tights in Florence print in which a reader shared her fitting room try on. I wonder if this new rule about PG content on the Facebook page is more about justifying deleting sheer pant try on images than it is about removing animal rights comments.   

I complied with Google ads and removed that image as well as all the other sheer pant photos from 2013, and I will no longer share those photos with you here. I fully intend to comply with Google Ads policy.  I hope this was a random coincidence that this happened and not punitive action taken against my blog. I have always had a great relationship with Lululemon and they have let me exist without interference.

The spirit of my posts was never about circulating lewd sexual content or click bait, it was meant to inform my readers of pants that may not be opaque enough for fitness activities. This space is about sharing information, and celebrating a brand we all love. It’s very unfortunate that this is all  happening at the same time that Lululemon is heavily censoring and deleting product reviews, and after they’ve eliminated the Hey Lululemon forum where they allowed product reviews and conversation. 

**I’d like to add here a comment that a reader left in regards to the Google Adsense violation:

I used to work for Google AdSense, and I can tell you that this was very likely an automated flag based on an image-scanning algorithm they developed to help scale AdSense and protect a lot of our smaller advertisers who are very sensitive to even content that most people would not consider offensive. We NEVER would flag specific sites just because an advertiser had a problem with it – there’s a strong separation of church and state between the AdWords side and the AdSense side.

This is what my flagged content looked like. It required immediate action in order to maintain my standing in the google ad sense program. 

First Mile Jacket

First Mile 1/2 Zip, First Mile Tech Tight

Heathered Military Green Rest Less Pullover, Military Green Align Crops

Wunder Under Pant Spray Jacquard Shocking Blue