NAILS | Limited Edition Dior #628 Lucky Swatch #CBBxManiMonday

I honestly do not know what is happening to my nails, but they were constantly breaking in Montreal and then started looking super dry. I have a feeling living in AC conditions contributed to both my sore throat and my dry nails that week and I am still recovering - on both fronts!

Purchased by me

LIFESTYLE | First Montreal Visit Since 2018!

The last time I visited Montreal was all the way back in 2018 if you can believe it! I skipped 2019 and then of course there was 2020 where the whole world came to a halt and then air travel just looked overly complicated until around 2022. As someone who does not fly well already, routine is really what makes me feel better and having not flown for a few years at this point, I did not feel like doing it anymore. I had to fly to Paris in 2023 for work so that kind of got the juices flowing again, but since then I haven't flown - until last week and all in all everything was fine other than the usual air travel discomforts like Premium Economy being the same leg room as regular economy, delays at take-off and just weird people who treat the plane like its their own.

This visit was all about seeing family, especially our new nephew! We saw him our first full day in Montreal and he is a cutie! We stayed with my mother-in-law so we were well-housed and well-fed and from there it was just catching up with everyone, lots of socializing and lots of eating!

SHEET MASK | Anua Niacinamide TXA Serum Mask (K-Pop Demon Hunters Edition)

Purchased by me

As I write this, I have been back from Montreal two days and I am still struggling with the jet lag. I was up at 5:17am PST and could not fall back asleep so I went with the flow and just decided to get up. If I had been working, I would have stayed in bed as I am still feeling tired, but not tired enough to sleep as I just want to hit the ground running with catching up at both work and in the house! I made sure to do as many household tasks as I could before leaving so that we didn't come home to a messy apartment. We had a cat sitter come in once/day for the cats and she left everything really neat and clean so we were truly able to relax right when we got home.

EMPTIES | August 2026

Holy hell it's September! We are now basically welcoming Fall (I see red tips on the leaves outside) and officially closer to the end of the year than the beginning! Why is it that summer goes so fast? August went by pretty quickly as I was gone for the last bit of it and though I did use up a few little things here and there while I was on vacation, I had no plans on carrying back beauty garbage on the plane!

 

I used up FIVE skincare products last month including this entire tub of Anua Brightening Pads! I have always found these hard to use, but I really liked how nice these felt on my skin as they were kind of spongy (photo and review). I did it on days where I would wash my hair and didn't want to use a whole sheet mask so these were the next best thing! 

I used up SO MANY pimple patches because I got the worst cystic pimple on my chin back in July that took a week to stop spewing stuff. Now, I'm still scarred from it and you can easily see it in all of my mask photos. Granted, I have had these pimple patches for at least 5 years because I don't get a chance to use them very often, but they DO work at drawing stuff out and at least protecting the area overnight and encouraging healing. The Peace Out Skincare ones were by far the most effective!

Don't judge me on the makeup wipes. I have not purchased ANY makeup wipes in almost 10 years because I used to receive a lot of them in PR, but now I rarely use them and don't want to encourage waste. I am just trying to use up what I have and I still have probably 12 months worth of wipes left!

This might not look significant, but trust me, it is! This is a full size of the Smashbox Photo Finish Eye Primer where you only use a minuscule amount each time because a little goes a very long way! I even cut it up and was using product from every crevice to make sure this was REALLY empty! Pretty good product, but I have so many priming products to get through that I do not need to repurchase this at the moment.

I used 15 sheet masks last month is not bad for me now with my masking schedule not being quite as consistent as before. Compared to the sad two masks I used last month, this is a marked improvement!

If I were to include my travel empties, the number should be SEVEN, but honestly as these are samples I'm not too fussed. The sleeping masks actually come in packs of 30 so will see these again! 

Another month of skincare as makeup is truly SO HARD to use up in full! Why do we buy so much of it?

SHEET MASK | Anua Vita C Porestrix Brightening Serum Mask (K-Pop Demon Hunters Edition)

Purchased by me

I don't think I could ever get sick of the K-Pop Demon Hunters theme and now that Anua has partnered up with them on some of their most popular products, I will enjoy the gimmicky packaging and the ongoing song "Golden" in my head every time I use a KDH-themed product (and there are a lot)! 

SKINCARE | Solara Suncare Good Karma Dry Oil Mineral Sunscreen SPF 30

Press sample

Summer is almost over and I wanted to squeak in one last sunscreen review, which honestly, I was ready to do last summer, but just never got a chance to feature on the blog though I have mentioned Solara Suncare on my IG Stories quite a few times due to my love for it!