Topbox | June 2013 “Regular” Edition

It has been such a busy month for me with work that my beauty boxes have been neglected! For June, I once again opted for the regular Topbox as none of the Prive boxes appealed to me and I like the idea of a surprise! Sometimes you might even get a Prive item in your regular edition!

Belvada Cosmetics | Mini Eyelash Curler

Compact and easy to use, this curler will create a natural looking curl.

Thoughts: This is a Canadian brand! I think this is really cute and I love that there is an extra eye lash pad included. I have one already from a past Julep box, but I kind of like this one more! It’s so compact that you really can throw this in your purse!

Full size: ONE/$5.99

I received: *FULL SIZE*

Review | KKCenterHk Audrey Hepburn Water Decals

Now that water decals have made their way into my nail art life, I cannot get enough of them! I love how seamlessly they blend right into your nail unlike other “topical” nail art extras and how quick and easy they are to use! I recently had the opportunity to review the Audrey Hepurn water decals from KKCenterHk and I was very pleased with the results. I love this iconic Audrey Hepburn pose and knew right away that I had to use a certain China Glaze polish for this nail art manicure!

There are 10 water decals on one sheet with some random white decals in the middle. I didn’t know what they were so I just ignored them. They look like clouds…

There were no instructions for these water decals and if I hadn’t used them before in previous nail art, I probably would have had to look up some directions! I just trimmed off the decals I wanted, soaked them in tap water for about 10 seconds and then used tweezers to position them on my nail.

Beauty Box 5 | May 2013

Maybe I just have too many beauty boxes to blog about, but I just cannot stay on top of these posts! So, May’s BB5 had one standout product for me and the rest were somewhat uninteresting…I know I’ve built up the suspense now so read on to see what I received!

Sephora | Sinnage Edition #2

The last Sephora order I placed online was back in January so almost half a year later, I thought I could spoil myself again! I’ve had a shopping cart going since February, but over the last couple of months I’ve been swapping things out and looking for the best beauty deals. When I saw a Buxom lip gloss as a gift with purchase of $35, I knew it was my time to pounce!

Swatch It Up | Pretty & Polished Daddy Daughter Dance

One of the newest collections from Pretty & Polished is the Sweet Sixteen Collection which features three polishes: 16 Candles, To Be a Lady and Daddy Daughter Dance which I am wearing today! This is what I would consider to be a blue-grey crelly polish and took three fairly thick coats for my VNL to disappear. What I love about this polish is the many different types of glitter that I didn’t need to fish for! I adore circle glitter and this is filled with so much! I think the base colour and glitter combo is incredibly unique and received a number of compliments when I wore it!

“Find What You Love” at Metropolis at Metrotown

For anyone who is in the Vancouver area, I will be teaming up with a couple of other local nail bloggers, Lindsay from Nail Art by Lindsay, Winnie from The RAWR Shop and Angela from Do Want Makeup, to lead three nail art workshops at Metrotown Mall in Burnaby over the next month! The workshops are by donation with 100% of the proceeds going towards Beauty Night, an organization that builds self esteem and changes lives of women and youth living in poverty. I’d love to meet some of you and have some fun with nail polish too!

The colours I used have no names, but are the official Metropolis colours for summer and come in a jelly purple, hot pink and an orange cream which will be included in every participants swag bag! There is also a tiny bottle of Seche Vite which I used in this manicure to be true to the workshop, but you can see the SHRINKAGE! This design was made using page reinforcers which are not my favourite as I prefer to freehand and not wait for polish to dry, but again, I wanted to stay true to the workshop as this is how the participants would be creating the design.

Sign up here!

Swatch It Up | OPI Pussy Galore

This season is all about texture and I have had the OPI Bond Girls Liquid Sand Collection in my possession for quite awhile and now that the 31 Day Nail Challenge is over I can swatch again! I have officially run out of room in my IKEA Helmer for polishes, so I am on a bit of a buying ban! For today, I am wearing OPI-Pussy Galore and I have to admit that I like these textured polishes more than the China Glaze ones. I really love the fact that this polish has a bit of a shimmer to it!

Review | imPRESS Press-On Manicure

When it comes to nail art, not everyone has the time, tools, patience or steady hands to create some of the masterpieces we see out there. Nail art is incredibly trendy right now as evidenced by the sudden influx of quick ways to have perfect nail designs with nail strips, wraps, gel nail strips and of course, press-on nails. The press-on nails I’m used to seeing are the ones that destroy your real nails once you’re done with them so when I started seeing imPRESS Press-On manicure kits in drugstores, I wondered if they were both safe for my nails and easy to use. They are also intended to last for one whole week as well which is pretty impressive for something that won’t harm your actual nails!

There are quite a number of different press-on manicure designs with everything from a plain colour to the wild and crazy which is what I chose to go with today. Go big or go home, right?! I chose “Punch Bowl” as my pattern to try as I love leopard print and bright colours in a medium nail length. Right away, I loved the packaging as the nails come in a plastic container shaped just like a nail polish bottle!

Wantable Box | May 2013 Makeup Edition featuring Lara Eurdolian

As many of you have seen, there’s a new beauty box player on the block! Wantable is the latest American beauty box shipping to Canada and promises all full sized products. With Wantable, there are two options: makeup and jewellery. I prefer not have jewellery as I find it to be extremely personal and I tend to have very specific taste. Each Wantable box is $40 or $36 with a monthly subscription. Canadians do pay an extra fee for shipping and duty which ended up being around $9 for me.

What I love most about Wantable is the customization factor. I am now sick of receiving mascaras or neutral-coloured polishes so when I filled out the extremely detailed makeup profile, I explicitly stated NONE OF THAT and I am now guaranteed to never see those products in my Wantable box! I was VERY pleased with my first Wantable box as well as the customer service!

May | 2013 Empties!

Here I am with my May empties midway through June, but I get such a kick out of these posts! I was explaining to my “real world” friends about these posts and how we all love them and they were like “What? You and your blogger friends collect empty bottles and store them for a month and then show the Internet?!” I guess it is basically me showing all of you my cosmetic garbage! Anyway, it’s the coolest garbage ever so here’s what I managed to get through last month!

31 Days of Nail Fun!

Thank you to everyone for coming along for the ride! Until next time!

Day 31 | Recreate Someone Else’s Mani From Earlier in the Challenge!

The challenge is finally over for me! My wedding shower on Sunday wiped me out even though I spent the whole day at a spa! For this challenge, I have always loved Naomi’s gradients and her red and gold gradient from Day 25 really caught my eye so here is my recreation! I used two coats of China Glaze-Red Satin and dabbed on China Glaze-Blonde Bombshell for an extra sparkly, chunky gradient!

Thank you to my wonderful team mates in this challenge! We must do this again much much later! All three of you have inspired me to be a better nail artist! THANK YOU!!!

Naomi @ Bellezza

Traci @ drinkcitra

Masha @ Lost in Lacquer

Ipsy Bag | May 2013

May’s Ipsy bag has to be one of my favourite bags to date! It was colourful and full of products I love! Shall we see what was inside? I’m sure most of you know already what was in May’s bag, but the consistent blogger in me wants to show you anyway!

Day 30 | Favourite Nail Art Technique or Watercolour Revisited

Oh my goodness, I’m almost caught up and the challenge is almost at a close. I cannot believe it! So for today’s challenge, I decided to have another go at watercolour nails since I loved them way back when I did them on Day 15 of this challenge! My wedding shower is tomorrow and I wanted some fun, bright nails to match the supposedly sunny day that is tomorrow! I started off with three coats of OPI-My Boyfriend Scales Walls and top coat. I then used Julep-Mackenzie, Julep-Abbie and Julep-Avery to create a neon watercolour design. I topped the whole design off with a coat of China Glaze-Fairy Dust and more top coat and voila!

Day 29 | Inspired By a Blogger with Watermelon Nails

Today’s manicure was incredibly hard to decide on as there are so many wonderful nail artists out there with beautiful nail creations. I chose one that I have been wanting to try for a long time and matched a green dress I was wearing that day! I decided to try my hand at a Waki Laki watermelon design that I thought was adorable!

As a base, I used two coats of Julep-Jackie and created the tips using a neon green, silver and white striper polish from Art Deco. I should have used striping tape to create more crisp tips, but I thought I would be a hot shot and do it freehand. For the watermelon “seeds”, I used L.A. Girl Glitter Addict–Uninhibited and China Glaze-Fairy Dust for some extra sparkle.

Day 28 | Inspired By Your Favourite Colour–PINK!

When it comes to nail polish, it is VERY hard to choose a favourite colour, but if someone was threatening to destroy all of my nail polish if I didn’t make a decision, I guess I would have to say, it’s PINK! As much as I love blues and greens, pink always resonates well in any environment and with everyone. I started off with two coats of this absolutely GORGEOUS polish from Born Pretty that goes by the name of BK Fashion Nail Color in 24. This could have been a one coater, the opacity and formula were both amazing.

Day 27-Mani Inspired By You

For today’s manicure, I too decided to re-create my very first attempt at nail art based on a tutorial by cutepolish from about 2 years ago. Forgive the blurry picture, I think we all have humble beginnings when it comes to taking pictures of our nails! To be honest, I think I may have done a better job the first time around! To create this look, I used China Glaze – Too Yacht to Handle, which I am currently in love with, Sally Hansen XTremeWear – Celeb City and Art Deco-Silver Glitter.

Review | NCLA Nail Wraps

I’m going to start by saying that nail wraps are not my friend. I have tried a couple of different brands and by the end of it, I just wish I had painted my nails instead. So far, I’ve tried Sally Hansen, OPI, and Perl and no luck. Sometimes the strips were too thin other times, too thick. Out of those three fails, the Sally Hansen ones were the best, so when I was offered the opportunity to review some NCLA nail wraps from Nail Polish Canada I really had nothing to lose.

NCLA has some of the edgiest and funkiest nail wrap designs I have ever seen! The designs are unapologetically loud and attention-grabbing and I was praying that these would work with my incredibly C-curved nails.

May | 2013 Favourites

May was a bit funny for me with favourites because I was under so much stress that my lips started to completely freak out and became itchy, red and numb which meant living off Vaseline as I couldn’t wear anything else! So, while my lips were undergoing some much needed TLC, I focused on products for everywhere else instead!

Day 26-Inspired by Your Country or Canadian Stereotype Nails!

I haven’t given up the 31 Day Nail Challenge yet! I am determined to finish with my teammates so without further ado, Day 26 is all about being inspired by your country and so I thought I’d have a little Canadian fun and showcase our very good sense of humour ;-)

We say “Eh?” and apologize all the time so of course that had to make it on to my nails! We also love our Royal Canadian Mounties, hockey and live in igloos! I would actually love to try living in an igloo. It seems quite cozy. The only polishes I really used were OPI-My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Cult Nails-Evil Queen and sponged on China Glaze-For Audrey for my thumb. The rest of this design was done in acrylic paint.

Close up of the igloo which I am quite proud of!

Be sure to check out the other wonderful ladies also participating in this challenge!

Naomi @ Bellezza

Traci @ drinkcitra

Masha @ Lost in Lacquer