NAILS | Royal and Regal #CBBxManiMonday

Let me just say that these nails started out a total disaster and what you are looking at is the "cover up" which unfortunately is not on theme with our green nails for the month, but it could not be helped! The shade underneath, Picture Polish "Family" is a beautiful sea foam green though which was what I originally had planned on featuring before I messed up my nail art.  Nothing a little taping manicure couldn't save!

Some polishes are press samples

SHEET MASK | Soo'Ae Rose Masks: Revitalizing Rose Petal Sheet Mask and Rose Mask Duo Kit

I have REALLY missed sheet masking these last two weeks as I have not used any skincare products close to the eyes since my eye got infected. The good news is that my eye is a million times better and I think after this week, I should be in the clear to wear eye makeup and and get back to my beloved sheet mask babies! Luckily, for a sheet mask addict like myself, I always have way more reviews pending than I have time to write about which was convenient this week as I haven't had a chance to try out anything new. It has been a bit boring actually when it comes to the beauty front as I have kept my routine really simple to focus on my eye. 

Purchased by me

BATH | Lush Easter Collection

I think Easter has to be my second favourite time of the year (after Christmas) when it comes to bath bomb goodies from Lush! It is specifically "eggs" that I enjoy as every year there seems to be a more and more creative way of incorporating them into "tub life". Don't get me wrong, I love bunnies too, but I always feel like eggs hold the cutest surprises hehe! 

Press samples provided

NAILS | Beyond the Nail Green Thermal #CBBxManiMonday

Forgive me for the lack of nail art, but at the time of this nail painting session, my eye infection had still not subsided and even now as I type not too much has changed so all in all I have been a grumpy goose for a week. I don't know what I would have done if this infection had been in both eyes. I would have gone insane! While my vision is pretty good for large objects, any detail or fine print has been a challenge to see so I decided to keep this week's manicure really easy, but at least give you an interesting polish to look at! 

Purchased by me

SHEET MASK | Mediheal Bio Capsulin Love Me Mask Set (BTS Special Edition)

The last week was probably the first time in awhile that I have written less than three blog posts mainly because of a viral infection that I have been fighting in my eye for the last seven days. It started as just my eye feeling like there was a bit of dust or some irritant in my eye on Sunday last week and then by the next morning, it was swollen and red and even with antibiotics, it progressively got more and more swollen until I ended up being referred to an ophthalmologist on Friday because my eye was so swollen that I could no longer see properly and the current antibiotics I was on were doing nothing. He gave my eyeball a look and said "Well, that's one swollen eyeball!" He gave me a new round of antibiotic eye drops that had cortisone in them to take down the swelling and after one day of use, I can already feel a bit of the pressure dying down. The doctor warned me that I might be living with this infection for as long as 10 days since viruses tend to be extremely stubborn, but I hope I heal faster because this has been incredibly irritating to deal with and I am also really weird about things going wrong with my eyes. I just get freaked out when it comes to anything involving the eyes because they seem so fragile as an organ even though I know that there are so many protective mechanisms for them! 

Purchased by me

LIFESTYLE | My Top 5 Favourite ASMR Channels

ASMR or "autonomous sensory meridian response" was typically something I associated with creepy whispering, eating sounds or sexual fantasies, but what this really describes is a "subjective experience of low-grade euphoria" and can be a combination of positive feelings and/or distinct tingling of the skin also known as "tingles". I feel like to some degree, many of us have experienced this on some level whether it's someone playing with our hair in elementary school (we girls did this a lot during movie time) or feeling good/jealous when witnessing someone else get a massage or their makeup done. ASMR is now a booming area on YouTube and there are a ton of different categories of ASMR to cater to anyone. I never realized that ASMR was something I had been enjoying for years in the form of watching massages, nails being done and estheticians performing facials. I would use them to relax or fall asleep before bed and now that there are so many high production value videos to watch that I have curated a selection of my favourite artists!

Shili TV

All of Shili's videos are in Mandarin, but have English subtitles although I probably have picked up some Mandarin spa terms in my time watching these videos! What I love about these videos in addition to the sound quality and spa aspects is the fact that Shili visits all of these businesses in China that offer a range of treatments from head to toe including ones that you would really only find in Asia like eye and ear cleanings, hair spas, gua sha massages and Chinese holistic medicine so I also feel like I'm getting a cultural lesson as well! There is very minimal speaking in Shili's videos with the conversation limited to hellos, thank yous and what is being done during the treatments. 

NAILS | Ikat Velvet #CBBxManiMonday

Getting on the computer to type has been at bit painful as over the last two days my left eye has suddenly decided to get all swollen. It started on Sunday night after we went for a walk and I just figured that I got something in my eye while we were outside, but when I woke up the next morning, my eye was swollen. I went to work anyway, but I was so self-conscious all day because now that half my face is covered, all you see are my eyes and eyebrows so if one of those isn't lookin' too good, it's pretty noticeable. Luckily I didn't have too many clients to deal with, but all of my coworkers noticed and were like "What's wrong with your eye?!" which made me feel a bit like a leper.

Some press samples provided

LIFESTYLE | Evora Sequin Cotton Masks

It has now gotten to the point where I am matching my face masks to my work outfits AND classifying them as "dressy" vs "casual". Please tell me that I'm not the only one who is doing this now? It has been hard buying "off the rack" when it comes to face masks with most being too big for my face and not being adjustable. Last year I had turned to Asian online retailer Yesstyle for some face masks that hopefully fit a bit better and had interesting designs. I was not disappointed!

Purchased by me

NAILS | Read Between the Lines #CBBxManiMonday

I am having a hard time focusing on "non-work" related things today. I keep thinking about what I need to deal with when I come back which is really frustrating since I can't DO anything until I AM back so my brain knows that worrying about this is pointless so I am trying to distract myself by working on my to-do list for the next two days. I did bake a new cake so that's something (an Apple Cake) that I am proud I tried and now it's just figuring out the blogging calendar which right now, I find pretty exciting. I love seeing what my month could potentially look like even if I always start off VERY ambitious and then have to remove stuff from the calendar due to time constraints. I use my Google Calendar to keep track of my blog and Instagram posts so it makes it easy to move things around if I need to. I started doing this at the beginning of the pandemic while I was off work and I have found it to be a really useful and satisfying tool to keep things organized.

Some polishes are press samples

SHEET MASK | A By BOM Ultra Night Leaf Mask #SheetMaskSunday

I am on a small 4-day staycation so I started it off on Sunday by sleeping for 10 hours. It was the first time I hadn't set an alarm for myself so just let my body do what it wanted to do. It felt really good to do although I always feel guilty whenever I sleep in past 9am. I feel like as we get older, we want to do more with our day and getting up earlier, makes me feel more accomplished at least mentally! So, it obviously isn't Sunday today, but I am a sucker for sticking to a routine and I have blogged about a sheet mask every Sunday since the pandemic started a year ago and have enjoyed doing this so here's to a #SheetMaskSunday on a Monday!

Purchased by me

MAKEUP | The Face Shop Rouge Powder Matte Lipsticks

When these Face Shop Rouge Powder Matte Lipsticks first launched through Avon over the summer, I was fully convinced that I would wear even MORE makeup at work because I now needed some heavy duty, long-lasting products to make sure things didn't budge under my face mask, but things changed rather quickly once Fall/Winter came around. I feel like a bit of a fraud reviewing lip products other than balms, glosses and serums now, but if I don't use lipsticks in this space, I will probably never use them again for the foreseeable future so think of my lipstick posts as an ode to what I miss about life pre-pandemic! 

Press samples

NAILS | It's Easy Being Green #CBBxManiMonday

Oh man was it hard to get up this morning...thankfully I had some time to breathe as it wasn't too crazy busy at work and I had a moment to catch up. I have been having a lot of fun creating content for my work Instagram and realized that I had a lot more jewelry Instagram reels than beauty ones so I decided to change that for today's #CBBxManiMonday!

Some press samples