NAILS | F$#@ You! #MidWeekMani

Today is the last day of being in my 30s so I figured this set of nails would be a fitting way to bid adieu to one decade of my life to welcome another. This is actually from a guest post that I did from from nine years ago for someone else's blog, but they shut down their blog years ago and so these photos were lost with it and never to be seen on the Internet again...until now! At the time, I was too embarrassed to post these photos and I remember taking my nails off right away, but almost a decade later, it seems a shame not to post these perfectly pink F You nails today!

SHEET MASK | Flower Beauty Revitalizing and Radiance Boosting Sheet Mask

Purchased by me

In 2019, a couple of other beauty bloggers and I decided to take on April and the theme of Earth Month by using sheet masks that leaned towards the more natural side. I obviously took this opportunity to have myself a shopping spree at Well.ca as at the time, they had a number of sheet masks coming from "earth-friendly" brands. One of those brands was Drew Barrymore's Flower Beauty and though these masks are now discontinued, at the time, they were an exciting addition to the Flower Beauty line up.

MAKEUP | Burt's Bees Tinted Lip Balm SPF 30 with Swatches

 

Press samples

Summer is officially here as is sunscreen season, though it is technically ALWAYS sunscreen season, there is something about experiencing actual heat that really puts you in the mood! One area that I often neglect to apply sunscreen to is my lips and though I have never been been burned on my lips, whenever I go out on walks, I try to cover them up with something as much as possible because a lip sunburn just sounds painful! Thankfully, Burt's Bees has a new tinted lip balm (yay!) that also has an SPF 30 (double yay!) and are a mineral sunscreen formulated with 19.5% zinc oxide. I have never used a tinted lip SPF product before and I thought it was cool that I would be able to look a little more dressed up yet still being protected from UV!

NAILS | Monarch Butterfly Nail Art #CBBxManiMonday

Purchased by me

As of right now, 11:45pm on Monday night, I am on vacation to celebrate my birthday! I had a CRAZY Monday for work, but I knew I would so I had prepared myself as best as possible to be completely run off my feet - which I was! I always at least FEEL more put together when I have my ManiMonday done so I decided to take an early Sunday night and start painting around 9pm so that I would have some time to edit the photos for Instagram.  

SHEET MASK | L'Ocean Renardeau Core Essence Face Mask Baobab and Centella Asiatica

Press samples

I started working with mask subscription beauty box service Beauteque way back in 2018 when I feel sheet masks were REALLY at their peak. I feel very fortunate to have been on their press list because I have been introduced to so many fun masks and brands that I had never heard of and would have had a ridiculously hard time finding. Sadly, Beauteque is no more and I think their last box was September 2021 and then their website disappeared. I have a lot of masks from their subscription boxes coming up over the next couple of months and maybe this will be my way of paying my respects to what was a very fun thing that I looked forward to opening everytime!

NAILS | OPI Nature Strong Vegan Glitter with "Eco For It" #MidWeekMani

Press samples

I feel like I somewhat have it together this week when it comes to scheduling and blogging thanks to having just one additional day off this week. I took a vacation day yesterday as we are in this period of the year where things quiet down and people should take more vacation time, but they don't! It's also summer in Vancouver which is always so beautiful so I don't know why all of us in luxury sales decide to go to work versus taking time off! I am actually going on staycation for my birthday starting next week which will be a nice time since my husband will also take some time off and my plans are literally to go for walks on the seawall, visit my mom in Steveston and keep working on my beauty organization, which I DO find fun despite how draining it is. I just look forward to having less stuff and more space to work with!

SHEET MASK | The Creme Shop Rainbow Mask

Purchased by me

It is officially the first day of summer and I am going to *attempt* what I tried to do last summer which was to do the #SummerofSheetMasks where I amp up my blog reviews for sheet masks as a way to feature more cool masks for all of you! I was doing pretty well from June until the first week of August with scheduled posts and then Hugo died so suddenly that I could not bring myself back to that intense level of blogging I had been at before. As we head into the first anniversary of his death, I feel like I am slowly getting my groove and beauty passion back though I don't think it will ever be at the same level it was a few years ago. Here's to hoping that this summer will be better and that I will be able to do what I had set out to do last year!

HAIR | Derma E Scalp Relief Hair Care Set

Press samples

I should have tried this Derma E collection a long time ago because the relief for my itchy scalp has been incredible! I received this in a press package quite some time ago and you know me, I take my time now with things because it's not worth the stress, BUT I really wish I had tried it sooner just so I could know that relief AND good hair could exist in the same universe! 

NAILS | Rainbow Micro Hearts #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

I am sitting here wondering "Where is summer?" as it is currently 12 degrees and raining in Vancouver. I even had to turn up our heat as my feet and hands feel like appendages of ice! I had to chop my nails down as I lost my pinky nail during work after growing these babies out for two months so I was quite sad about that, but such is life. I am grateful that this is currently the extent of my "health problems". 

SHEET MASK | Mediheal Meience Tofu Milk, Blackbean Tea, Projelly and Nattogum Masks

 

Purchased by me

Using these Mediheal masks has made me realize how long it has been since I have been to Miniso, which is where I picked these masks up! What actually got my attention was the Nattogum mask because my mom used to eat it all the time when I was a kid and if you don't know what it is (fermented soybeans), it's a very acquired taste IMO! It has a really particular smell and I don't know if I could eat it now, but I remember really not liking the scent! 

Experience | Sabai Thai Spa Calm and Glow Spa Package

Gifted service

While I used to think that facials and massages were only for special occasions, once I started having a more stable income, I realized that spa treatments were both a mental and physical therapy session for me. They reset my body and help me to recharge to survive another work week or give my skin its glow again! A few weeks ago, I was invited to experience the Calm and Glow Spa Package at the newest Sabai Thai Spa location in Metrotown and I could not say no!

NAILS | Fly Butterfly #CBBxManiMonday

Purchased by me

Oh man, I know I'm late and this post shouldn't even have the word "Monday" in it, but I am a stickler for consistency! I have been dedicating all of my free time to getting the office organized and lemme tell ya, going through thousands of bottles of polish, sheet masks and lipsticks are no joke! It's a ton of work! I feel like once I have the space setup, I will be more inspired to blog, but then at the same time, if I blog more, then I will have fewer things to PUT in said space. It's a chicken and egg kind of deal. My husband's solution to create space is to just put everything in one place - the garbage. Sigh, the husbands will never understand!

SHEET MASK | The Body Shop Vitamin E, Aloe and Vitamin C Sheet Masks

Purchased by me

Well, it has been a busy/tiring last few days hence the extra late #SheetMaskSunday post! I went out for the friend's birthday party on Saturday night and had a great time. Something that I feel I haven't had in a REALLY long time! It was great fun, I even had a whole Bellini (I don't really drink) and then decided to walk home at midnight to which my husband said "it's dark, I'll come meet you!" Sunday started off reeeeeallly slowly and then around 1pm, my husband and I realized that we really needed to get started on our office organization again which meant preparing for an afternoon of IKEA frustration, but in the space of 5 hours, we managed to build our shelving unit, move some furniture around, wash the walls and I could then start filling things up! It's midnight and I am still working on things so it's evident that once I get going, I cannot stop!

NAILS | Rainbows and Reorganizing #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

I have been so busy with reorganizing the office and my beauty products with our new IKEA shelving units that blogging is taking a bit of a vacation even though the goal is to have the office perfectly setup for blogging where everything will be in neat little boxes that are no longer overflowing. I am hoping that I will be done organizing by the end of the month and that by July I will have a beautiful office space to work out of! Now, I started this project on Friday and with Sunday and Monday off, I was still very much dedicated to my organization cause so my ManiMonday took a bit of a backseat even though my nails were painted on Monday night. I was just too tired to edit the photos so now it's Wednesday and here we are with this month's theme of "Allyship". This was a theme the ladies came up with in 2020 and it has been a really good one for me as it makes the manicures mean a little bit more this month. With today's rainbow nails, we are acknowledging Pride Month!

SHEET MASK | JM Solution Selfie Vital Rosehip and Barrier Heartleaf Mask (Disney Edition)

 

Purchased by me 

Today is a massive organization day as we placed a large order at IKEA for the shelving units known as Fjälkinge which we thought were discontinued as they have been out of stock since 2020. We bought two units for the office/beauty room and they were perfect for storing all of my beauty products in a way that still made the room look bright and airy. We just saw them back in stock last week and had them delivered this past Friday so today is all about building and more beauty decluttering for me as it will be MUCH easier for me to load up the shelves with fewer things! I also have 50 acrylic organizers arriving from Amazon today so that will be another project! All in all, I am hoping for some majorly aesthetically pleasing before and afters! 

NAILS | OPI NFTease Me #MidWeekMani

Press sample

I am STILL trying to grow my nail back to what these nails here are at! They are long, but nowhere near as long as this and it has been almost a month of me trying to grow them back which has been much longer than I was anticipating! I haven't' done one of these #MidWeekMani catch-ups in a long time and I have been kind of craving one since I have been a little stressed lately and just feeling anxiety/dread. I can't even really talk about it that much here since I fear it may be used against me "in a court of law", but suffice it to say that the spaces where I used to feel safe, I no longer do and that has made me feel really sad!