NAILS | We Love Purple #CBBxManiMonday

One purchased by me

As I type this, I am nestled in a blanket as I watch a live replay of Stage 3 of the Tour de France. What a vacation life right? For the last two years, we have done a one month subscription to Flo Bikes as they are the only place in Canada that shows TDF. Before, you had to subscribe for the whole year for something like $150, but now you can pay $49.99 CDN for one month which is perfect! I have tried to keep up with the other Grand Tours during the year, but TDF is truly the most exciting!

NAILS | Dior Wild Beige #321 #CBBxManiMonday

 

Purchased by me

I think I may only be doing swatches for awhile as the effort of doing nail art in the last few months has really felt like too much! Honestly, my nights have been filled with watching Succession and then Pixyling until it's time to go to bed. I know, I'm such a nerd, but that's how things have been the last little while and I am not hating it! I did pick up all of the Fall polish releases from Dior though so at least I have some new things to share with all of you this month!

NAILS | Stars on Purple #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

I swear one day I will be ahead of the game and catch up! Especially with my Paris trip coming up, I will need to schedule a few things for sure! This last week was another tiring one so I was a bit lazy with my nail art for this week's #CBBxManiMonday though I will say that I DID have brand new nails on the actual Monday, but just didn't get a chance to edit the photos! I still haven't found a good way to get the lighting right for taking nail photos with my new iPhone without showing every wrinkle on my hand! 

NAILS | Popsicles #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

Now, that I have long and rounded almond nails, the world of nail art has opened up a bit more and one of the designs that has been on my list this summer has been popsicle nail art! Yes, I could have done small mini popsicles all over with any shape of nail, but having my whole nail be an actual popsicle was WAY more fun! 

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.  

NAILS | Reverse Glitter Gradient #CBBxManiMonday

 

Press sample

You have no idea how long I have been wanting to wear this polish! I have left it out purposefully for I want to say a year because I just knew it would be a gorgeous colour. The Shu Uemura x YazBukey collaboration came out in 2015 so I have had this polish a long time without ever trying it, but the formula was perfect and I actually thought this would lean more on the magenta side as I wanted to do this year's Pantone Colour of the Year - Viva Magenta, but when I looked at the name of the polish "Daring Burgundy", I realized it would be much darker than I thought!  

NAILS | Chocolate and Gold #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

I have a good excuse this time for such a late #CBBxManiMonday post and that is that I finally caught the Covid. I started feeling under the weather over the weekend, but tested negative and then progressively developed a sore throat, cough and more congestion and then by Sunday had my two lines. As of yesterday night, I am still testing positive, but feeling a little better. It probably was the worst week to get sick as there is just so much going on. I just dread the amount of catch up I will have to do when I get back to work as there was only so much I could field at home through email feeling how I felt the first few days. Today is the first day where I have been able to stay conscious for more than a few hours without wanting to crawl into bed.

NAILS | Cadillacquer Stygian and Spiders #CBBxManiMonday

 

Purchased by me

Last week was a rough one for me as in addition to worrying like crazy about the kitties, we have been preparing and then doing Inventory which has led to a few 14 hour days and my going to bed much earlier than usual! Luckily, it looks like the kitties are more tolerant of each other though we still separate them if we are not around to supervise as Huxley can get super intense and likes charging at Harper to play. I feel like I will still be playing catch up on things (if I ever do) for awhile. The motivation to blog and get out content has become increasingly less important since Hugo died and I have allowed myself to live in this blogging funk and just post what I have the energy for. Nails and skincare seem to be it and while I do miss my makeup posts, I can never bring myself to put in the hours of work for a makeup look that I used to.  

NAILS | Shannen's Dream #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

For this week's Allyship-themed #CBBxManiMonday, I am paying tribute to Shannen Koostachin who was an Indigenous youth activist from Attawapiskat First Nation in Ontario who at the age of 14, led a movement for "safe and comfy" schools and quality cuturally-based education for all First Nations children. I first heard of this incredible young woman because of Cheekbone Beauty as they donate to the organization Shannen's Dream. I also own the lipstick shade "Shannen" which is a stunning bright red! 

After Shannen herself had to endure learning in portables that had intermittent power and then finally shut down to a fuel leak that was already decades old, she realized the Canadian government needed to provide funding for Indigenous children everywhere which eventually led her to the steps of Parliament Hill in 2008. 

NAILS | OPI Power of Hue Psychedelic Print for Pride

Press samples

Happy Monday! Hopefully I will have more variety in my content this week versus last week where it just boiled down to some nails and sheet masks! I ended feeling more drained from my day job than usual so the motivation to sit at a computer was very low. What did perk me up last week was the arrival of the new OPI Power of Hue Collection! 

NAILS | Heart Gardens #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

 

This month, the ladies and I decided to do the theme of "Allyship" again in honour of Pride and Indigenous History month. While a lot of the manicures I end up creating are not the easiest to discuss, I hope that the art I create resonates with someone as I often find the research and creation of these designs both educational and emotional. 

NAILS | Neon Flowers #CBBxManiMonday

 

Press samples

Summer weather is officially supposed to hit Vancouver this week and I could not be happier! We haven't gone over 20 degrees yet so I look forward to not having to wear a coat in the mornings! To celebrate the last #CBBxManiMonday this month, I've brought out the rest of the BIO SCULPTURE Live Life Loudly collection as these polishes are to die for in terms of opacity, colours and overall neonness!

NAILS | Neon Dandelions #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

NAILS | Teeny Tiny Flowers #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

I swear I had these nails done on Sunday night! My husband and I were doing furniture switching around all afternoon and cleaning along the way so by the end of it we were both pretty spent. Most of the stuff that was moved was beauty so it involved me going through products and seeing if I was REALLY going to keep them or find them new homes. I also had to say goodbye to my Star Trek Voyager and Next Generation DVDs because as long as it took to acquire them and as expensive as they were almost 20 years ago to buy, I no longer have a DVD player anywhere in my life and haven't played them in probably 10 years!

NAILS | Oreo Cookies & Creme Eggs #CBBxManiMonday

I loved the look of the Cadbury Creme Egg Nails that I did so much that I when I was chomping away on these Oreo Mini Eggs, I realized I wanted to try these nails again!  

Polishes sent from PR marked with *

NAILS | Cadbury Creme Egg Nails #CBBxManiMonday

I used to only want to do super complicated nail art and would look down on nail art techniques that were not "hard enough", but let me tell ya, almost 40 year old me no longer judges anyone as even having my nails done every week feels like a huge accomplishment sometimes! We all love Cristine from Simplynailogical who openly says that she's not an artist and that when it comes to nail art, her abilities are of a different calibre than those who stamp and hand-draw. What she IS good at is making some amazing looking nail art without needing to have much in the way of artistic ability. You will need patience, but no nail art brushes or stamping kits!

Polish is PR and Cadbury Eggs are all mine

NAILS | Hermes Vert Ecossais with 18K Gold Leaf #CBBxManiMonday

It has been a long time since I have purchased something bougie and ridiculous and last week when I went shopping with my friend Gerry, that's what happened and it felt REALLY good. The last two years have been about small pleasures and finding joy in things that didn't necessarily cost money or at least not as much money. I was a big spender for most of my working life and though I never went too crazy, I definitely didn't need to buy as much as I did. Even now, there are still a few things I should curb, but luckily I had planned for our little shopping trip and the grand total of my spenditure amounted to about $300 which compared to previous years (ahem $3000...but this included a Celine bag!) which felt nice to do, but not overkill. You can see from the title what one of my splurges was!

 Purchased by me

NAILS | The Hungry Asian Mint Condition Swatch #CBBxManiMonday

I thought this week would be less crazy, but I was wrong. It seems like the hecticness of the first week of March where I had all of this stuff happening work bled into the second week as we launched a new Service Repair app that everyone needed to be trained on which of course wasn't as smooth as we thought it would be. I felt so confused which freaked me out since I'm usually pretty good with tech things and though I eventually calmed down enough to learn and absorb properly, I was very stressed about it for a few days. This week seems to be just full of men who feel treating people like minions is the best way of doing business so I was slightly moody today and just need to survive one more day with some insufferable people before I get two days off in a row all to myself!

Purchased by me so long ago!

NAILS | Purple Matte and Holo #CBBxManiMonday

Today was my first time driving my car in a long time! I drove it back from work on Christmas Eve and then Vancouver had its snowfall and subzero temperatures. Without winter tires, I didn't feel comfortable driving in the snow and ice and I honestly thought it would all go away and melt a few days later as it normally does in Vancouver. Two weeks later, it was still snowing and while I have no issues with taking public transit, what DOES bother me is that I currently pay $354/month for my parking downtown which means that every day I don't park there is costing me money! So, last week when it looked like I could finally get out of my street parking spot that was never shovelled, I made it to my parking and LEFT the car there until today since my parking is paid for 24/7 and is super secure (I guess that's why I pay the big bucks!). My boss had given me some good advice in telling me that once I made it to the parking, I could just leave my car there and never have to dig it out of the snow again! Now, we are about to enter torrential "atmospheric river" weather so at least it's semi-driveable weather unless it floods...

I'll make this quick as it is late, but in keeping with this month's purple and blue theme, I wanted to use multiple shades of purple so I settled on mattifying OPI Infinite Shine in Do You Lilac It? with a matte top coat and using some striping tape to get those zigzags along with the using the slightly holo OPI My Colour Wheel is Spinning from the Holiday 2021 collection. I feel like My Colour Wheel is Spinning looks just like OPI DS Extravagance don't you?

Happy Monday everyone and be sure to check out Renee and Trysh's blogs for their Purple/Blue Manicures this week!

NAILS | Polar Bears and Snowflakes #CBBxManiMonday

Firstly, I think because of the number of things I have had to do over the last few days it feels like it's ManiThursday! I had some car issues this past Friday where my alternator and battery died while I was on a major bridge in the middle of morning rush hour traffic! It was very scary as all my lights on the dashboard just shut off and I could no longer accelerate! I managed to use basically pure gravity to coast to the first emergency pullover area and I was lucky that no one rear-ended me as my signal indicator wasn't working nor were my hazard lights. It was also pretty cold at -1 degrees Celsius and where I was stopped, there wasn't transit or an easily walkable place to catch a cab, but thank goodness for Uber and the willingness of the drivers to pick you up from anywhere! My car is still getting repaired and at $1000 for the repair, I am glad that most of my Christmas shopping is done!

Purchased by me