NAILS | ORLY Hot Tropics Swatch #CBBxManiMonday

Purchased by me

This past week has been an absolute whirlwind of activity! I have been helping out with opening the new Chaumet Oakridge location and since Oakridge as a mall has been undergoing construction since 2020, it has been very complicated trying setup a new store while the mall itself is also undergoing construction! The team is new so I have also been training them a little bit and advising on how best to setup their store for half the day and then coming back to my own store. Needless to say, I have been tired, but glad to see that I was able to assist effectively as the store seems to be as ready as it will ever be! 

NAILS | Polka Dot Pink #CBBxManiMonday

Purchased by me

It is now evident that I have a cold and even on Day 6, I am still exhibiting more and more congestion and now coughing. Most of the time, colds move WAY more quickly than this and I should be at the recovery stage by now, but instead I am wasting my beautiful 3-day vacation trying to do the things I had planned on doing, like walks in the sunshine and blogging, and sleeping when my body says it has to. And the worst part is that I don't know where I caught this from! No one at work is sick, my husband isn't sick and it doesn't seem to cold season. I feel like my body just invented this to tell me to rest even though I don't think I have been putting it through too much to begin with! I felt crappy enough to say to myself, "Jayne, you need to at least do your nails for today!" 

NAILS | Rainbow Honey My Girl Swatch #CBBxManiMonday

Purchased by me sooooooo long ago!

Let's start by saying that my nails have gone through hell and are once again growing back from stumps. One nail was already about to break in this photo, but I sort of patched it up with nail polish. I knew it was only a matter of time though before it fully broke and a few days later that's exactly what happened! I have little nubbins now, but they should be somewhat grown back by next Monday for our month of green. 

NAILS | Morgan Taylor Got Some Altitude Swatch

Press sample

It's my birthday week and what have I decided to do? Well, in two days I have now watched season 1 of Bridgerton as I had yet to jump on the bandwagon and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT! Daphne and Simon's journey had me crying every episode right up until the end! I have also been taking some time to paint my nails some very bright summer colours and Morgan Taylor has once again wowed me when it comes to colour payoff and formula!

NAILS | OPI Nail Envy Powerful Pink #MidWeekMani

Press samples 

So, I just started therapy regularly to deal with work things and had a productive therapy session today where we had a little breakthrough on how I process negative thoughts and it gave me some hope for the future. I went to my first session last August which I was nervous about, but found it helpful AND I found a therapist I liked all on my first try! I went for another session in October to work through some fears about my flight to Paris and then didn't really think about booking with her again until last month when things at work started to escalate. After seeing her two weeks in a row, I think I like the regularity of having someone who isn't in my close circle check in on me and where I can sort of start over on a blank slate. 

NAILS | OPI Infinite Shine Exercise Your Brights Swatch

Press sample

How do days off go by so quickly? Tuesday, I knew would go by quickly as I was out most of the afternoon for the Kiehl's event and then stayed downtown until 5pm so that my husband and I could go home together. I actually had a ton of client stuff to take care of so I ended up going to work and catching up on a few things. I had three glorious days off and now I am on the last one and I am sad. I feel like I never really got a break and what makes me upset is that it was my own fault. I was the one checking my work email since I have a few big client things on the go and I even shipped my very first Poshmark sale! I've been pretty lazy about poshing even though I know it's all the rage now, but I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of selling to strangers. I would honestly rather just give it away and save myself the hassle, but I tried it and we shall see if the buyer likes what she purchased!

NAILS | OPI Hi Barbie! Swatch #MidWeekMani

Press samples

I feel like along with Fall and September, the long weekend just sort of crept up on me so I wasn't expecting to take a stat day this week, but it has been really nice to work a short week. I had Wed and today off so for the first time in probably three weeks, I got my act together and did some chores around the house and even decided to blog! The last month has been super stressful and it was nice to feel motivated to do something even if it was as simple as two loads of laundry and updating our house insurance. It's all in the little things!

NAILS | Last Round of Hearts, I Promise! #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

I know Valentine's Day is long over, but I had seen this manicure on Pinterest (sorry, there was no credit given to who did them) and really wanted to do it because I have super long nails now which means more real estate for designs like these! 

NAILS | Magenta Geodes #CBBxManiMonday

Press sample

I am amazed I got 13 blog posts out last month because I have been so f'ing busy (in both good and not so good ways) at work that I am literally scared for my health. My brain and my heart are constantly racing with things that need to be done and of course things crop up during the day that need to be dealt with as well. Needless to say, it has been a challenging week and I am doing my best to stay mentally sound. We are short-staffed and everyone is feeling a little low and for an introvert like myself who needs her batteries recharged, it's hard to be a cheerleader so I have honestly been keeping to myself and saving my energy for clients vs. employees. Now, I actually had these nails done for last week, but couldn't bring myself to even edit the photos for all of 5 minutes. That's how unmotivated I was to do anything other than survive my day job which I will say, I despise doing. I hate having my happiness dictated by my job and I am actively trying to fill my personal life with things that add some distance to my work life. Let's just say it's all still a work in progress!

NAILS | The Hungry Asian Tickled Pink Swatch #CBBxManiMonday

Anyone else feel like taking a sick day? Luckily I have today off, but after going to bed at around 1am last night and then getting up 6 hours later to do laundry, I just feel like I never woke up! I had a small nap at 11am just because I couldn't stop yawning, but I still feel like a complete zombie. I am also feeling quite a bit of anxiety (Ukraine and Russia aside) as tomorrow is my Monday and it's a week of fairly unpleasant things in the retail world. 

Purchased by me sooooo long ago!

NAILS | Abstract Love featuring OPI Nature Strong

While I may not necessarily celebrate Valentine's Day, I sure do love a good pink manicure and after doing one round of Valentine's Day nail art, I had to have more! I've always loved the abstract manicures with lines and dots so I wanted to try to create this with solely OPI Nature Strong polishes just to see how a vegan polish measured up to the "regular guys" in terms of ease of use in nail art and as a full base nail colour. As you can see, the polishes did not disappoint!

PR samples

NAILS | Pink Gradient Polka Dots ft. OPI Nature Strong #CBBxManiMonday

February is classically one of my favourite nail art months because even though I think Valentine's Day is kind of "blergh" in terms of consumerism, I do really love hearts, pink and all of the decorations and designs that accompany this "holiday"! I just received a package with OPI's newest line of vegan polishes and my my are they ever gorgeous! Coming in 30 shades, even just having the core collection will have you covered for all of your manicure needs for years to come! I found myself some Valentine's Day appropriate colours and though this isn't a complicated manicure, it sure is cute!

 

Press samples

NAILS | Leopard Print Hearts #CBBxManiMonday

I feel like I am cheating a bit here as I did leopard print nails on one nail for last week, but I loved it so much I wanted to do it again! We are in the last week of February before we start with our March green manicures for St. Patrick's Day and I think I might even extend the "green theme" to sheet masking and use all of sheet masks with green packaging! Though I would love to do this with makeup, I don't think I can handle green eyeshadow every day! Maybe I can aim for once a week and give my green shadows some love!

Press samples

NAILS | More Hearts! #CBBxManiMonday

This is our last "Red and Pink" themed ManiMonday for this month and though I know it's not Valentine's Day anymore, when I saw this heart mani by Rina Alcantara, I had to try it! It looked so cute and not overly tedious to do especially since most of it is done with acrylic paints which are a little easier to work with than nail polish. I was very close to not doing this mani at all as I have had a grueling weekend with Inventory at work and I am now in my weekend (though it's going to be spent running errands). Truthfully, I have only done the one hand and I am not sure if I will do the right hand or just remove my left hand and and get a headstart on next week. Even though I feel like the hard part of the week is over, I feel somewhat apprehensive that February is done in just a few days and we will be almost a quarter of the way through 2019!

PR sample

NAILS | The Pink Gradient #CBBxManiMonday

The new OPI Tokyo Collection arrived and I ran into any nail polish lover's issue of wanting to wear ALL of the shades at once and I have learned that the BEST solution for this is to do a gradient because then you can choose at least three of your favourite colours and just sponge them all together like one big, happy family! We are sticking with our theme of pinks and reds this month and while this gradient is more pink/mauve (I dunno, I just don't enjoy wearing straight-up red polish) I adore each of the colours on their own and I have a feeling I will be wearing this again this month and beyond!

PR samples

NAILS | Jar of Hearts #CBBxManiMonday

Last year, I went a bit rogue and almost ignored Valentine's Day completely in favour of the Lunar New Year and Asian products. This year will still focus on #LunarFebruary, but Valentine's Day will not be left behind as I do have a handful of stories for this month that were of interest to me and hopefully will be to you as well! For this month, the girls and I decided to keep our ManiMonday theme simple and embrace the pink and red of both Valentine's Day and the Lunar New Year. I was very hesitant to say goodbye to the gorgeous green Zoya manicure I received at Lily & Roo last week so I decided to add some pink on top and squeak out a few more days of wear out of my manicure.

*PR sample