A few weeks ago I received a wonderful package from Revlon Canada to check out the CND Rescue Kit. Oh man did my nails need rescue! I haven't been given my nails the TLC that it deserves. I didn't paint it, treat it, or did anything to it for a few months. Yes, it 's good to allow your nails to breathe. But at the same time because it is untreated with a strengthener, it became brittle and weak. This package couldn't have come at a better time.  I'm not familiar with the brand CND, but from a quick google search it looks like it specializes in nail and spa product. CND and it's subsidiary brand was once owned by Revlon, but was sold to The Colomer Group. But a few years ago, Revlon acquired Colomer Group. As fun as beauty products are, I always find the business aspect pretty interesting.  Check out all my goodies after the jump!

Throughout my blogging career, I've been sent quite a few things. Most of them were beauty or nail art related. But from time to time, I get some really neat things to check out. JORD Wood Watch recently got in touch with me to check out one of their luxury wood watches. Besides being a nail polish addict, I am quite a watch collector as well so I was definitely excited for this collaboration! From their website, JORD Wood Watch is an American company that specializes in handcrafted wooden timepieces designed to incorporate into everyone's modern lifestyle. They source wood from all around the world that gives each watch a unique color, design and texture. Each watch is created with precision craftsmanship. It uses CNC machining (aka. computer controlled manufacturing process), laser engraving, and by hand.

Happy Easter everyone! For this nail art, I wanted something easter themed and of course, fashion related. I felt this dress from Valentino Spring 15' collection is the perfect fit. I love the mix of pastel colours and the cutting within the fabric. It looked too messy to apply the complete dress pattern onto one single nail so I decided to section it off.  I decided to use the "plastic bag technique" for the first time. Essentially you paint a patch of clear coat on a plastic bag and allow it to dry completely. I found that if you stick it in the freezer, it will dry up in 10 minutes rather than 30 or more. Next you create the design, let it dry, add another layer of top coat and let it dry completely. Once all your decals have dried, simply peel it off and transfer it onto your nails, add some finishing touches and seal it with top coat. Yes, it uses a lot of top coat!  I have to say this technique was a lot of hassle. There were a lot of waiting time involved but the end result is totally worth it. It definitely eliminates the problem of having one perfectly manicure hand and one messy hand.
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I am on a roll! This dress from the Blumarine Spring/Summer 15' collection caught my eye because I always loved a blue-green tone in combination with white and brown.  The flower and leaves details are absolutely gorgeous. The mix of different textures and elements also makes the dress very interesting. This design was made entirely free-hand with a very fine brush that I bought from an art store recently. It is my new go to nail art brush! The one I purchased is called Cotman 000 paint brush from Midoco. There were a lot brushes of similar thickness, but I just chose the most inexpensive one.
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It has been a while since I've been out of the beauty box game. Mostly because the amount of products I had was piling up to the point where I had to start giving it away to friends or made a conscious effort to use it up. But it is good to see that some Canadian beauty box subscription companies are still going strong. I still remember the days when it was still a relatively new concept. $10 a month for a chance to get some full size goodies and sample other products? You can't go wrong with that! However, over the time when I was still a very active subscriber to multiple beauty boxes (about 4 a month!), I saw a lot of changes. The quality of service and products declined and complaints from customers mounted up on various social media channels. Some companies changed up their subscriptions plans to adapt to the saturated market (ie. Loose Button Luxe Box), a lot of companies went up in prices and unfortunately some companies went under (ie. Glymm, Glossybox Canada). I find it difficult to recommend a specific service to subscribe to because they stand out in their own unique way. Some will give you more high end popular brand samples, some may give high quality products from lesser known brands. It really depends on your taste, what you value and what you are comfortable paying for. I was recently contacted by Glossybox USA to review their March Glossybox. I was actually surprised to hear from them because I recall getting an email from Glossybox Canada that it will no longer be available. As it turns out, Glossybox USA is available to us Canadian gals and shipping cost an additional $5. Just from reviewing their website, their service is exactly like any other beauty subscription service. Every month you get a box of 5 beauty products. Just basing off my previous Glossybox Canada experience, they were most generous with their full size sample. Looking at their website, it seems like it's still a similar case. For US customers, you can choose to pay a monthly fee ($21 US/month), bi-yearly fee ($126 or $21 US/month) or you can save by subscribing to a 12 month package ($220 US or $18.33/month). For the Canadian ladies, taking shipping and current exchange rate into consideration, that's about $33 CAD/month, $198 CAD/6 months, and $356/year. These prices can be higher because the customer may need to pay the taxes on these items. The price seems higher than what I'm use to seeing (with the lowest being around $12 for Canadians). But if they consistently give full size products in their box, I guess the cost can be justified. Now let's take a look at what's in side!
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I'm slowly coming back for my nail art hiatus. In honor of fashion of week, I knew I wanted to create a fashion inspired nail art. After going through a few runway albums, I fell in love with this gorgeous purple floral dress from Alberta Ferreti's Spring/Summer 15' Collection. Maybe I'm just extremely bias towards my favorite colour. I like that it's a mix of different texture and shading, which makes the dress so beautiful and interesting.

In celebration of Lunar New Year, Godiva came out with a Limited Edition Year of the Goat Collection. I was fortunate enough to be sent a box of these goodies to try. As a chocolate fiend, it was really hard to share! The chocolate comes with a variety of different flavours and ganaches. Some were asian inspired that incorporated ginger, gui flower, chrysanthemum and others. The others were a variety of different chocolate with more common flavoured ganaches. Check out the all the flavours after the jump!
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Hi my name is Samantha and I am a chocolate addict. My friend just gave me a small container full of mini Lindt chocolates and it's pretty much gone after 2 days. My personal vice is Ferrero Rocher. Even from childhood, I can finish a whole box in one sitting. It's just so good! Seeing as indulging in too much chocolate is rather fattening, every time I received a box of Ferrero Rocher, my mom would literally hide it. Pretty cruel right? Then she would we forget about it, the chocolate would harden and the wafer would go stale. Now that I am an adult, I eat it as a please, so ha! But being older and trying to be a little more health conscious, I try limit myself to a maximum of 3 whenever I do have a box to myself. I try to savor it in a longer time span than over indulging in one instance. Again, key word is "try". So when I was contacted by my good friend's ad firm to try Godiva Mid-Autumn Festival Gift Box, I immediately said yes. Mid-Autumn festival is traditionally celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. This year, it will be celebrated on September 8. During this celebration, mooncakes are indulged and exchanged between friends and family. Mooncakes are a form of Chinese pastry that is filled with either red bean or lotus seed paste that encompasses an egg yolk inside. I am not the biggest fan of the traditional mooncake (likely because I don't like the texture of the hardened yolk), so I think it's great that some companies have put a modern spin to this traditional bake good. There are "mooncakes" that incorporate unique flavors or simply a different kind of dessert inspired by the shape of the mooncake. I remember celebrating Mid-Autumn and my uncle brought us Haagen-Dazs ice-cream mooncake with a harden chocolate shell. It was really good! Godiva first introduced these limited edition mooncakes seven years ago. Before it was only available to selected US markets. Now that it has proven it's popularity and success, this mooncake collection is available through US and Canada! It is only available until September 8. If feel like indulging, pick one up while you can! Check out what the flavors are after the jump!
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If you suffer from brittle nails like me, I found a product for you! NailPolishCanada.com sent me a bottle of Duri Rejuvacote to test out and I must say, it did wonders. Honestly, not sure why my nails are getting so weak. It peels and it breaks easily. My nails were in bad shape overall. To test out this product, I've given my nails a couple of weeks to "breathe" by only wearing this strengthening polish. So that explains my hiatus from nail art blogging. That and just life. If you're unfamiliar with NailPolishCanada.com, it is a website that will fill all your nail needs. They have nail art tools and a huge collection of nail polishes that range from indie brands to more well known brands.  They offer free shipping to all orders within Canada, so that is a pretty awesome bonus.

I like to follow other nail art bloggers and I saw that Miss Lady Finger did a design from the Honor Spring/Summer collection. I thought it was an adorable design and decided to recreate it myself. I didn't follow her tutorial so it has my own little twist, which incorporated the sponging technique to create the spotty background and of course the dotting technique to create the flowers. I really like the simplicity of this design. I usually like to challenge myself and re-create the more complex pattern. But from time to time, something simple is always fun to do as well. This is definitely something I would categorize for "Beginners". So if you want something cute, colourful and simple to rock on your nails, this is the nail art for you! Check out materials and tutorial after the jump!
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