Dear readers,
Another Christmas is here, and I hope that you have a wonderful day that’s full of love, light, and happiness! 🙂
From my heart to yours, I wish everyone the very best, today and every day, regardless of what you’re celebrating during the holidays. Sending all things positive your way!
Love,
Mary
I hope that you all are having a wonderful Christmas Eve! 🙂
A dynamic trio has been added to the Pretty Serious Museum of Naileontology Collection for 2016, and they are available on the Pretty Serious website:
Mad Skull of Cloverton has a delicate sensibility with an air of elegance, like a modest string of pearls worn with a Little Black Dress. The soft pink dominates the nail polish, and it’s accented with a flash of angelic green.
The formula of Mad Skull of Cloverton was on the sheer side, but it builds up opacity quickly with a second coat. I opted to use three coats to further bring out the intensity of the pretty duochrome.
Chariots of the Red Sea offers depth because the glitter is suspended in a jelly base, which allows the sparkle to peek through, rather than get covered up and look flat. Two coats is all you’ll need for this beauty to fully cover the nail.
Disc of the Heavens has subtle glitter in a jelly base that, when worn with two coats (as I did here), looks more like a crelly (creme-jelly hybrid). It has a milky look to it.
All Pretty Serious nail polish are formulated without Toluene, DBP, Formaldehyde, and Formaldehyde Resin. Also, you’ll be happy to hear that they are vegan and cruelty-free.
My favourite of the trio? While I have a soft spot for green nail polish, the one that caught my attention the most was Mad Skull of Cloverton because of the duochrome shift!
P.S. Have you entered my worldwide giveaway? Enter by December 31, 2016 for your chance to win the Zoya Enchanted Collection! (3 winners! Be sure to read all the details in the giveaway’s blog post.)
With Christmas just an ole Saint Nick wink away, I thought that I’d share with you swatches of the festive Pretty Serious Ghosts of Christmas Past Collection that recently arrived in my mailbox! (You can find the collection available to purchase on the Pretty Serious website.)
While it’s a holiday collection, these colours can be worn any time of year, so don’t keep them in the dark corners of your Helmer. They want to be taken out for a night on the town. Who wouldn’t?
My favourite, while difficult to choose among so many beauties, is Enchanted Evergreen (the dark green) because my affinity for green nail polish knows no bounds. Gimme, gimme, gimme! 😉 If you’re a green lover, I’m sure you’ll love it, too, because it’s richly pigmented, and it has darkness and depth without looking like a black polish.
Hmm…but Peace on Earth is tied for first place. It’s an ethereal seafoam green that has delicate flashes of pink. These flashes remind me a lot of the inside of some pearlescent seashells. Magical and fairy-esque don’t even begin to describe its appearance.
You can never go wrong with a classic holiday red like Velvet Bow (a rock-and-roll metallic) or Verry Merry Berry (a super shiny creme).
Make nails sing a Christmas melody with silver (Fairy Lights) and gold (Tarnished Tinsel).
Then, there are the two top coats that can completely transform your existing manicure, taking it from strolling down the sidewalk to modelling on Mars (in a good way)! Hehe, oh the places that my mind sometimes goes. 😉
Jack Frost doesn’t nip at my nose. Instead, this iridescent glitter top coat makes my heart race like Usain Bolt! I tried it over Enchanting Evergreen, and it created a blue galactic wonder on my nails! (If you like my swatch of it, you will love it even more in person.)
Mojito is the other top coat. It has fine green shimmer, so adding it to any manicure will bring out its inner ribbit. 🙂
If some of you aren’t already familiar with Pretty Serious nail polishes, they’re cruelty-free and vegan. They also don’t contain Toluene, Formaldehyde, Formaldehyde Resin, or DBP.
P.S. There’s still time to enter my Zoya Enchanted Collection worldwide giveaway, but hurry – it ends December 31! (Remember, there will be three winners!)
A few days ago, the Zoya Naturel 3 Collection launched on Zoya’s official website, and it includes six colours that are work-appropriate and that will flatter different skin tones. (As a refresher, check out the official press release that I published on here earlier.)
While I am the first one to pounce on a bold, vibrant nail colour, I can appreciate muted tones that offer understated elegance.
For formal occasions or in conservative settings, it’s not always appropriate to wear a manicure that screams louder than a neon-plaid jumpsuit. Those times call for wear-anytime colours. The Zoya Naturel 3 Collection fits the bill!
As you know, Zoya nail polishes are often given women’s names. I’m thrilled to see that Zoya has finally released a nail polish called Mary! 😉 It’s described as a ‘raisin,’ which is accurate because it’s a soft brown with a tinge of purple mixed in. I love how it’s slightly different than your run-of-the-mill gingerbread brown.
Zoya’s creme nail polishes are always on point with smooth, pigmented formulas that are consistent and reliable. The ones in the Zoya Naturel 3 Collection live up to my expectations because they were a dream to apply, and I only needed to use two coats to achieve full opacity.
The formula is also very forgiving, in that it doesn’t dry too fast, so you have some time to paint over your nail several times to get the look and coverage you want. No hiccups here! Plus because they’re cremes, they were easy peasy to remove.
They also are shiny, even without a top coat. (All of my swatches in this post are shown without a base or top coat, and you can see how glassy the nail polishes are!)
My favourites? Aside from being biased and having a soft spot for the one named Mary (hehe), Debbie and Jill are my next choices.
Which ones are you gravitating toward?
P.S. If you haven’t already, remember to enter my Zoya Enchanted Collection worldwide giveaway by December 31st! (There will be three winners. Check that blog post for all the details. Good luck in the draw!)
Excited to get my hands on Lauren Graham‘s new book, Talking as Fast as I Can!
I’m a huge Gilmore Girls fan, and my all-time favourite characters are Lorelai, Kirk, Emily, and Jess. Who are yours?
So far, I’ve watched 3 out of 4 of the new reboot Netflix episodes in the A Year in the Life series. Trying to hold off on that last episode because I don’t want it to end! 🙂
Any fellow Gilmore Girls fans out there?
(On my nails: Revelry Red and Stellarbration from the CND Creative Play Celebration Collection. Click the link to see my swatches of all eight shades in the collection!)
P.S. Remember, you still have until December 31, 2016 to enter my worldwide giveaway for your chance to win the Zoya Enchanted Collection! There will be three winners! See that blog post for all the details.
Disclosure: This post contains nail-polish press samples from PR.
A little while ago, I came home to a fun surprise in the mail: a personalized The Body Shop Fuji Green Tea Body Butter! This cute Christmas gift from PR put a smile on my face. 🙂
Have someone on your holiday list who might also love this?
According to The Body Shop Global Gifting survey, which studied the gifting behaviours of 1,950 men and women across 10 countries from five continents, “48% of people want to give a bespoke gift during the holidays.”
If you’re a fellow Canadian and you are close to these participating stores, you can create your own personalized Body Butter:
There are different designs that you can choose from, not just the flamingo. All were designed in collaboration with Yago Partal and his world-renowned portraits of animals.
The Body Shop’s personalized Body Butters can feature one of four exotic creatures to help bring your gift to life and add a fun, creative, and wild touch.
To add a name to The Body Shop Body Butter, all you have to do is purchase a 200ml ($21 CAD) or 400ml ($34 CAD) Body Butter at the above stores. Then, one of the store’s consultants at the till point will help you to create your personalized Body Butter!
What are some of your favourite things from The Body Shop? Are you interested in me reviewing this Fiji Green Tea Body Butter or other The Body Shop products? Let me know!
P.S. In case you missed yesterday’s post, I’m having a Zoya Enchanted Collection Giveaway that’s open worldwide. Hurry to get your entry in, as it ends December 31, 2016! (3 winners!)
I e-mailed the winners on Tuesday January 3, 2017. You have 48 hours to reply to my e-mail to claim your prize. Failure to do so will force me to choose a new winner.
Hope that you all had fun and that you’ll visit Swatch And Learn again soon. Also, stay tuned because there will be more fun nail-polish giveaways coming up! 🙂
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As we draw closer to the end of the year, I’m attempting to bring some holiday cheer your way with a fun Zoya Enchanted Collection Giveaway!
I want to give more readers a chance to win these beautiful nail polishes and lipsticks, so this giveaway is open worldwide, and there will be three winners!
Hurry – enter by December 31st for your chance to win big!
You’ll remember that not long ago, I shared with you my Zoya Enchanted Collection swatches and gushed about how I loved every single colour.
This is one of my favourite Zoya collections in quite a while, and I thought it would be the ideal collection to share with readers. That’s why I purchased all these prizes for you. I want to spread my excitement over this collection with you. Can you feel it? And even if you already bought this collection, still consider entering the giveaway because you can share it with a friend who digs nail polish.
Not only does the Zoya Enchanted Collection contain beloved textured PixieDusts, but there are also beautiful shimmers.
Also…hello, you know that I’m a green nail-polish lover, and the ones in the Zoya Enchanted Collection make my heart beat faster and my nails clasp their hands together, hoping to be painted! 😉 Hope you love them as much as I do!
What’s Up for Grabs:
See the rest of this post for the full details on how to enter my giveaway!
Good luck!