Category Archives: Blog News

Swatch And Learn’s 7-Year Blogiversary Worldwide Giveaway

Swatch And Learn 7-Year Blogiversary Giveaway

Update (Sunday August 6, 2017): Congratulations, Jen! You’ve won my giveaway! Please check your email and reply within 48 hours to claim your prize. Thank you to everyone for participating. Stay tuned – I plan to have another fun nail-polish giveaway.

Blow out the candles on the cake! Today marks Swatch And Learn’s 7-Year Blogiversary!

Blogging has taken me along a journey filled with happy memories. I’ve met many people along the way, learned new things about myself, and enjoyed sharing one of my passions with fellow nailphiles. I really appreciate you joining me on this adventure. May we build more wonderful memories together! 😀

To celebrate, and to say thank you to my readers who take the time to visit, I’m having a worldwide giveaway. (Yes that’s right – anyone can enter!)

From now until August 4, 2017, enter for your chance to win the Zoya Wanderlust Collection!

I thought long and hard about which collection I should purchase for the prize, and Zoya Wanderlust won because the formula on each shade is amazing. Also, there’s a nice variety of colours, so I feel that there’d be something for everyone to enjoy.

(If you haven’t already seen my Zoya Wanderlust Collection swatches, check out my previous post, and you’ll see why I love it.)

Read the rest of this post for the full details on how you can enter my giveaway.

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I Attended The Body Shop Almond Milk & Honey Launch Dinner Tonight

The Body Shop Almond Milk and Honey Collection

Tonight, thanks to the generosity of The Body Shop and PR, I was treated to a delicious vegan dinner at Planta in Yorkville! As if that wasn’t enough, I also left with a big bag full of amazing The Body Shop Almond Milk and Honey skincare.

This new The Body Shop Almond Milk and Honey collection is specially designed for those with sensitive skin. Its scent is so yummy, it smells edible, even though it’s not. (My all-time favourite scent from The Body Shop is Wild Argan Oil, but this is tied for first place.)

During dinner, Dr. Christine Choi Kim, the Global Dermatologist for The Body Shop came from Los Angeles to give us a presentation.

To put the cherry on the top, the founders of Greenhouse Juice Co., Emma Knight and Hana James spoke about how to nourish your skin from the inside out.

We all got to flip through and preview their debut cookbook called The Greenhouse Cookbook: Plant-Based Eating and DIY Juicing, which has lots of healthy recipes from dinners and desserts to smoothies and appetizers.

(I was eyeing the chia pudding recipe, as I’m on a chia seed kick lately.)

PR informed us, to my delight, that we’d all be getting a copy of the book when it’s officially released in April! 🙂 (This is perfect timing because I am in desperate need of some food inspiration. I used to cook new dishes and experiment all the time. I stopped for a few years, but I want to get back into it.)

While I didn’t photograph every dish that arrived at our table (I was busy stuffing my face…), here’s one that I managed to capture before devouring.

Planta Toronto Vegan Restaurant Dessert

Above is the dessert that’s made with toasted almond cream, dragon fruit, and a field of green “pearls.” It was like nothing I had ever eaten before, and I assure you that it was nothing short of heavenly!

I almost didn’t want to eat it because it looked like a work of art, but, well, my oink-ish instincts kicked in, and the rest is tummy history.

(It’s cute how the cubes look like little dice.)

Some other things on the menu tonight were cauliflower tots with truffled parmesan, rice rolls with mango, basil coriander, and Thai dressing, and coconut ceviche with avocado, toasted nori, and citrus soya.

There were also these incredible “crab” cakes made with hearts of palm, spinach, coconut milk, and warm spices. Aside from the dessert, this was the other standout dish.

Again, a huge thank you to The Body Shop, the fantastic PR team, and Planta for making tonight’s dinner a wonderful experience all around! 🙂

What’s your favourite item from The Body Shop? What’s the most delicious vegan dish you’ve ever eaten? Are there any specific products from this new The Body Shop skincare line that you’d like me to do an in-dept review on? Let me know, and I’ll see what I can do!

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The Nail Polish I Designed Is Discontinued & Has Sold Out

Pretty Serious Swatch And Learn

Back in 2014, my nail dreams came true when I collaborated with an indie company to design my own nail polish, Pretty Serious Swatch And Learn, and bring to market a shade that represented me.

You may remember seeing my post on here, where I showed tons of swatches of it from all different angles. This polish looks very different, depending on the angle and lighting. (If you haven’t seen it, click on the above link.)

It’s predominantly green, especially when looking at it straight on (like in my above swatch), but when you move your fingers around, you see blue, copper, purple, pink, and more!

Pretty Serious Swatch And Learn was truly my dream polish, and I’m so happy that some of you got to enjoy it first-hand!

Pretty Serious Swatch And Learn, along with a large chunk of shades in their colour library have been discontinued recently and have sold out.

I was going to give you the heads up earlier to snag it while you still can, but, according to the Pretty Serious Facebook post, there were already low quantities. By the time I had a chance to sit down and blog about it, it had already sold out!

Turns out that I have a few extra bottles around here of Pretty Serious Swatch And Learn, so maybe one day, if enough readers are interested, I may have a second worldwide giveaway for it  (like this one). Let me know if you’d want this.

This is a short post to say thank you to everyone who wore the polish, encouraged me, and made this possible. Readers are the backbone of a blog, and I definitely wouldn’t have had the opportunity, if it wasn’t for all of you. *hug*

I am so grateful and honoured to have collaborated with Pretty Serious Cosmetics and to turn my vision into a reality. They make some of my favourite nail polishes, and it was an amazing experience that still leaves me pinching myself to this day to see if it was real!

Be sure to check the Pretty Serious Cosmetics website regularly. They continue to bring out new, beautiful shades that are vegan and cruelty-free. Plus they ship worldwide!

Thanks for making my blogging journey more exciting than I ever thought possible when I started in 2010. I’m looking forward to more exciting things to come! 🙂

Hope you all have a fantastic week!

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Happy Chinese New Year!

To those who are celebrating this weekend with family and loved ones, I hope that you have a wonderful time and that the Year of the Rooster brings you much happiness! 🙂

Chinese New Year 2017

In other news, I recently met the Queen. 😉

She stood proud and tall…at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto’s Financial District. Checkmate! 

Chess Queen

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Congratulations to the Zoya Enchanted Collection Giveaway Winners!

Zoya Enchanted Collection Giveaway Winners

Congratulations to the Zoya Enchanted Collection Giveaway winners:

  • 1st Prize: Cynthia R.
  • 2nd Prize: Kim P.
  • 3rd Prize: Ashley T.

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.

Thank you to everyone for participating in my giveaway! 

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! 🙂

P.S. In case you’d like to see larger photos of my Zoya Enchanted Collection swatches, click the link or the image below.

Zoya Enchanted Collection Swatches

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2017

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wishing you an exciting 2017 that’s full of love, adventures, and great memories!

Remember, it’s not always what the world holds for you, but it’s what you bring to it.

Let’s make every moment count with a fresh start to a new year that will challenge us to achieve personal goals and be our strongest and best! 🙂

Nail Polishes Shown:

Also, I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to each and every single one of you who participated in my Zoya Enchanted Collection worldwide giveaway! 🙂 It ended on December 31, 2016. As stated in the blog post with the giveaway details, I will be announcing the three Zoya Enchanted Collection winners on January 2 or January 3, 2017. Stay tuned, and good luck, everyone!

Disclosure: This post contains press samples provided by PR.

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Swatch And Learn’s #2016BestNine

Swatch And Learn Best Nine 2016

As another year draws to a close, it’s a time of reflection about the accomplishments and challenges  that punctuated 2016.

Thank you for joining me on my blogging journey since 2010!

I look forward to sharing more swatches, reviews, and sprinklings of humour in the coming year. I’m excited to plan new goals for 2017 and to see where the ongoing adventure goes!

Because of the support and encouragement from readers like you, I am happy to say that a lot of my blogging dreams have come true in ways that I never imagined! Thank you so much for visiting and for leaving comments.

I have learned a lot from all of you, and I hope that Swatch And Learn has become a place on the internet that provides you with a little sunshine, especially on those difficult days! *Hug* Together, let’s continue to improve and grow while sharing our passion for nail polish. 🙂

If you’re addicted to Instagram like I am, you no doubt have seen the trend of posting the #2016BestNine collage, which depicts an Instagram user’s nine most-popular images based on the number of likes.

Above is the collage generated by the 2016 Best Nine website, which shows my most-liked images on Instagram.

I am so honoured that, in 2016, I received 59,935 likes on my Instagram!

Also, for my Pinterest for 2016:

  • 1,616,971 people saw my pins
  • 10,422 people saved my pins to their boards
  • 6,170 people clicked my pins

It really floors me, and I’m so pleased that you have been enjoying my photos!

In this post, check out the links. They’ll lead you to the reviews and/or swatches that I published on here earlier, in case you want more information and details about a certain nail polish.

Reminder: Today’s the last day to enter my worldwide giveaway!

Be sure to get your entry in by tonight at 11:59 pm EST for your chance to win my Zoya Enchanted Collection worldwide giveaway! (3 winners! See that blog post for the full details.)

Zoya Enchanted Collection Giveaway

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