I love sharing. So let me share these lovely nail polishes with you! You can win a complete DIY-at-home manicure set, which includes:
Foundation Base Coat by Nubar (mini)
Diamond Top Coat by Nubar (mini)
Banana Split by Only You (full size) (swatches here)

So, what do you have to do to be able to win this package?
First of all: follow me on twitter 
Tweet this message: “I want to win a manicure set including Nubar & Only You nail polish at www.nailsandcupcakes.com #blogcontest”. If you don’t tweet in Dutch you can just go ahead and translate to the language you tweet in.
Also, leave a comment below with a valid e-mail address and your twitter name.
And I have just joined Bloglovin, so it would be nice if you could follow me there as well (optional). 

This contest is open for all EU residents! You can participate until Wednesday March 28th. The winner will be chosen on the 29th. Good luck! 

Update: A bit later than planned, sorry. The winner is.. Katrin! Congrats! 

If you follow me on twitter you probably noticed yesterday that I got an amazing giftbag with some Katy Perry eyelashes lashes in the mail. I am extremely excited to use these! As I am going out this weekend I will use a pair and do a full review with loads of pictures then.

But for now, I want to give you all the chance of winning a pair of these lashes! I am giving away a pair of ‘Sweetie Pie’ lashes. The lashes are the most neutral ones in the collection, but are still bold enough to make an impression! 

So, what do you need to do to be able to win these Katylicious lashes? 
Follow me on twitter.
Tweet the following: “I love Katy Perry Lashes and want to win a pair on nailsandcupcakes.com!”
Comment below including a valid email address and your twitter name. Tell me well me when you’d use these gorgeous lashes!

The contest is open for everyone in Belgium & The Netherlands. I will pick a winner this Sunday. Don’t worry if you don’t win, these lashes are for sale in all Di shops (Belgium) for just €8,50 a pair! 

Update: And the winner is.. Drumrolls.. Roxanne! 

Two weeks ago I received some lovely summer products from Corine De Farme. I was going to do a review about the ingredients & product textures already, but then I realized that I just had to wait for the sun to hit my terrace. Good reviews are thorough reviews, right? 

However, I’ve already got my personal favorite in this line. The protective dry oil (pictured left) with a delicious Monoï de Tahiti smell has a lovely texture & SPF 30! I’ve checked the ingredients and they are quite alright! No Padimate-O or parabens. And you know that kind of products got my vote. 
I’m very happy to be able to give one of these dry oils away! The sun hasn’t showed up that much in the past few weeks, so you can win a sneak peek of summer with this little bottle of sun. 
As always, I’m keeping it quite simple. Just leave me a comment below with a valid email address & if you’ve got twitter, please tweet this: “Win a hint of summer at www.nailsandcupcakes.com!”. I will pick a winner on Wednesday, May 2nd! This contest is open for all Belgian ladies. (Sorry other readers, other contests open for the EU will follow soon!)

Update May 2nd: And the winner is..

Citronellore! (thank you, random.org) Check your emails & hope for the sun.. Because that bottle of protective dry oil will soon arrive on your doorstep! Sorry for all the international contestants I had to disqualify.. But stay tuned for international giveaways!

For those of you who don’t know where I live yet: I live in Ghent, one of the nicest cities in Belgium. Or should I say the nicest? After all, I moved here for a reason. Each year in Ghent we have a city festival called ‘de Gentse Feesten’, which could be translated to ‘the Ghent Festivities’. Basically it’s a ten day long super party that goes on day and night in all areas of the city. There are loads of bars putting up tents outside (and serving special drinks!), during the day there are different kinds of activities for the kids & there’s a huge amount of music events as well. I’m not too much of a fan of the festival during the day (LOADS of people from all over the world come and visit, it’s super busy!), but I always head out to some of the best bars in town at night. I love how vibrant this festival is, and especially how I always catch up with people I haven’t seen in quite a while.
Anyway, enough about the festival itself. What does #GF12 have in common with Kiehl’s? Kiehl’s has a (tiny and beautiful!) store in Ghent, and this local shop got all creative & created two special beauty packages to get through the festival:

Day Kit (€41):
Ultra Facial Cleanser 150ml
Ultra Facial Cream 50ml
Ultra Facial Toner (luxury sample)

Night Kit (€48.5):
Utra Facial Cleanser 75ml
Midnight Recovery Concentrate 30ml
Midnight Recovery Eye (luxury sample) 

They’re great value as you get a free luxury sample & a pretty pouch with each kit. Obviously you always buy Kiehl’s anyway, so it’s time to enjoy this offer I’d say ! And believe me, if you want to get through these ten days without looking like you’ve been run over ten times, you need some extra miracles working on your skin..
And that’s not all! To promote this, Kiehl’s has come up with some great slogans in the local language (Flemish with loads of Gantoise words), which are just too funny. My favorite one is the Midnight Recovery Concentrate one as I’ve seen the sun rise at ‘de Vlasmort’ loads of times already. Sorry if you can’t enjoy this because you don’t speak Flemish!

And still, that is not all! Kiehl’s and I have teamed up to provide you with a survival package for de Gentse Feesten. Two lucky winners will be chosen on Wednesday the 17th (so that’s in five days) & will receive their kit before the festival ends! So what do you have to do to be able to win this? It’s really easy!

 Send me an email at nailsandcupcakes@gmail.com and tell me what your favorite dialect word is (could be your local dialect, or if you dare look up some local Ghent words!)
 Tell me whether you’d like to win a day or night kit and why.
 True troopers can even come up with their own slogan, but that last part is not mandatory. 
 If you’ve got Twitter, be a darling & tweet a link to this give-away! 

And if you need some more inspiration, you can find some more very funny slogans behind the break. Good luck! 

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(update: the winner of my second box is Gisèle. Congrats!)

So I’ve been a fan of beauty boxes ever since I saw the first one pop up & now finally in Belgium we have our own beauty box called Deauty! My local followers on twitter will have noticed my appreciation for this Belgian start-up from the beginning on. The first box (for early birds, press & bloggers) was truly amazing and made me very curious. Obviously I instantly ordered the first official box and I must say that I’m impressed once again! 

Inside the box are: L’Oréal Mega Volume Collagene Black Smoke Mascara (full size), Kiehl’s lipbalm (full size), Biotherm Blue Therapy Serum (luxury sample), Biotherm Clarifying Exfoliating Gel (luxury sample) & Shu Uemura Essence Absolue Nourishing Protective Oil (luxury sample/travel size). 

I unexpectedly received two boxes, so I’m very happy to be able to hold a little contest. I took a peak in the second box and it’s the exact same one, so if you would like to win this pretty box with all six products in it.. Go ahead and join the give-away! All you need to do to participate is tell me where you live (locals only please due to the shipping costs for this parcel) & why you think you deserve this box on isabelle@nailsandcupcakes.com. And if you need some more convincing, take a look at their description of the products behind the break (Flemish only, sorry): 

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I’ve been trying out the complete new H3 collection by L’Oréal Professionnel lately; a styling line made by the H3 creative team that gets together during a yearly convention to create the looks they’ll later be showing to all L’Oréal hairdressers. And of course they need amazing and new products to create those looks, or what did you expect? This season six new products came to life: three Tecni Art dust products & three Tecni Art Nude Touch products. I’m still experimenting with the dust items; but I already know that two Nude Touch products are my favorites from these: the Pure Texture Serum and the Natural Finish spray. Let’s elaborate:

The Natural Finish Spray is quite light and brings just a tad bit extra hold to your hair for your daily look. I like adding some hairspray near the roots of my hair to add some volume, because otherwise my hair can look kind of flat and heavy. I wouldn’t say that the full hold is still completely there after a full day at work, but I do still feel the “held together” texture when I brush my hair out in the evening. 
The Pure Texture Serum is a very light (when it comes to expressing the hold in numbers; this one is about half as much lighter than the spray) and emphasizes the waves in the lengths of your hair. This one needs to be applied on wet hair, but I have added it to dry hair as well and it gave some bounce and a bit of extra wave to the ends of my hair. Don’t count on this one taking care of your ends though; this is a styling serum and not a treatment serum. 

And it’s been a while since I held a contest here.. but hooray I’m giving away one of each of these products! What do you have to do? I won’t bother you with a huge list of tweets to tweet or statuses to share. Just check out the local L’Oréal Professionnel Facebook page & send me an e-mail on isabelle@nailsandcupcakes.com. And I’m really sorry for my international readers; but you have to have a valid address in Belgium for this one. I’ll pick a winner on Wednesday the 27th. Good luck!

Update: It looks like the win@nailsandcupcakes.com address wasn’t working properly, so please send me an email again if you participated in the first few hours the contest was up.. Sorry!