The Beauty Buffs : Holiday Looks

Purchased Myself | PR Samples

Hello everyone! Welcome to another bi-weekly post of The Beauty Buffs!

Woohoo! *throws glitter*
As a warning, this is a really long post.
This week I'm pretty excited! It's all themed around Holiday looks!  What I decided to do was touch on each of the three Holiday's that are going to be happening this December! Christmas (12/15), Kwanzaa (12/26-01/01/15) and Hanukkah (12/16-12/24) Why did I chose to do three? Well, isn't it kind of obvious? More than Christmas goes on in December, plus it could be a good learning lesson. Plus, it could be really fun to learn a little something about each of the three! One little known thing about me is that I LOVE History and really, I love learning about customs and things that I normally wouldn't know about. All of the eye looks are BASED off of colors from each Holiday. 

First up Christmas : An annual religious and cultural holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ,celebrated generally on December 25 by billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it closes the  Advent season and initiates the twelve days of Christmastide, which ends after the twelfth night. Christmas is a civil holiday in many of the world's nations, is celebrated culturally by an increasing number of non-Christians, and is an integral part of the Christmas and holiday season.

 Source

Christmas is a season that I think pretty much most of the world celebrates. For most people unfortunately it's turned into all about getting gifts instead of just spending time with family. In my family this year we actually wont be getting gifts for each other, we only plan on getting gifts for my Niece and Nephew. For Christmas I decided to not stick with the traditional red and green but to take my inspiration from that song by Burl Ives called (what else) Silver & Gold. Every Christmas this song gets stuck in my head without fail. I also must give a shout out to Jacqueline from A Brilliant Brunette because she helped me settle on doing something with silver and gold. Now I also added in some brown and green as I'm sure you can tell. I wish my silver would have been more bright but it looks kind of muddy. Boo.

Products Used:
Too Faced Shadow Insurance
Wet n Wild Brulee (base)
L'Oreal Infallible 24/hr Eye Shadow - Continuous Cocoa 
Sugarpill Cosmetics - Goldilux
Sugarpill Cosmetics - Tiara 
Make Up For Ever Artist Liner - I-32 *
A Dark Brown MATTE eye shadow for the lower lash line (if you want)
Wet n Wild Lipstick - Spotlight Rouge
Vincent Longo Meta Gloss - La Fiera *

Kwanzaa : A week-long celebration held in the United States and also celebrated in the Western African Diaspora in other nations of the Americas. The celebration honors African heritage in African-American culture, and is observed from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a feast and gift-giving. 

 Source 

I've looked at a lot of Websites about Kwanzaa and everything is very tribal and very traditional. The focus is on the lighting of the Candles (3 red, 1 black, 3 green). Those three colors are what I am going to mainly focus on. I personally feel like Kwanzaa is a very lesser known holiday, and really it's something I would LOVE to learn more about! I decided to go dark with the shadows, I didn't want it to be bright or it would have been too "Christmassy". 

Products Used:
Too Faced Shadow Insurance
Wet n Wild Brulee (base)
MAC Cosmetics - Cranberry
Urban Decay - Bender
MAC Cosmetics Fluidline - Blacktrack
A Dark Brown MATTE eye shadow for the lower lash line (if you want)
Wet n Wild Megaslicks Balm Stain - Pinky Promise

 Hanukkah : also known as the Festival of Lights, Feast of Dedication, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire of the 2nd century BC. Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar.

Source

Hanukkah is a Holiday that has ALWAYS interested me, probably because of my Mother. Little known fact my Grandfather was born into a Jewish household and was put up for adoption and was later adopted by an Italian family. My last name would have been Jobe if his parents wouldn't have given him up! We actually used to play with Dreidels when we were kids. One of these years I will celebrate Hanukkah. For this look I will be focusing on Blue and White, since that is what is mostly associated with the Holiday. I decided to go with no eyeliner because I felt like it could have been too much. I wanted this look to be simple and be the main focus.

Products Used:

Too Faced Shadow Insurance

Wet n Wild Brulee (base)

Maybelline Color Tattoo Metal - Electric Blue

Sugarpill Cosmetics - Velocity

Sugarpill Cosmetics - Mochi

BFTE Cosmetics - Diamonds *

I also added other random no-name whites to try and make it brighter

A Dark Brown MATTE eye shadow for the lower lash line (if you want)

Now, with all of those looks aside, you're going to need an eye look for all of your Holiday parties! I chose to do Gold and a darkened Cranberry because those two colors goes together so beautifully. Unfortunately I don't have a full shot with both eyes, I'm not sure where that picture went! I think out of all of the looks, this has to be my favorite, there is just something about it that I absolutely love! 

Products Used:

Too Faced Shadow Insurance

Wet n Wild Brulee (base)

Sephora Pocket Palette Neutrals - Darkest Brown (crease/outercorner/lower lashline)

MAC Cosmetics - Cranberry

L'Oreal Infallible - Bronzed Taupe

Urban Decay - Half Baked 

Givenchy Nior Couture 4-in-1 Mascara
MAC Cosmetics Fluidline - Blacktrack

Urban Decay 24/7 Liner - Demolition (waterline)

Xtreme Lashes by Jo Mousselli Glideliner - Black Pearl (tight liner) *

I KNOW this was a long post and if you've read or made it this far kudos to you! Which is your favorite look out of the four?!!
Don't forget to check out the other posts below from the other ladies! 


Some products were purchased by me and the products marked with ( * ) we provided for PR use. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Mint Mani for Talia

As I am sure you all have heard by now Talia Castellano passed away July 16, 2013 at the young age of 13 years old. Talia was a joy and inspiration to many many people through her YouTube Channel.

A huge groups of bloggers (and non bloggers) decided to do Mint Mani's for Talia. Why? Because the last picture she posted on her Instagram was a Mint Mani. If you decide to do a Mint Mani don't forget to tag it with #MintManiForTalia and #TaliasLegacy
I do want to say thank you to Nail Polish Wars for putting this together!

China Glaze Aquadelic

Hello everyone!

Today I have swatches for you of Aquadelic. It's from China Glaze's Electropop 2012 collection. I found this polish at Sally's on clearance for $3.29, which is an amazing price.

China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots

Hello Lovelies! 

Before I even bother to get into this post, I want to say ignore my cuticles like they aren't even there. They were doing SO GOOD and looking nice for once, then we went bowling.. -_- Bowling is h.e.l.l. on cuticles, on both of my hands, my cuticles were even bleeding. Ugh. 

Enough aboot that!

Strap On Your Moonboots is the polish that I was the MOST disappointed with in my last haul post. In the bottle it isn't that crazy of a holographic polish, but on the nails it's not as bad. The holographic-ness of the polish comes out a bit more but it's still faint. It kind of reminds me of those holographic cards from the 90s. :P 

If you have never tried any of China Glaze's holographic polishes then I will fill you in a bit on their formula. This formula is exactly the same as their Tronica collection from 2011. The formula is VERY thin, it wont flood your cuticles, but it will dry very quickly. That is one thing I do happen to love about the holographic's is how quickly they dry. Typically you only need 2 coats, 3 at the most.

To see the rest of the post, click on

FOTD #8 - Blogger Inspired

Hello everyone!

This FOTD is inspired by a look that A Brilliant Brunette did a couple of days ago on her blog. It's her Ocean Sunrise Eyes look/tutorial. I absolutely LOVED it the moment I saw it and wanted to re-create it. 

Granted hers looks a million times better, but hey, I tried. That's all that counts! :P

Check out my re-creation after the jump!

Blue Eye Shadow "Tutorial"

Hi everyone!

*waves like a crazy person*

So, just as a kind of disclaimer, this really is NOT a tutorial. My skin absolutely HATES me for what I did to it for the sake of this post.

The basis of this post is basically, I see some crazy ways that people wear makeup, especially around where I live. I'm not even going to tell you some of the stuff I have seen. I figured, it would be kind of "fun" to maybe recreate some of the looks that I have seen around. I'm not making fun of anyone. I've not taken pictures of people either. The only face you will see is mine, and maybe Chris' if I can convince him to let me make him look 'sexy'. :P

So without further adieu lets look at how "sexy" I made myself look!

FOTD #6 2.0!

Hello everyone!

In my post earlier I said that I was going to update that FOTD because I hated it. Hated is an understatement, after I put up the blog post it came right off!

For this version, I changed only one thing. I changed what I used for the pink and that is it! I definitely like how this one came out a lot more than the previous one.

Click to read to see which shadow I used!

FOTD #2

Hey everyone!
I meant to put this up yesterday, but I was so exhausted when we got back that I passed out. D:

Chris decided he wanted to go bowling last night, last minute. So I threw together this look with the hopes that it came out nice.

Autism Awareness NOTD

Hello everyone!

I hope you all are having an amazing day!

Today, April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day. I personally don't know anyone that has Autism, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to help raise awareness for it!

Autism Awareness' color is blue. I know a lot of other bloggers are doing manicures as well and I kind of wanted to join in on it! I figured it would be fun to do something out of my norm.

For this manicure I wanted to use one of the polishes that I received in the Central Florida Beauty Bloggers Swap.

French Mermaid NOTD

Hello everyone!

The inspiration of today's nails were that I wanted to use 2 nail polishes from companies I've never tried before. Yesterday (Saturday) was the Central Florida Beauty Bloggers Meetup and there was a swap and I picked up a few nail polishes. I got a couple of brands that I've never tried before and have been lemming over! I've got fake nails on because mine are misshapen and growing back out and my nails just look hideous! Bah.

Anyways, I KNEW I wanted to try the Bettina nail polish that I had gotten from Cristina (Let Them Have Polish)  I had never heard of Bettina before, so I knew I wanted to at least try and get one polish. I had 2 in my hand, but I decided to put the other one back. The second polish is from Julep. I've been wanting to try Julep before but I can't justify a $14 polish at this moment, and I've not signed up for their subscription box. I've almost done it a dozen or so times, but at the checkout I ALWAYS wind up just cancelling it.
I'm so grateful to the ladies who brought them because I couldn't be happier with these two polishes! Thank you so much!! :D (I'm not sure who brought the Julep one honestly :( there was no name on the box)

I didn't use a base coat because I have a pair of imPRESS nails on.

The neutral color is Bettina Jingle Belle. 

The blue is Julep's Piper.

Out The Door Top Coat

I don't know why, but Piper and Jingle Belle together reminded me of mermaids.
Jingle Belle is absolutely PERFECT. I'm in complete love with it and kicking myself in the booty for not getting the other one (it was purple)! This polish has so much depth that it's not funny. I wish my camera would have picked it up! Gah its 100x more gorgeous in person! And the formulas! Gah! Don't even get me started on them! Bloody perfect! I did not have one problem with the formula's of either of these! Oh! The couple of bubbles on the nails were from my top coat, not the polishes!

Piper is a sheet color so it took about 4 coats to build it up to color which is okay. I still love it! Jingle Belle is 3 coats. It's a fantastic everyday manicure in my opinion that has a nice pop of color.

I am so happy with these nail polishes that it's not even funny. I keep starring at the bottles because they are so gorgeous! Oh! Sorry about the cuticles, especially the split one. For some ungodly reason, while we were sitting at the meetup, my cuticle split. :( I spent a majority of the time rubbing it because it hurt and.. well I'm not sure why I rubbed it, but it helped it stop hurting! Bah. I need to bust out my heavy duty moisturizer!


I hope you all are doing well! I want to give a HUGE thank you to everyone who was at the meetup. I was psyching myself out for no reason, which is why I was terrified. In general meeting new people kind of scares me because it's out of my comfort zone, especially when it's in a larger crowd. It was SO relaxing though! I enjoyed meeting all of you! I promise I'm not normally that timid. Now that I have met you all, I'll be fine! It's just the first time that gets me! Thank you for such a great day and for being so welcoming!

Hey everyone. I just made a facebook page. I'm going to give it another shot. So CLICK HURR  and another page will open :) 

Disclaimer: The Julep and Bettina polish were received in a swap and I bought the top coat with my own money.