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

Mehron INtense Pro Pressed Powder Pigment - Mountain Moss

Press Sample

To continue on with the green trend, I thought it would be fun to review a green eye shadow! This review should have been up months ago, but long story short. I'm just getting to it. I got this Mehron shadow in the goodie bag from the Blogger Preview of The Makeup Show. (can I say the any more?!) After first, I was disappointed with this shadow and then I tried it again and was really surprised!

Mountain Moss is a cool toned matte mossy green.

Please excuse the fact that there is already brush marks in it. I photographed it back in September or October, but with my new camera I decided to take new ones. I also decided to swatch the shadow 3 ways, alone, over primer and foiled. Now, we all know how I roll so each swatch is ONE swipe straight down the length of the pan.

With no primer, you can tell that the pigmentation is a bit poor, it also applied a bit unevenly. 

I used Urban Decay Primer Potion because I couldn't find my Milani primer at the time of swatching. As you can tell, the pigmentation is a lot better! To foil the shadow (bottom) I used Graftobians Magic Set Lining Liquid. LOOK at that pigmentation. 

With this shadow you can keep it light by blending it out or build it up dark in the crease. This does make a good shadow for a green smokey eye! 

You can purchase this shadow on Mehron.com it retails for $9.95 for 3g of product. 

this product was provided for review via The Makeup Show

ORLY MatteFX Green Flakie Topcoat

Purchased Myself

You may remember a while ago, if you were following me on instagram, I posted a picture of GFTC and PFTC (pink flakie top coat). I was unimpressed then and my Sally's charged me $10 per bottle and I wound up taking them back the next day. I was kind of miffed about the price then I just wasn't impressed with the top coat in general. Anyways Sally's was having their 50% off Clearance sale (they have it often) and I decided what the heck, it's a better deal then when it originally came out so I snagged it. I wish they had the pink one though! I can't complain too much since it was only a couple of dollars. 

Green Flakie Top coat is a sheer green tinted base with purple, blue and green flakie glitter. Did I mention it was matte?
No Top Coat

Why on earth ORLY made these matte is completely beyond me, these really shine when they are shiny. The formula is nice and you get a nice coverage of the flakies. I don't have any complaints except for that it's matte, but that's just me.
No Top Coat

I swatched this alone and over ORLY MatteFX Butterfly.

With Topcoat ^^

What do you think? Matte or Shiny?!

I purchased this product with my own money. All opinions are my own

Mint Chocolate Interlocking dots

Hey everyone! I hope you are doing well!!

This manicure isn't what I originally planned but I'm totally not used too long nails and I had an insane time trying too get the striping tape straight!! I don't know how you ladies do it, seriously I applaud you all!

My base for all of my nails is Nubar Green Silver Glitter. That's across ALL nails.

I used Cult Nails Spontaneous and taped off a triangle (not a straight one you LOL) You can kind of see the pink shimmer in Spontaneous, but I think it tones down the holographic, can't keep your eyes off of your nails look of GSG.

TADA!

To create the dotticure, I first taped off the section that I wanted to paint with Nubar Jewel. After I painted the section I let it dry slightly then started doing the dots! You definitely don't have too tape off the section though I didn't with my right hand. :P #rebel I'm sure there are tutorials out there on how to create an interlocking dot mani, but I can always do a tutorial if you would like... It's really really easy.

I seriously LOVE how this turned out, it kind of reminds me of chocolate ice cream dripping... Is that weird? Did I just make you want ice cream?! :P On my ring finger I used striping tape to create the sunburst. The hardest part was to get the vertical line straight down the middle, then it was a walk in the park.
I topped the entire mani off with Glisten & Glow HK Girl Top Coat

I love this mani seriously. What do you think?!

All  of the polishes were purchased by me with my own money with the exception of G&G HK Girl Topcoat.

Nubar Green/Silver Glitter

 
Hello Darlings!

Before I even get into this post, please excuse my cuticles. I had done some hard yard work earlier in the day, which included digging up a palm tree. If you know anything about palm trees you know they are a complete pain in the tucka to dig up because their roots go really far down. AND since it had been raining for the past week the ground was still sopping wet, I wound up digging through mud. So you can tell, it was totally fun... I actually had fun doing it hah, but really it took me about 30-45 minutes trying to dig up the roots to get it out! Then I had to cut roots from another tree.. okay see, off topic. Let's get back onto why you are here!

Nubar's Green/Silver Glitter (unique name no?) was one of the polishes that I picked up from Premiere Orlando. I just HAD to have it, I knew if I didn't purchase it I would have regretted it instantly. Let me just say, now that is it on my nails I am so glad I did!
Look at how absolutely gorgeous this polish is!

You can see just how packed this is with green and silver glitter, not to mention the sheer amount of holographic glitter! It's all finely milled so it doesn't leave you with that textured effect, which is nice.

I wanted to capture the silver aspect of this polish, because it can get a little lost BUT it does appear depending on how you hold your hands in the light, which is nice!

The one thing I definitely love about this polish is the fact that is looks like it is JUMPING off of your nails! It is that sparkly and holographic. No lie. You have to buy this for yourself just to be able to see it. The jumping off of your nails aspect of it, wouldn't capture in pictures or video. *sad face*

This is a scattered holographic polish, but it does look linear in the bottle, but it's not when you put it on the nails, which I don't mind. It would be gorgeous if it was linear anyways.

This is 3 coats over OPI Nail Envy Nail Strengthener with two coats of Nubar Diamont Seal & Top coat.
Since this is a glitter polish, it isn't that easy to remove. I would suggest doing the glue thing that people are doing (?) I've never tried it but people keep telling me about it. I just take it off by wrapping my finger in aluminum foil, with a cotton ball soaked in remover of course.

I know this video is totally out of focus but it was the only way to capture the complete awesomeness of it. And I still wasn't able to capture it all! (I forgot to turn my phone sideways to make it full screen... can you tell it's the first time I used the camera? Lol)

I really love this nail polish like I said before, it is absolutely fantastic! and so gorgeous!
You can purchase Nubar from their website bynubar.com This polish retails for $8, like the rest of Nubar polishes. You can purchase Green/Silver Glitter HERE

Sidenote, I was going to do this as a comparison post with ORLY Sparkling Garbage, but I did not get one good picture of Sparkling Garbage earlier when I was taking pictures and I lost sunlight. BUT I can tell you that Sparkling Garbage is a darker green polish, it is also more linear than GSG is. I love both of them. 

Nubar is Formaldehyde Free, Toluene Free, (DBP) Phthalate Free.They are also Vegan and Cruelty Free.

Metallic Pop Tart

Hello Loves!

xxx

Chris found my memory card so I can actually do NOTD posts and finally get around to some swatches! I've actually managed to collect polishes that I have yet to try! I've got untried polishes! Squee! Okay, I know that is not something to be excited about, but damn I am excited!

These two polishes I've worn once but never managed to get them to last long because I used too thick of coats and they took ages to dry! Le sigh. Don't you hate that?!

I have no idea what happened to my ring finger. I didn't even notice that mark until I started watermarking the pictures -_-

Julep Fun!

Heyyyy Sexy Lady!

:P I have Gangnam Style stuck in my head bahaha.!

So, the past what month? I have been really really self conscious about my nails. I have two very short nubs that do NOT want to grow at all :(. It's kind of depressing honestly. The damn things just will not grow. I decided to just get over it and play around with some nail polish. I've been attempting to paint my nails for 2 weeks. Every time I start, they don't dry completely and get smudged! Ugh it stinks so bad! >_< I'll get halfway done, they get messed up and I just say screw it! 

Welp! Last night I got a bug up my tushka and I was DETERMINED needless to say to get these bad boys painted. Woo!

Check out which polishes I used to create this nail look!

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.