Beauty Blogazons Weekly Roundup

• Confessions of a Sarcastic Mom: Destany swatches (and swoons over) two gorgeous Pure Ice polishes!
• Makeup Demon: A few tips that will help you to choose a good quality makeup brushes.
• The Convenient Beauty: Warm-skin toned ladies and even non-glitter wearers must check out Tom Ford Cognac Sable!!
• Lola's Secret Beauty Blog: Burberry Light Glow Natural Blushes in Misty, Cameo & Peony are among the highest quality powder blushes that Lola's Secret Beauty Blog has encountered! Find out why!
• Midnight Manicures: Find out about Jeanie's must have skin care treatment for 2013, Reviva Labs Non-Chemical Skin Peel to the rescue!
• TheFabZilla: Got pimples? Evologie may have the answer for you!
• Never Gonna Give You Up: Kara swatches and reviews Kelara Lacquers' I Love Lamp. Ready for a photo bomb?
• Liesl Loves Pretty Things: Liesl fulfills a huge fragrance lemming with Chanel No.5 and shares the journey it sent her on.
• Pinked Polish: A Collection by the fabulous Vivid Lacquer!!!!
• Lacquer Buzz: Experimenting with a new technique can be difficult. Check out my first cloud manicure!
• Lipgloss Break: Enter to win a Julep Maven box with nail polish to match your style!
• Beauty by Arielle: Ever wonder about signing up for Birchbox? Here's all the info you need from a year subscriber.
• Beauty Professor: The Beauty Professor has found a way to cut down on the time it takes to blow dry her hair with Blowout Beauty!
• Beauty by Miss L: Find out which was Miss L´s favorite body lotion with those very cold winter days when skin gets unpleasantly dry.
• Emily Hudspeth, hair design and makeup artist: Try this Quick & Easy trick to create the look of False Lashes with only mascara.
• Mama Fashionista: Has the cold weather left your skin in need of some TLC? Quinn has some great rec's from Lumene that may be just what you need!
• Polarbelle: Swatches of the new OPI Mariah Carey Collection Plus a Giveaway.
• Lisa's Nail Obsession: I thought it was blue? Go On Green!
• Sincerely Stephanie: Sincerely Stephanie takes on some colourful street art!
• Rachel's Makeup and Skincare: Rachel almost finds her new HG foundation, find out why it didn't pass.

Kelara Lacquers I Love Lamp

Welcome back and happy Monday everyone! Today it was back to "the grind" after a lovely, relaxing, stressful, crazy 3 week holiday. A was back to preschool, and tomorrow I go back to school as well. It was a very difficult day for us all. A didn't want to wake up for school, B decided she would not take a nap today, but then the mail came, and the angels sang. I found this beauty in the mail box!

Say hello to Kelara Lacquers' I Love Lamp from their brand new Double Rainbow Holo Collection! I Love Lamp is a gorgeous pale purple holographic polish. Are you ready for a photo bomb? Here we go!

This is two coats of I Love Lamp, no topcoat. The formula on this is not your usual thin runny holo like a lot of them out there, but it's not gloopy, and very easy to work with! The formula was great and, like I said, only needed two coats for this beautiful, dense, full coverage.

 I Love Lamp isn't the holo-y-est polish I own, but that doesn't mean I don't love it! Sometimes you want a more subtle holo. Some holos are so strong you can't tell what the base color is,  I love that you can actually see the gorgeous base color with this one. I just love this color!

 

I really regret not having a sunlight photo for you, but it's January. In Oregon. So, yeah. Sunshine? No-go. This is the best I could do- use the flash to bring out the holo a bit more.

Kelara Lacquers are all hand mixed, 3-free, and cruelty free, made lovingly by soon-to-be husband and wife duo Kellen and Tara. Check out Kelara's Etsy shop for the entire Double Rainbow Holo Collection as well as their other fantastic collections, and check out their Facebook page for swatches, updates, and occasional promotions.

I just love Kelara Lacquers! You can see a previous post I've done featuring Kelaras here.

Til next time!
-Kara

This polish was provided to me for review, all opinions are my own. 

Please see my disclosure policy.

Saturday Swatches

Happy Saturday everyone! I'm back with another flurry of Saturday Swatches. I apologize for the lack of content since the holidays, I thought things were settling down around here, but baby, sleep, molars, ai-yi-yi...

Anyway, here we go!

First we have one of my favorite neutrals, Butter London All Hail the Queen, this first picture is actually an older photo, from my reindeer nails, I didn't retake it before taking the next photo.

I've been on the hunt for the perfect neutral holo, so I decided to try holo-izing AHtQ with my holo topcoat, Girly Bits Hocus Pocus. I absolutely love the way this turned out!

Next up is a gorgeous matte glitter topper. This is Kawaii Poodle Pink. I LOVE this glitter! Look at those pink squares! This is Poodle Pink over NYC Sidewalkers.

 Seriously. Square pink glitters. Yes.

This one is Emily from Different Dimension's Pretty Little Liars Collection. Emily is TONS of matte micro-glitters in periwinkle, green, and white. This is packed! It only took two coats to get this full coverage you see here. This is similar in nature to Floam, but this is SO much easier to work with, and the colors suit me so much more.

Here's a close-up. I don't know where that one random red glitter came from, so please ignore that :p

Here is Butter London Two Fingered Salute. I have lemmed this polish for so long, and I am not happy with the pictures at all. This is a lovely green creme with copper multiglitter, but the copper just did not show through very well in the photos. I'm working on building a lightbox, and when I get that finished, I will have to re-swatch this. As with every Butter I've tried, the formula was fantastic, so smooth...well. like butter!

Here's a close-up so you can see the copper microglitter a bit better. Lovely, no?

And there you have it, happy Saturday, I hope you've enjoyed the swatches!

Til next time!

-Kara

Beauty Blogazons Weekly Roundup

• Pinked Polish: What I have learned this year in the wonderful world of Nail Blogging.
• Love At First Site!: Face Of The Day, New Year's Eve! Happy New Year!
• Lola's Secret Beauty Blog: Lola's Secret Beauty Blog's Beauty Resolutions to Consider for 2013.
• Adore A Polish: Check out an in depth review on the Sally Hanson Insta Gel Strips.
• Polarbelle: Polarbelle wants you to consider the Anastasia Beverly Hills Kisses On My List lipgloss set while you still can!
• datyorkLOVES: Find out what the Top 10 Post of 2012 are for datyorkLOVES!
• Beauty by Arielle: ARIELLE'S TOP PRODUCTS OF 2012.
• TheFabZilla: Happy New Year! New Hair, New Resolutions? Check out TheFabZilla blog for deets.
• Cosmetics Aficionado: A new drugstore gel liner from L.A. Girl is on the beauty scene, but is it worth it?
• Never Gonna Give You Up: Kara showcases a nail polish favorite.
• Beauty by Miss L: Check out Miss L´s New Year´s Eve nails.
• Lacquer Buzz: Mihaela chose her favorite nail polishes of last year. Wanna see what made it on the list?
• Makeup Demon: Makeup Demons Top 5 posts of Year 2012!
• Ishah x Beauty: Gold Eyes, Oxblood Lips. My New Year's Day Look.
• Liesl Loves Pretty Things: Here's Liesl's personal Best Of 2012 list, Agree? Disagree? Check it out here.
• The Fabulous Mind of a Wacky Mama Bear: Ever wish your beauty subscription box gave full sizes? Then check out Starlooks, this is what I thought of my December 2012 Starbox.
• Mama Fashionista: Though she's no expert, Mama Fashionista loves the results of her first leopard mani! How do you think she did?
• Baking Beauty: Baking Beauty reviews the new Laura Mercier Free Spirit Palette.
• Rachel's Makeup and Skincare: Rachel reviews products from the new NARSskin line and finds she's impressed.
• Beauty Professor: The Beauty Professor reviews her top beauty products of 2012!
• My Newest Addiction Beauty Blog: Laura from My Newest Addiction Beauty Blog invites you to get ready with her!
• Lisa's Nail Obsession: Come on...you can think of something better for the alphabet challenge than "Q" for Queen. No? Then, All Hail The Queen!

New Years Eve Nails!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Welcome to 2013, fellow polish junkies! This year is going to be fabulous, I can feel it! I'm cooking up something special that will be released in a week or two, so you'll want to stay tuned for that. I'm also on Day 1 of a 6 week nail polish No-Buy, so wish me luck!

In the meantime, I wanted to show you my new years eve nails!

This is my "Ball Dropping at Midnight" inspired mani. Simple, but sparkly, and fun!

This mani was made using Zoya Storm on all but the ring finger. If you don't own Storm, go out and get it. Today. It's amazing! Black creme base packed with holographic microglitters. Perfect for a night sky or galaxy mani. The ring finger is China Glaze White on White covered in 3 coats of Revlon Stunning.

 

Here's a close-up of Zoya Storm. Seriously. Go get it.

Did you do a festive New Years mani?
Til next time!
-Kara

Pretty Serious Nightopia

Welcome back! I have for you one of my absolute favorite polishes. Ever. Yes, I love it that much!
This is Nightopia by the Australian brand Pretty Serious.

Pretty Serious Nightopia

Look at this delicious shimmery teal duochrome! At this angle it's teal.

And at this angle, it's blue!

 And look! Another pretty angle!

 So pretty! The formula on this polish is fabulous, this is two coats topped with Seche Vite. I wore this all day, and could not stop staring at them. I decided they looked like a peacock, so I decided to make it official

For this I used Essie Good As Gold and Bundle Monster BM-212, I then used Color Club Harp on It to fill in the dots. And viola! Peacock nails!

Hope you enjoyed this mani half as much as I did!
Til next time!
-Kara

Layla Ceramic Effect 52 Butterfly Effect

Happy New Years Eve Eve! I say this because I had no idea that tomorrow is NYE until about 10 minutes ago. Crazy, right? I have been so wrapped up with life and kids, that I haven't even glanced at the calendar since Christmas Eve!

Tonight I want to show you a gorgeous new polish. I found this at Ulta and HAD to have it! This is Layla Ceramic Effect 52 (apparently named Butterfly Effect, though I couldn't find it anywhere on the bottle). This is a beautiful purple jelly jam packed with red/green shifting flakies.

 

This is two coats of Butterfly Effect. Gorgeous, isn't it? I just love this polish! And bonus, it's a dupe of Nfu-Oh 51 which is much harder to find!

I'm sorry for the awkward angle of this next photo, while the color shift is very apparent in real life, it was difficult to photograph!

Look at that color shift! Beautiful! I feel like this is one of the more stunning polishes in my collection. I am so happy to have found it.

Til next time!

-Kara