I think that there is a bit of a miscommunication in the world when it comes to 'beauty bloggers'. First off I mean what is with that label?! Recently it seems to mean 'stupid, stuck up, fake bitch that will say anything she has to so she can get followers' and yes sometime that is true, I know a few personally myself. It's one of the main reasons why I wanted to take this more to a 'lifestyle' blog. This blog to me isn't just about beauty - it's about me. It just so happens that my skin is made of a compound mainly containing M.A.C pigment, Double Wear and Chanel perfume. I breathe beauty, every day I think about it, talk about it, do it. Beauty is my life. Anyway getting back on track I wanted to just clarify something really super quick, 99.9% of the time that I am writing this blog to you guys I'm sitting around in sweats and a beanie. If i have any make up on you are lucky and at that I will probably just have my essentials on! If I'm being really honest ever since I got out of the department store hell life I've been wearing SO little make up. I barley need it. My skin is like a glowing ball of glitter and I don't feel the pressure to be 'that' girl' anymore.
I do not by any means sit around my house twenty four seven with full make up, lashes, weave, lipgloss and false nails. If I did? It wouldn't matter but I'm just clarifying that I don't! I get so much stick and hate fuelled messages about how 'fake' my lifestyle is. You only see a tiny little sliver of it on here and to be honest you see the good sides. What 22 year old girl wants to post pictures of herself in work out gear and no make up? Well not me anyway! You see the side of me that I'm confident with showing the world, if that you seems fake then that's okay. I just wanted to point out that I've never once tried to say I live a glamorous lifestyle. I'm just like you and the girl in the house next to you. It just so happens that every second day or so I like to play with make up or have a job and NEED to have my full face on! Now that I've got that out of the way lets move on!
This is probably one of those statements that I'll be slated for but in my opinion : your eye brows are one if not the most important element of your entire appearance. If you have bad hair? I can look past it, if your outfit isn't the best? I probably won't even notice. If your eye brow game isn't strong? well, I don't think my mother would be proud of the words I want to use to describe how I feel about that. They are something that is so, so simple but create a whole new lease of life into your look. Whether it be running to the store with just mascara and your brows on right up to a beauty event where you have more make up on than you could purchase in an entire M.A.C store - to me? Your brows are always going to be the most important thing. No matter how many hours you spend blending your eye shadow and applying false lashes - whats the point if sitting above them is unloved brows? No matter how perfectly you sculpt your entire face - whats the point if you don't use your brows to utilise that face changing lift in your eye area?! When I see girls post pictures with their 'make up' done and no brows it's honestly like making the most beautiful dinner with all of these organic, beautifully chopped ingredients and then just sloppily throwing them onto a dirty plate for your guests.
One of the questions I get most regularly asked via email/twitter/etc is about my brows! How I keep them, how I shape them, how I fill them in. Brows are always going to be a talking point. If you take the photograph above into account - I have very little eye make up, subtle shading and a dark lip. Pretty simple right? It probably took me about five minutes to create. Now? Imagine that look without my brows shaped and filled. It's not the same right? So I'm going to give a really quick run down on my brow tips :
{1}'Your brows are sisters not twins'- whoever said that (for some reason I feel it was bobbi brown?! Which upsets me greatly because I adore her) but lets get real here for a second. If one brow is hitting Chanel and one looks more Forever 21 it's not working. I have spent hours trying to get my brows to match and as much as I know at the end of the day they will never ever be PERFECTLY matching, lets all just agree to try right?
{2} Gel doesn't always have to be your friend. A lot of companies like Benefit, Inglot, etc try and push this 'you must use gel and than powder' over your brow ethos. They are 100% right sometimes. If your brow needs gel before powder by all means use it! Sadly though people use the gel and powder to create the cakeiest eye brows that I have ever seen in my life. Sometimes less is more. I was a big 'browzings' girl for years, I loved it. I'd use both products every single day and I (stupidly) thought I was the bomb.com - then I grew out of some bad habits and now I know I don't need gel. My brows look too over done when I use gel. Sometimes all you need is a bit of well worked shadow! I watch all these beauty tutorials and videos where girls use 2-6 products on their brows and I just don't understand it. Every single day I use ONE product on my brows. One single shadow (the shade will vary depending on the look I'm going for) but that's it!
{3} People always ask me how often I pluck my eyebrows and if I'm being really honest the answer is probably every day. I never let my brows get out of control. People have this 'Oh I get my brows done when they are out of control' or 'I'll get them waxed every two months and leave them other than that' mantra and that's fine if it works for you! For me? I like never letting them get to the stage where they need to be fixed or they look like they are 'out of control'. Don't get me wrong every three months or so I'll spend a good hour re-shaping or moving the lift area in them but I find my method so easy : Every day before I go about shaping them I pull my tweezers through them and see if anything is out of place, if it's just one hair? Great I can move on! If I've slacked for a day or two and there is five hairs?! Fix them too! This way it never takes me more than five minutes to ever do my brows!
 |
| Photograph taken during lunch at my new favourite spot The Brick House *full blog review coming soon. |
Life update?! I don't know if I have one. Nothing is really happening but the simple things seem to make me happy. Not that they don't usually but it's like my mind set has shifted a bit and I've started appreciating different things. One of those things is the people I surround myself with. When I worked full time in beauty retail (for nearly three years) I became my job. I lost every single part of myself, I say lost but in reality I handed it over. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to me, if I have to do a job I want it to be nothing but 100% if that means working weekends, spending my days off doing paper work and never seeing my friends? At the time it was what I wanted to do. I lost touch with so many people, I stopped texting, stopped calling. The only people I saw regular were people who I worked with. Ever since that part of my life changed I've got back that side of me that loves nothing more than being around people. Simple things like going for a walk with a friend to catch up and talk about boys right down to family lunches out with my mom and aunties are starting to mean more to me now than they did before. Knowing I have people in my life (even if it's only a few and not always the people I think I need) is important.
Other than re-connecting and refuelling my social life the other thing that makes me ridiculously happy at the moment is crafting and baking! Don't get me wrong I don't sit around knitting and using a glue gun, although that pretty much sounds perfect. Sadly I don't own a glue gun (note to self, raid the craft section in Target in October) and I haven't knitted for a few months, instead I'm getting this obsession with journaling. Now it's not one of those 'Dear Diary, Jack touched my hand when we were out for lunch and I knew he was the one' type of journals. It's more a place that I fill with things I love. It's a mix of a mood board, inspiration diary and my life rolled into one. It's the kind of thing you can look back on in a few years and know exactly what was going on in my head and my heart without all the emotionally blabber.
Sorry for my lack of presence here recently! I've been crazy job hunting, trying to figure out WHAT job I want, trying to figure out my life and of course working free lance while trying to balance everything else! I have so many blogs to write/half written and I swear one day I'm going to get my 'to do' post it note all ticked off just have some patience! From hair blogs, wedding blogs and feminism - it's all coming your way as soon as I stop thinking about mermaids and unicorns long enough to concentrate!
PS. I was babysitting during the weekend and while the youngest was having a nap and the older one was happy watching some Disney and making puzzles I wrote the majority of this blog! Then when baby woke up this happened, not even one and already wants to be a blogger :
