“Trends” that sell you Junk can F*ck Off Anytime

The Beauty Industry as a whole has a very profitable interest in convincing everyone that beauty is super complicated and that it requires a lot of different, consumable products that will keep you coming in for refills freakin’ constantly.

Truth be told – there’s a lot of misleading crap out there designed to get you to buy and to help you justify purchase decisions as necessary when they’re not.

Next week we’re going to talk about taking back control of how you engage with the industry but this week I want to focus on saying no to junk.

I’m talking about reinvented products like make up applicators or brushes, skin care tools that do the same thing as the ones you already own, and my personal fave – things that do nothing OR that do what you already do with your hands.

Let’s look at Jade Rollers, for example. Not only did these things seemingly come out of nowhere, but a lot of them appeared with huge price tags. They have Jade or some similarily valued material as a “roller” on a handle so you can massage your face with it. They allegedly have benefits such as improved circulation, reducing under eye puffy-ness and helping products absorb better into your skin.

It all sounds awesome and you can see how it makes sense if you squint at it long enough.

Here’s the thing they aren’t talking about though: You don’t need a Jade Roller to massage your face. You have…uhh, hands. Take any cleaner or moisturizer you like and spend a few extra minutes massaging it into your skin. All the Jade Roller really does is force you to take the extra time to focus on massaging your cheeks and skin. However, it’s not a necessary component in the equation of facial massage for improved circulation and all the benefits that come it.

This is what I mean when I talk about beauty trends that sell you junk. They market a product as if the product is required to achieve certain results when in reality it’s not the key to said results at all. Beauty bloggers, and beauty companies that claim they’re here to improve your beauty results could of just told you the secret was in good circulation and that facial massage would help improve your results. Then they could of offered you tools to make massaging your skin easier or to vary your routine but they didn’t. They just claimed you had to have the jade roller.

Ugh.

I hope I can keep up with the junky trends just to bring the #realbabebeauty squad real talk and get passed all the crap we’re told we need in order to be beautiful.

The other example I like is make up brushes. Someone is always reinventing the wheel in this department and claiming that their brush, which may or may not look a lot like every brush that came before it, has magically better results.

Save your money because that’s a lie. Find a way you like for putting make up on your face – make up brush, sponges, those buffer-brush things, and then ignore all the reinvented wheels. Let ’em roll on by.

Take yourself somewhere beautiful with all the money you did’n’t let the beauty industry suck out of your wallet.

Beauty Talk for the #realbabebeauty queens

All right babes, can I call you babes?

Let me tell you a story.  You know how Sephora advertises that they will teach you how to use the products and whatnot? Yeah, I’m the girl they’re advertising to.

I have less and less shame about going to my local Sephora and telling them that I want to use this product or that but need some help.  Most recently I flagged down one of their staff and asked her to help me with contouring.  On multiple occasions, I’ve asked them to teach me how to use different brow products so I could find one easy enough that I can literally do it blind (#glassesprobs).

Things like crazy perfect brows and ultra-defined cheekbones kind of exploded on to the beauty blogs and all of a sudden they were everywhere.  Everyone I knew was adding a little extra and looking gorgeous and I had no idea how.  I tried experimenting on my own but quickly realized I was in over my very-pale head. Every time I tried applying anything contour-wise it looked too dark on my cheeks. I looked more like I’d been in a fight than anything else. And I looked like I lost that fight.

You don’t even wanna know how learning to do my brows went. Honestly, I wasn’t bad at making each of my brows look great but they looked like they belonged on different faces.  Evenness was a problem.

Now I’ve been all about the real talk on this blog.  Y’all know I’ll always be honest with you from my love life to working from home to fitness.  Once upon a time when I started this little mermaid project, I said “Nope, I’ll never blog about beauty” but lately I’ve started thinking more about it.  I see all these bloggers out there killing it with gorgeous makeup tutorials and I love that they’re doing such great work for their blogs.  However, there’s something missing.  Where are the makeup blogs for people like me?  When I look at these super glam beauty bloggers I don’t see someone I can relate too and I don’t feel like I can learn anything honestly because they are in another class of skill and talent.

Now don’t get me wrong – I know a lot of that is in my head.  I’m sure if I really studied it and tried I would find that it’s a little more accessible than I think.  I want to put something out there though that is truly for all the girls that give up easy when makeup gets complicated.  I’m here for you! I’m one of you!

The reason I said I wouldn’t blog about beauty is that I didn’t feel qualified.  Then again – maybe I am qualified for a certain kind of beauty blogging.

The truth is I love makeup.  I do really enjoy experimenting with new products, trying new techniques or new styles.  Sephora is a super happy place for me.  That being said, I’m not super good at makeup.  I can’t transform my face to look like someone else and I refuse to make it more complicated than it needs to be (I’ll get into that in my next beauty post.)

Today I have a big question for you: What do you want to see in a beauty blog?

Are the big questions I can try and answer?

Are there products you want to know more about?

Are there certain looks you’d want me to try and post?

What do you want an averaged girls perspective on? =) Comment and let me know!