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I don’t really know where I got the idea that I should settle on products that I love and am loyal to. Maybe it’s some marketing ploy or maybe I just made it up. I guess I do have my faves but I love trying new products. One of these days I’ll do a post about my faves because if I love them, anyone can love them. Let’s be real… I’m no beauty queen, no makeup artist, truly, no expert. Just a girl who loves a bold lip.

Anyway, as I was touching up my hair color and browsing new makeup products online I got thinking and thus, this post (ahem, rant) was born.

Can we talk about lip products?

There are so many of these lip products out there that everyone praises but then you start digging in and there are 16 steps to get it to actually look nice. Ummmmm… hard no. I am JUST coming around to the idea of a primer and only with the idea that I might consider looking after my lips similar to how I look after my skin so I’ll cope with an extra layer of product to do that.

And by coming around I mean I’m thinking of purchasing a lip primer someday. I haven’t actually taken the idea anywhere.

But this 16 step process of exfoliating, moisturizing, priming, and god knows what else every time I want to put makeup on is just not going to happen. I bought this gorgeous NARS liquid lipstick. Applied it and loved the color like I’ve never loved a color before. But I swear I barely had the lid back on and it was everywhere. It bled off my lips so there were no clean lines, it was on my teeth, my skin, anything I ate or drank. I don’t even think I had to take a drink… somehow I just looked at the water bottle and BAM lipstick stain.

I went back to Sephora to ask what I was missing, totally prepared to be sold a NARS primer or something, but basically the answer was… nothing. I could try a liner, the girl told me or even a little setting powder on top but not too much because that just make it chalky. So… that makes this color basically useless. I don’t know who out there is buying a $30 lip product that’s only good for selfies but it’s not me. My lip color better put in the hours right there with me.

I just think that for a product to be worth high praise it should stand on its own, at least for the most part. There are reasonable expectations like maybe a touch of primer or a setting spray. Even I can handle some general good practices like that. But if it’s going to be a highly specialized application process, a whole line of specialized products, and graduating from makeup artist school with honors… well then to me that’s not a great product.

… and skin products.

What the f*ck is up with these “water sprays” and “jade rollers” and another 16 step process to put make up on? Again… I was late to the party with face primer.

But even if I was late to the party on face primer, I’m not sold on rolling a rock around my face.

Oh and yes – me being late to the party on makeup trends is going to be a repeating pattern.

Anyway… I wear foundation for two reasons. I started wearing it, like most of us, as a teenager with acne to hide. Nowadays I wear it because I love a bold lip and a bold lip looks kind of odd when your lips are fab AF but your skin is just kind of naked.

So needless to say I do not want something complicated. It’s kind of on my list to experiment with just a little BB cream or something like that. The simpler the better.

Okay so those are the primary products I wear but I’m sure I’ll be back soon with more beauty rants.

❤ What are your beauty pet peeves?

The hardest part of coming out, for me, was realizing that it’s not quite the grand leap out of the closet that you expect. Even with social media, the message doesn’t reach everyone. Even if it did, there’s meeting new friends or colleagues and the assumptions they make (about me at least) are that I’m straight and monogamous.

The fact that I wear wedding rings and have a husband definitely gives people reason to make that assumption. None the less, it can be a bit jolting when casual conversation turns to family life and it turns out, mine isn’t quite what they expected.

In the few weeks or months after officially coming out on social media I wasn’t quite prepared for the situations where I would fine myself inadvertently in the middle of another “coming out” conversation. Especially since the people I had to “come out” to in these odd after-thought conversations were usually co-workers at my old retail job or someone else on the outer rings of my social existence. I don’t usually talk about my personal life at work – I make it a general practice not to – but from time to time it would slip. Now it isn’t strictly the conversations with coworkers specifically that were awkward, it’s the fact that in the grand scheme of my life and coming out these people weren’t important to me. Once it was a nail lady who asked about my weekend plans and was super confused when I told her I had plans with my boyfriend while she was holding my ring finger and admiring the bling.

When we decided to come out we all created lists of who needed to know. Our parents and family of course. Then there were the close friends who we wanted to tell personally, rather than letting them find out on social media. After we had these conversations to the best of our ability we figured out how to post and went ahead with the big leap of coming out publicly. Truthfully we could of gone on forever with the private conversations and there were probably a few people we missed or didn’t contact in time but we were so excited to make our announcement. I took a lot of back and forth for us all to decide exactly how we wanted the announcement to go – we had to figure out what coming out meant to us and what that looked like. When we finally felt ready, we weren’t patient.

After making it public on social media there were a few follow up conversations and messages from friends and family members we didn’t speak to previously. Beyond that, it was relatively smooth. At least, none of the turbulence we experienced was completely unexpected, even if some of it was a little more intense than we anticipated.

Then sometimes the moment comes up where you’re about to say something and you hesitate because you don’t want to come out and explain everything. For example, when someone asks my weekend plans and I want to say “I’ll be at a derby with my boyfriend.” but I don’t want to get in to the whole thing.

True story: When I had that retail job I once bunch of underwear at the end of my shift. The coworker ringing me out said something about how happy my boyfriend would be when I got home and another coworker yelled over “Husband – she’s married!”. I laughed all the way home.

Seriously though, moments where being honest about something unrelated could lead to coming out are silently awkward. There’s a lot of guilt about avoiding a conversation or avoiding having to acknowledge your relationships fully. It felt unfair to Tom or Maggie that I would acknowledge my relationship with Ben but potentially not talk about them the same way because it was easier.

I’ve gotten over that now, clearly.

For this month I promised to reflect on Pride month and come up with some musings. As I was thinking about how to do this I’ve been thinking about how excited I am that this is my first Pride month being completely out. In that string of thoughts it occurred to me that coming out was a plural experience. And a plural experience that I was not always prepared for, at that.

Having that unexpected series of conversations and experiences has helped me come to practice pride every day. It’s made me realize that when we decided we wanted to come out on social media we really wanted more. We wanted the openness and honesty that had always been part of how we lived our lives and related to others to continue being part of our lives. With this we committed to pride as a daily action.

Almost a year in to it though, it does get easier. When I decided to blog about this life I think I had to commit to practicing pride every day. I love my life so much, how can I avoid celebrating that?

Carmen