My Year in Beauty

Hey Sweeties,

As the end of 2014 is in sight now is the time to reflect upon the year almost gone. Today I wanted to look back at my year in beauty. Yes it sounds a bit bizarre but please bear with me on this.

Looking back at my beauty posts from the beginning of this year until now, I feel I have come a long way both in my learning and also my total appreciation of makeup and the beauty industry as a whole. I still of course have huge amounts of knowledge to absorb, I will never be Sali Hughes let’s put it that way…

I have worn makeup for years beginning from around 14-5 years old with mascara and thick black liquid eyeliner and over the years since I have picked up tips and product suggestions along the way to enable me to apply a full face of makeup that I can change and adapt to day or night. But even though I guess the look I was trying to achieve with mascara and eyeliner in the early days was to some quite experimental, I never really felt that I was. Makeup was there to serve a purpose rather than be something to have fun with and collect. Now, I go into Boots/Superdrug etc. and am so much more aware of all the brands and products on offer it has become one of my happy places; I could be lost in there for days if left to my own devices.

Although I am still very budget conscious, I do now feel that I want to start investing more in certain beauty items rather than just sticking to what the drugstore offers. I am beginning to seek something different, something better –a Chanel foundation, a YSL lipstick… you can witness this transition and change of mind in my last beauty haul (at The Cosmetics Company). Not that I don’t still have my price limits (let’s not get too delirious in high-end excitement here guys) and of course I will always have my staple items as much as the next person but I definitely feel ready to broaden out my makeup collection to more high-end products. Watch this space!

With interest comes appreciation for quality –cast back to the moment I first dusted a swatch of Bobbi Brown’s French Pink blusher across the back of my hand- and an appreciation for good application. My everyday makeup routine doesn’t alter much day to day so I really look forward to the weekends and work opportunities where I can try something a bit different/new/daring. Some would say at 27 years old this is quite late to get both excited and discover beauty but for me, this is the perfect time. I now have the income (sort of) and the profession in which to really fully submerge myself in it. Before this I was working in hospitals, then at University and busy moving here, there and everywhere for this, that and something else. Now, it’s all perfect. Now, I can just love beauty.

The only thing that does mystify me slightly is the assumption that because I now write about and involve beauty on here (le blog), I have become some kind of expert. I would love to be an expert but unfortunately I am a long way off this and more than likely will never be an expert because I just don’t see where I would get the resource to. The likes of Sali Hughes, Caroline Hirons and even Anna Gardner (aka. Vivianna Does Makeup) have been absorbing themselves in the beauty industry for years and know the brands and the products inside out. They just know what they are talking about. Without changing my job, I just couldn’t see where I would get the time or the resource to digest this much knowledge and purposefully use it to make it all justifiable. But you never know…

I would love to know what attracts you guys to beauty and if any of you work in the industry and how you got there, so please leave comments and let me know!

Until tomorrow x