happy saturday to all my adoring fans! i just wanted to start with a few life updates prior to getting into this topic. i was absent last weekend because i was plagued by allergies which means i spent the whole weekend alternating between sleeping, blowing my nose, eating chicken noodle soup without the noodles because gluten, and watching hallmark channel rom coms. i’ve realized in the last few months that my newest fav self-care activity is just watching hallmark movies on a loop and i have no shame.
second update. i performed a song at a karaoke bar (shout out trader todd’s) for the first time in my entire life and i’m happy to report i performed none other than sorry by j biebs. i have awful stage fright so you can imagine my horror at karaoke but i survived through it by sheer experience of coping with intense anxiety for years LOL. and finally, i almost impulsively adopted a dog this weekend but the sad reality is i live by myself and work full-time and i just ain’t ready for that life yet. but don’t be surprised if my post next weekend is about how i actually did adopt a pup on a whim.
now onto bougie things. i want to talk about a few products that i purchased on the recommendation of my fav youtube beauty vloggers but that didn’t end up working for me and/or i just wasn’t impressed by them. i almost feel like i’m more disappointed by expensive products because it’s like b*tch i paid so much money for you and you have the audacity to suck?! and for whatever reason, i always think i’ll make them work or i’ll change my mind and end up keeping them instead of returning them.
#1 pictured below is the lancome monsieur big mascara that i purchased because the love of my life kathleenlights raved about it. almost everything i purchase, i do so based on her reviews and recommendations because i share similar needs and preferences in products. my eyelashes are tricky and need equal parts volume and length so i was hoping this bougie af lancome mascara was going to work miracles for me and sadly i was wrong.
i pretty much spent $25 just to use this mascara once and immediately realize i hate it. i think i literally just swiped it once on one eye and didn’t even put it on the other one because i hated it that much. plus the wand is really stiff so it kind of attacked my eye. but i’m a sucker for beautiful packaging aka any pink mascara tubes so i kept this one thinking i might wake up and change my mind. but life just doesn’t work that way because i never touch it and in fact sometimes when i see it hanging out in the back of my makeup collection i’m filled with a little rage. so i’m hoping writing and posting this will give me closure.
#2 is this benefit gimme brow which i purchased because the general consensus i’ve gathered from youtube and beauty social media is that this is pretty good. i recently started loving the benefit precisely my brow pencil so i was hoping that this would work for me as well. i was on the hunt for a new brow gel as my tried and true loreal one is discontinued which will forever be heartbreaking but it was time to move on and find another brow gel soul mate. i really like the applicator/brush of this gel, and the fact that the product does add some volume to the brows, but oh sweet jesus this does nothing to actually set my brows in place.
my brows are a perfect harmony of pencil and gel, one cannot live without the other. it’s like that line in harry potter where they say he and voldemort can’t live while the other survives. i can compare anything to harry potter if i try hard enough. i gave this brow gel so many attempts and it just didn’t do anything for me. if my brow gel can’t even last through a normal work day, then it sure as hell can’t last through a hot yoga class. and if my brow gel can’t last through hot yoga, it has no place in my life.
#3 is quite possibly the bougiest of them all, the tatcha luminous dewy skin mist which, if you’ve caught onto my theme here thus far, i bought because everyone and their mom loves it. i think i ended up purchasing the travel size to meet the free shipping minimum on an online sephora purchase. i’ve heard that people use this as primer, skin care, or setting spray. i have two primers that i use religiously and never felt the need to use this as a primer. i did, however, try it on my skin as skin care and to refresh my skin midday and wow did it to absolutely nothing!!!!
as i’ve already mentioned with the other two products, i wanted to love it but it just didn’t wow me. people scream about how much they love this sh*t, like they literally swear by it, and mine just sits on my shelf lonely and untouched. maybe my expectations were too high but isn’t that the point of a good product? if you use it some other way than i mentioned and really love it, by all means, let me know! but as far as i’m concerned, i don’t see a place for this in my morning or nighttime skin care routine, so this tiny purple bottle is just going to continue being bougie and alone.
to state the obvious, i always hope that a product will work for me, whether it’s expensive or affordable, and it’s always disappointing when it doesn’t. everyone is so different with what they’re looking for and i tend to be really picky with almost everything in my life. so again, if you loveeeee any of these products, please let me know! i’m interested to see if there’s a different way i could be using or applying them.
to wrap this up, i wanted to mention that i’m planning on purchasing a new macbook because the one i’ve been using is a senior citizen in laptop world. it’s living on borrowed time and i’ve been procrastinating purchasing a new one because i’m not in school anymore, and i have a separate laptop for work, but if i want to really start thriving in the blogger world, i’m going to need some better technology up in this b*tch. i’m quite the amateur with this blog thing so always feel free to send some tips and tricks my way! stay tuned for more franticness!
