I have a love/hate relationship with makeup aisles in drugstores and Walmart. I love looking at the makeup choices and colors and reading the benefits and features of this product and that product. What I don't like is all the choices.
Oh yeah...I'm one of those. When I'm looking for a new product such as eyeliner it can be hard to select one. Do I want a self-sharpening or a pencil? Do I want waterproof or not? A bolder or subtler line? The list can go on and on. It gets even longer when you start combining and mixing and matching the features of each liner. That's probably one of the reasons I didn't wear eyeliner for several years. Finding an eyeliner can be overwhelming.
I recently realized it's been months since I've shared a wash day on the blog and weeks since I've shared anything about my hair. While my hair hasn't been put on the back burner per se, it hasn't been a big focus of mine personally or on my blog.
So what's been going on with my hair lately?
For the last six months or so I've been struggling with being satisfied with the moisture levels of my relaxed hair. This has resulted in breakage that I didn't experience before and me ditching products, trying new products, and changing my regimen. It wasn't until recently that I started revisiting some old wash day posts from the beginning of my hair journey and I realized that my new regimen may be the issue.
I don't know anyone who would say no if asked whether or not they would like healthy hair.
When you look at hair advertisements on TV, in magazines, or online the images of the model's hair all convey a sense of health. They have hair that is shiny; the perfect length; blowing perfectly in the breeze; bouncy, shiny, springy curls; is the perfect hue of shiny silver, brunette, red or blond. Oh did I mention the shine?
I admit and have admitted before that I don’t have a lot of experience with makeup because I didn’t have a lot of exposure to it growing up. I really didn’t start getting serious about makeup until my late college years (kinda sad I know).
Before then I had dabbled with using drugstore foundations and wearing eye shadow or mascara every once in a while. Once I got more serious about makeup I wasn’t making the connection between
skin prep and makeup application. So face primers were something I never used much less heard about.
I've come to love the end of the month. It's because I get to see my blog and social media stats for the month. While I'm watching my stats throughout the month it's always interesting to see how much of an impact the last couple of days make or don't make to the overall picture.
With July we're smack dab in the middle of summer when people are vacationing and would be spending less time online. I also didn't do a lot of blog promotion on social media. So combining all this with the July 4th holiday and the decreases and small increases I saw for
June I anticipated July to not be that great of a month.
I used to think that to get a good makeup brush you had to go to beauty stores like Ulta or Sephora and spend $20 or more before tax on a brush.
This didn't work with my budget so I used to keep brushes for years and just wash them frequently, but when a brush gets old it's not as effective. Nor is it good for your skin. I realized that a little while ago when I really looked and saw the sorry state my foundation brush was in.
Some of the inside bristles were warped and wouldn't lay flat anymore no matter what I did. This shouldn't have been a surprise because the brush was over seven years old. It was time to replace it.
I didn't want to spend a lot of money on the brush so I started looking at my local drug and big box stores. I first tried a couple of Elf brushes and they weren't any good. One brush broke and the bristles on both had an odd smell that wouldn't go away.