Why Do We Wear Makeup?

Every girl you know has probably worn makeup at some point in her life. It's part of our social standards these days and widely accepted. It is its own industry full of makeup artists, makeup creators, and many others. It is most commonly worn and accepted by women, though, ironically enough, makeup was originally worn by men especially in ancient Egypt.

But why do we wear it? I've come up with a few reasons:

We feel we have to. Though no one should feel this way, some girls feel that the only way to feel accepted is to wear makeup like her friends. It is sad to hear that, but to the girl that is wearing makeup solely to feel like she belongs in this world: don't think that way. Real friends will love you whether or not you've coated your lashes in mascara, and if you are comfortable without it, there's no reason for you to do that to yourself.

To impress guys. This reason I find extremely hilarious especially because most guys would rather girls not wear makeup at all. For whatever reason, some girls believe that it will help them get more attention, but I am going to tell this girl the same thing as the girl who wears it to feel acceptance with her friends: if you don't feel you need to, then don't. Guys don't care for the stuff anyways, so they shouldn't be the reason you wear it. And if they care that much, I don't think that that is the best relationship to be in. 

For ourselves. In my opinion, this is the most common reason and also the best reason. Makeup is to make us feel more comfortable with what we see in the mirror. And although we should feel comfortable in the skin we were born with, it's completely understandable that we may want to enhance the features we love about ourselves and attempt to cover the ones we don't. This doesn't make us self centered or self conscience, it just makes us feel better about how we look. Plus if we are happy with what we see, it shows in everything we do. Our confidence level goes up as well as our productivity, social interaction, and overall happiness. If makeup can help a girl smile at what she sees in her reflection, I don't see how that is a problem. 

Overall, I think there a lot of misconceptions about makeup and it's purpose. It doesn't make the person who wears it conceded or fake. It doesn't make them any more or less beautiful. Though in some cases it is used for the wrong reasons, overall it's to build further confidence in that person that they maybe didn't have as much of before. Just remember that if you are wearing makeup that it's for the right reasons, because you are beautiful with and without it. 

Hopefully that helped you understand the reasons why we bother wearing makeup and possibly got rid of any misconceptions you may have had. Enjoy your week everyone and if you do wear makeup, feel free to post your reasons for wearing it in the comments below!

Love Always,

Bree x

My Makeup Tricks

Makeup is expensive.  And if you are someone like me that buys and uses it regularly, you want to stretch those dollars as much as possible. 

For me, there are two things that annoy me most:

1. When my mascara dries out

2. When I drop a compact (whether it be powder, eyeshadow, bronzer, etc) and find that what's in it has all crumbled into tiny pieces

At one time, I didn't know that there was a way to fix these problems to make the products last longer, but after a lot of searching, I found some short-term solutions that have made my life 1000x easier.

You're putting on your mascara only to find that it's not coating your lashes well at all and they're clumping together so that it looks like you have about 10 lashes on each eye. Lovely, right? It's the cutest look (kidding)! So what do you do? Well, if you have a new tube handy, then you'd probably just open the new one.  But normally, I don't have a new tube handy, so I have a trick that saves the day every time.

My secret: eye drops. You used to just put them in your eye to help the moisture stay in and make them less itchy and red. That's not all it's good for. If your mascara is dry and clumpy, put about 6 drops in the tube and pump wand a few times. Good as new! 

The other most annoying thing is when you drop that lovely new eyeshadow you just bought or that bronzer you swear by, and open it up to see it has broken into a million pieces.  I used to just try to deal with it and use all the little pieces, but that was quite a pain since the pieces would usually spill out and get all over everything.  

Now, this trick I have to thank Lauren Conrad for because if it weren't for her blog post a while back, I would still be trying to use those tiny little pieces and ruining all sorts of clothes with a rainbow of broken eyeshadows. What she does is take rubbing alcohol and put it in a small spray bottle. Then, she pushes all the tiny pieces together in the compact and sprays it very thoroughly with the alcohol so that it's soaked. Next, she wraps a coin in a tissue and presses it hard on the eyeshadow (or powder, bronzer, etc). Lastly, she lifts the coin away and it's all back together exactly how you bought it.  The girl's a genius, let me just say. 

Personally, I've used both these tricks and they have been life savers, so I figured it would be helpful to other people out there as well! 

Hope you enjoyed the post and found it helpful! Have an amazing week! 

Love Always, 

Bree x

Fighting Fire with Fire

Hi guys! Sorry I didn't post last week. I was crazy busy with prom and all that good stuff, but I'm back! So today I'm going to reflect on something I've been observing for a few weeks.

Life isn't perfect (yes, I know that was a very original thing for me to say), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it as perfect as we can.  The fact is, lots of things bother us whether it be things, life events, or especially, people.  

One thing I have noticed lately is that people think it's okay to treat others badly.  But why?  There a variety of different reasons, but the reason I've been given most often isn't making sense to me: They were mean to me when...[insert some period of time as long as a year or more]. 

What's bothering me is that some people seem to think that no one deserves a second chance (or a third or fourth) even when the person is sorry.  There's a sense of entitlement that someone gets to be mean to someone else once that person has been mean to them, but that's entirely wrong in my opinion.  When we are mean back, we create a cycle that is never ending, and that makes things worse for everyone around us.

Everyone makes mistakes. From the guy you have a crush on, to your best friend, to your family - they all make mistakes. And many times, those people want to say they're sorry, but some of us aren't allowing them to. How can we expect things to get better, for things to change, if we won't allow them the chance to fix anything? No one is asking you to forget what they've done, but you can forgive them. 

You know what it felt like to be hurt by them, and it probably wasn't very fun. Why would you want someone else to feel the way you did? That seems backwards to me.  And I have seen both sides of the spectrum.  I've seen people be mean and want to say they're sorry and I've seen people who have been mean to and not allow anyone to make things better.  That's got to stop.  Everyone has been mean, including myself.  We don't always intend to be, but it happens.  And with that, we need to learn forgiveness. You can't fight fire with fire.  It doesn't work that way. 

When we don't give people another chance, we box them off.  We ignore the goodness inside of them that wants the chance to come out and cause that person to become more mean or sad. Why should we box that part away? If anything, we should be trying to bring the good out in other people.  Try to help each other learn from our mistakes and grow.  

We can't hold something against someone when they're sorry.  It's also a lot of energy to box someone off, and it's not healthy for either party.  Whether one has been mean, or been the target of unkindness, we should be helping them become better and happier people. 

All in all, no one is better than anyone else, and we need to learn to continuously find the good inside one another.  Only you can choose to make a change and see the good.  

Feel free to share your opinions in the comments and tell me about what you've seen happen!  Enjoy your week! 

Love Always,

Bree x