Chatter

Start of 2021 Newsletter

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Chatter

I planned on starting 2021 with a nice little newsletter about 2020, trying to grasp at the straws that were the small items to celebrate in spite of what an awful year it was.

In light of the terrorism in America this week, it feels weird and bad to talk about celebrations. There’s a lot of ugliness that’s come to a head, and we’re not out of the woods.

But I decided to talk anyway, albeit in a more subdued tone. The fact that there are horrors and that there is work to be done should not also siphon the joy we worked hard to capture.

—

In 2020, I attempted to revive the blog over the summer in hopes of not only reviving it but me.

I modified my post frequency and built up momentum within it, but this proved ambitious. In August, the world (as a metaphor for my time and energy) shook: I ended up with significantly more work than ever. I simultaneously headed into the worst semester I’ve faced. Like before, Beauty Skeptic had to take a back seat.

—

I’ve casually mentioned it before, but in addition to my career, I started college in May 2019. My ultimate higher-ed goal is to get a bachelor’s, but have happily just completed (with much exhaustion) a shiny new Associate’s degree in my day job field. I pulled this off in 18 months and achieved magna cum laude, and a bunch of boring academic honors. I’m not particularly good at celebrating my accomplishments, but I think that is worth celebrating.

In spite of trying to push myself to celebrate, I also feel that weird, “unproductive guilt,” that is new(er) for a lot of people. That is wild because I have been anything other than unproductive. Do you struggle with celebrating your accomplishments too? Share yours! We can celebrate together in spirit without the oppression of yet another video call. (I am so tired of seeing my fucking face on webcam, and I bet you are too!) Only demand is to throw on a lipstick you like. Or don’t. Whatever.

Smol Celebrations

The school stuff I mentioned! I completed a degree in 75% of the time it, “usually,” takes and with high marks while working 50+ hour weeks in a high-stress career.

In addition to all of that, I earned a valuable professional credential.

I learned several new skills:

  • I can operate a sewing machine, sew at a novice level, and make masks to keep my family safer.
  • I can make soap (and it’s REALLY FUN and very appropriate for Beauty Skeptic).
  • I can make candles.
  • I tint and wax my own brows now.
  • I can passably-enough cut my hair.
  • I’ve elevated my DIY nail skills to include polygel usage.
  • I successfully grew some produce.

Meanwhile, I’ve learned more about the balance I need and will push a bit more gently going forward to preserve my mental state.

Here’s hoping that I can do better for this site in 2021.

2020 Beauty Gift Guides? Yawn

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Does the beauty world really need another gift guide? You can only see the same palettes recommended so many times. Maybe its just 2020 in general, maybe its my own exhaustion and short fuse, but even bloggers and influencers who I like have shared gift guide content that I, personally, found exasperating this year. (I still like the content creators. They’re doing their jobs; in many cases, this sort of thing is their main income stream).

So many gift guides are just wish lists for the blogger, anyway – depending on their stature and time in the influencing trenches, they might share wildly out-of-touch picks.

2020 Beauty Gift Guides – Pfft

I’m trying to rein in my cynicism (lol right) and what I recognize to be a grinch-like attitude, but frankly, it is challenging:

  • On one hand the world is a mess; do we really need a $40 lip balm recommendation, Janet?
  • On the other, while I still agree that a $40 lip balm is fucking absurd and indeed borderline offensive, maybe we do need some frivolity to lift our spirits.

My opinion seems to change by the hour on that.

I’m not without empathy, though. If you are participating in some gift-giving this year and by some insanity you have yet to finish your holiday shopping for someone with an appetite for beauty frivolity, might I offer the following suggestions:

If your loved one:

  • is fond of a particular local salon or spa, get a gift card for them to use at that service provider once we can safely and responsibly return to consuming those services. This isn’t an impersonal cop-out; this does triple duty of 1) the obvious gift-giving, 2) giving your loved-one something nice to look forward to when we can reclaim a semblance of safety, and 3) provides that business much-needed cashflow. I haven’t felt comfortable visiting my salon during all this (service areas are a bit small), but I don’t want them to go out of business. You can probably pull this off in time, even.
  • is brave or adventurous enough to attempt (or has been attempting) home haircuts – consider a pair of shears. As I’ve learned from doing my own trims this year, decent pair of shears (scissors) makes the process go a lot nicer. Is it exciting? Not necessarily, but if you want to get all Marie Kondo about it, they spark joy because they make the job easier to execute well…ish. If not shears, there’s something for everyone: clippers, or, apparently George Clooney has been cutting his hair with a Flowbee for almost as long as I’ve been alive. Imagine a world where that was the strangest thing we’d heard this year.
  • likes having nice nails and hasn’t already taken the plunge into DIY gel land, oh, god, get them some nail supplies! Gel polish is user-friendly and more accessible than ever. If they like extensions/enhancements, dual-forms and polygel couldn’t be easier to use. Lamps, electric files, color, consumables (like gel cleanser?! lolol jk – but files, cleanup tools, etc).
  • is creative/crafty and might enjoy things like soap-making, that’s a really cool way to give them control over some aspect of their beauty/grooming products. Not only is it neat to play with, is it skill development! I’ve had good luck with Bramble Berry as a starting resource. Anything in this realm will be late, but in a year in which even things purchased, “in time,” will be late – it will be okay.

If you needed it, I hope this non-gift-guide was useful to you.

Soap Box: Get Ready While WFH

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Chatter Get Ready While WFH

With less visibility than going into the office, it can be tempting to roll out of bed and login. I love to sleep in as much as the next person. I get it. If nothing else, it is critical to get ready while WFH because it helps you maintain boundaries which supports prevention of burnout and preservation of our mental health.

On Imgur last week, I saw a meme whose sentiment was along the lines of, “It’s time to stop calling it, ‘Working From Home,’ and instead call it, ‘Living at Work.'” For those of you also fortunate enough to work from home during this cluster of a year, you can appreciate how real that thought is.

And a quick pause on the, “fortunate enough,” bit:

You may not like working from home. In fact, you may hate it. The fact remains that if you are able to work from the safety of your home right now when so many people have either been displaced from employment or have their (and their family’s) health at risk – well, you’re lucky.

That said, just because you frame your situation in the context of being fortunate, doesn’t mean it is invalid to feel stressed or like boundaries are being violated. They are. Everyone’s are.

–and that’s why I still think you should get ready for work.

Three Key Reasons to Get Ready while WFH:

Boundaries

Those of us accustomed to going to an office every day, even if you weren’t routine-driven, had some sort of routine. Here’s roughly what mine looked like on an average day:

  • 5:00-5:20 – alarm/snooze/alarm/admit defeat. Get out of bed, do morning hygiene, slap on vit C serum.
  • 5:20-5:30 – if I failed myself the night before, pick clothing and get dressed
  • 5:30-5:40 – tidy hair, style if needed (I wash every other day, at night)
  • 5:40-5:55 – moisturize, sunscreen, facepaint. I can do this in as few as five minutes – and often do. But sometimes I want to channel Bob Ross, damn it, for a little morning zen. Some people do morning yoga; I do this
  • 5:55 – put together lunch, acquire caffeine
  • 6:00-6:05 – depart for ye olde commute
  • 6:35ish – arrive

The commute is actually the key element that orients my brain to transition to, “work mode,” from, “home mode.” It is a consistent boundary that marks the physical transition. With WFH, that is gone.

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Chatter: Funny How That Works – An Update

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Two weeks ago after hulking out on some school obligations, I found the motivation to put some work back into the site and started posting again. The third item of business, in fact, was getting the Euphoria Makeup post OK to publish.

A few days after I started scheduling content, my state issued new guidelines requiring telework when possible. Frankly, it was already mandated, but the new order made it a bit more black-and-white. So, I have returned to working from home after two months back in the office (which itself was after two months of working from home).

This means that I can, “get away,” with wearing ridiculous bright colors if I find the inspiration to slap them on my face at 6AM. I only did it a few times before; but hey, it was fun so I might get to give my Electric palette something to do. In the dismal world we all find ourselves in at the moment, some frivolity is nice.

So – for fun (?) here’s some insight into what I’ve been up to:

School

In May 2019 I embarked on an adventure to earn a degree. I work in a field and role that conventionally requires one but it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been contrarian. It occurred to me that I have probably maxed out on how far I can go without one (unless I get entrepreneurial); since I desire further advancement, it is a necessity. At the start, I figured I’d be able to do this half-time at best and that it would take me about four years to get the first leg (an Associates) done. “That sucks,” I figured, “but it’s a necessary evil at this point.”

I sold myself short.

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From the Draft Folder: Euphoria Makeup

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I have a slew of things in my drafts folder, stubs of pieces that didn’t pass my perfectionist B.S. I’m trying to get better about that, so here’s one from Octoberish 2019.

Have you seen HBO’s Euphoria?

If you haven’t (especially now in 2020), you’re wrong. The show is fantastic. Run, don’t walk.

Euphoria Makeup - Maddy

Beyond the show itself, the makeup in Euphoria is phenomenal. I haven’t felt particularly inspired to do anything, “fun,” or out of my norm in a while; my handful of daily, go-to looks make me feel professional, polished, and pretty.

Euphoria - Jules

But damn, Euphoria has me craving neon and rhinestones. As I am neither Gen Z nor extraordinarily fun, my existence doesn’t afford me occasions to do this ridiculous stuff.

But!

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Chatter: Pro Only Product

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ChatterPro Only Product

Time for a rant. If you happen to enjoy beauty and product and all that jazz, chances are you’ve encountered a pro only product of which you’re fond…even if that product really doesn’t require professional handling.

It’s frustrating to learn that the flavor of the day is only for sale at CosmoProf (hi, PolyGel when it first came out) or through the pro only product supply-chain and vendors (hi, OPI Gelcolor).

The Rub

In my case, I am most-often frustrated by the lack of availability of nail products. Although in many cases certain US states and certain countries mandate licensure to render services on clients, they don’t necessarily regulate the types of products that can be sold. The industry (in the US, anyway) is largely self-regulating regarding the sale of cosmetic products. This isn’t purely a bad thing; it can help service providers maintain business, for example. I can appreciate that to an extent. In other cases, it’s because the general public is … not bright. After all, the FDA just needed to remind people that drinking bleach is bad.

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