Glossier Basics Review

Sorry to admit it, but I had no interest in Glossier. Once I decided to order from Glossier, I had no interest in liking anything I'd purchased. They catered to me too hard - milennial pink, minimal aesthetic, all these cool girls with their unbrushed hair and full brows and perfect skin ... the vibe is a modern girl cookie cutter, and I didn't want to fall for it. 

And yet, in my not-wanting-to-fall-for-it, I found myself spending $50+ on their website one dull day, you know, just to see. I knew I wouldn't like it. It would break me out or look like nothing on my face. I was sure it was all hype - Glossier probably hired tons of pretty beauty bloggers to hawk their products and they can turn a profit strictly from appealing to a 20-something woman's need to be in without actually putting in any effort. 

Effort is definitely not cool.

My package arrived significantly quicker than I expected, considering I chose free shipping. Like, three days? Maybe? And I've had a couple of weeks now to test out the three products I ordered, so here is my totally genuine, un-sponsored review of some Glossier basics. 

Airbnbs Around the World for Less Than $100 A Night

Clearly, I am not a travel blogger. Yet. It's always been a dream of mine, but between work and school I can barely find the time to make the two hour trip to visit my family, let alone fly across the world. However, I do daydream a lot and I read travel blogs a lot and I plan future trip goals a lot and one thing I have noticed over the past few months of reading travel blogs is that when bloggers say "affordable" to describe boutique locations, they clearly mean a different kind of "affordable" than my student loan repayments can accommodate. It's totally cool if you want to stay in a $400 per night treehouse in Bali, but I'm trying to avoid wallowing in debt until I'm in my grave. 

Through my own scouring of the interweb, I have found some of the coolest, most interesting places for super reasonable prices. I chose to focus specifically on Airbnb  (though Booking.com is also a great resource with helpful search tools) and I am only listing properties that are less than $100 per night to have the entire house (or apartment) to yourself.  They may not be the peak of luxury or they may be off the beaten path, but they are beautiful, inspiring, and within my puny budget! Ready? Happy daydreaming!  

April Ipsy Glambag Review

The amount of beauty boxes I receive has decreased quite a bit over the past few months, but Ipsy has done a great job of satiating my desire for cute mail and new products without blowing my budget. April's Ipsy Glambag was pretty on target for me. I even thought the kitschy little ticket bag was cute and different, though a lot of people have been complaining about it. Different strokes! 

Create Your Own Palette with Buxom Eyeshadow Bar

Apparently I am way late to the game (I mean, years late) but did you know that you can create custom eyeshadow palettes with Buxom's eyeshadow bar? For $40 you can choose six shades (each shade retails for $12) to put into an empty palette and voila! You can fill in any voids in your eyeshadow collection without having to buy a pre-curated palette full of the same neutral matte shades you own twenty of.

Saturday Reading List

You Can't Have Self-Love Without Self-Respect: "Self-respect is helping someone in need when no one is there to witness it. Self-respect is enjoying the acquisition of knowledge, without others having to know that you know it. Self-respect is leaving the party when you’re tired, instead of staying up for everyone else."

A wonderfully (terribly?) relateable piece about the shame of not having money and the stupid things we do to avoid feeling it. 

Google's former "happiness guru" (eyeball roll, I know) on observing thin slices of joy throughout the day as an exercise in becoming a happier person. 

Faux fur has been found to contain real fur (from mink, rabbits, and even cats). "This is a problem in two ways. Firstly it's a problem for the animals who are suffering awful, deprived lives and excruciating deaths on fur farms and traps around the world to produce these products. And secondly, it's a problem for consumers, who are not being protected from unfair trading, who want to shop ethically and avoid the fur trade." 

In local news, Woodbine residents are protesting the planned tiny-home community for the homeless that will be located on the property of Glencliff United Methodist. It's ... unsurprising, but awfully sad to read the comments made by those who live in the area. 

April Check-In & Small Goals

Inspired by Nicole at Writes Like a Girl

It's time again for my monthly check-in. You may notice that it's two weeks late, but I've been putting off writing this post because frankly my goals were a bust. That's hard to share! March was a rough month for balancing school and work, and then Mass Effect: Andromeda was released. I really tried to hone in and finish the game on my one week away from school, which put all my other interests to the wayside and yet I still haven't finished the game.

Lip Hoarder Part 3

Lip Hoarder Part 1 | Lip Hoarder Part 2

Overall, I have really been enjoying my Lip Hoarder project. The only downside thus far is that every now and then I will try a product that I've owned for awhile and been hesitant to try, just to discover that I absolutely love it and want to wear it every day. I've been fine so far with using my favorite rosy nudes only once, as it seems there are always a couple more still on my shelf to be used in the future. I still haven't gotten around to destashing anything - I may wait until the entire project is done to do a thorough cleanse, but I wonder if setting aside products I want to get rid of immediately after wearing them and deciding I hate/dislike them would be better in the moment. 

Here's to round three of Lip Hoarder! 

April Julep Maven Box

As always, Julep's beauty box is a delight and one of my absolute favorites. Their monthly subscription is $25/month, though I choose to purchase three months at a time for $20/month. You are able to swap out every item they curate for you and build your own box, as well as add on items from Julep's shop at a steep discount. I've been subscribed to Julep for almost a year now (mostly because of the ability to skip months without cancelling!) so I've become quite familiar with Julep's house brand, and I'm consistently pleased. 

How to Know Your Makeup Obsession Has Gone Too Far

I was recently inspired (primarily by the Makeup Rehab subreddit and the Anti-Haul blog) to take inventory of my beauty products as a way to assess what I actually need and what I simply want to purchase out of impulse, because it's shiny and new and temporarily exciting. The "inventory" process took me a couple of weeks here and there, but guess what ... I finished taking stock, and it turns out that I have over 230 makeup items in my possession.

You read that right. Over 230.

If you're so inclined, check out my relatively organized inventory. Since I have so. much. stuff. I'm considering writing reviews as I use products up as a way to motivate myself to shop my own collection. I truly don't need another thing! While I've never hit VIB Rouge at Sephora, I do (clearly) spend way too much money on makeup that I could be spending on travel or student loan payments or literally anything other than more makeup I don't need.

I have a few goals to work toward:

• Don't purchase a new product unless it fills a truly empty void or I've used up/destashed the product it's most similar to. 
• Focus on using up products I already own (a.k.a. "Project Pan") - I'd like to pan 5 items completely before I purchase anything else
• Finish my current lip hoarder project (where I have to wear every lip color in my collection once before I'm allowed to repeat). Check out posts here and here.
• Don't hold on to products that don't work for me (be it because of the shade or formula, whatever) - it's not going to magically improve! 
• Pay attention to the products I use & make notes on them; I'm bad about wearing things and not paying attention to how they wear throughout the day unless they're dramatically bad. I want to improve on that in order to be better informed for future purchases.

Wish me luck!

Saturday Reading List

One blog I've been following religiously lately is an anti-haul beauty blog. This post on why she won't be buying Mac's new "Basic Bitch" palette is a perfect example of why I love it & why it's been motivating me to be more deliberate with my purchases. Be sure to scroll down to where she discusses the phrase "basic bitch".

Check out this wonderful piece by a congressional candidate Alejandra Campoverdi - who also happens to have posed for Maxim - on women and society's unwillingness to see us as multidimensional.

This home office post is over a year old, but I've been lusting over the clean, dreamy workspaces pictured within.

Have you seen Victoria Beckham's new Target collab? There are some pieces I really adore and some I'm not so sure about.

This post is titled "25 Promises for All the Single Ladies Who Travel" - I'm not a single lady, but I've been dreaming of traveling solo soon, so this is inspirational nonetheless.