If you know me, you know I'm not a guru of anything, nor do I know anything about makeup or beauty. But what you do know is that I LOVE discovering/trying new things and picking up new hobbies, and right now, that's makeup, hair and beauty (to include nails).
When I was in college, I wore little to no makeup. I dressed a bit frumpy and didn't take very good care of myself. My nails were short and bitten completely down to the skin and it was a treat if I brushed my hair more than twice a day (once in the morning, once at night). I look back now and realize why I wasn't noticed in high school and even as the cheerleading captain, not very many people knew who I was unless they were at a sporting event, listening to me singing the National Anthem. Even then, they heard my voice, but never really looked my way.
I was known as the cheerleading captain, a choir dork (voted best female singer of my class), a drama geek, and being smart... aka, a nerd. I wore glasses, and I had a 4.0 GPA up until my senior year. I could've been salutatorian, but I lost my competitive edge my senior year and dropped to 4th place after I quit cheerleading and focused on choir and drama. Although this helped me grow to be what I feel to be a successful engineer, it didn't help me in society. I was proud and loved my accomplishments, but I was missing confidence.
It wasn't until my junior year of college working on my BSME, when I got an internship with Lockheed Martin, that I realized I needed to step it up. I changed my wardrobe, but only slightly. I tried to wear makeup, but had no idea what I was doing. A year went by and my second internship began, and I met Amanda. She was not like the rest us, she was different compared to the other female engineers in the building. In fact, she wasn't an engineer, she was an administrative assistant. She was a beautiful blonde, with a sweet southern bubbly personality and everyone loved her. I was envious.
After a month, she and I became great friends. Over time, she helped me revamp my wardrobe, going from Kohl's to Express. *Don't get me wrong, I still shop at Kohl's, but Express has a better professional wardrobe.* She even got me into skin care. I never used to lotion up after a shower or cleanse, tone and moisturize my face. As simple as that was, it was life changing. She was very low profile with makeup, she wore very little (just a bit of foundation and some blush), but that was enough to get me hooked.
I immediately discovered YouTube tutorials. My first subscription was Michelle Phan and Kandee Johnson, later to add Holly Ann-Aeree (my fav), Bebexo and FrmHeadToToe. There are many more, but these ladies are what got me started!
5 years later... and here I am, loving makeup, constantly trying new products. More recently, obsessing over nail polish, nail art, and nail tutorials. I had been getting pink/white SNS acrylic nails, week after week. Then one day, a friend of mine was getting SNS, but she was getting her nails painted versus just leaving them pink/white. I don't know what happened, but all of the sudden a spark of creativity hit me at the moment on. Haven't gone back since. Been doing my own nails, about every 4-7 days, I switch out my polish. My nail polish collection has been getting bigger and bigger each week.
Labels: Life