Whenever I get a handful of Instagram makeup selfies stored up on my phone, I'm going to start putting them here on the blog so we have a reference. Products are linked below. :)
Here I used obsidian shimmer powder as an eyeliner by applying it with a damp slanted brush, and amazingly it stayed put for the ENTIRE DAY - until bedtime! (I know I probably shouldn't be amazed by this but I wear eyeliner so rarely that I forget!) Also wearing highlight and sandstone shimmer powder on my eyes, and mother-of-pearl balm on my cheeks and lips. Cocoa eye tint on my brows and lashes as mascara. I did also take a q-tip to the lower inner rim of my eye to remove the product that shouldn't be there after taking this photo, haha!
I'll tell you, I take all of these pictures knowing full well that I'm so much happier when I'm not on Instagram.
Lately, I've even been feeling like... maybe I've outgrown my business. Or, what my business used to be, at least. Or maybe just the 2015-2020 social media constructed idea of what a woman who founds and leads a small business in the "beauty industry" should look like, how she should behave, or how I should share what I have to share with the world.
I put "beauty industry" in quotation marks because I don't feel like I am a part of the beauty industry. I've come to think of myself as an artisan who's crafting an alternative to the toxicity of what the mainstream beauty industry has been feeding us for centuries. (Or, just a century? At least!) And I'm not just referring to the crap ingredients in mainstream products.
This is just highlight shimmer balm and the stain. I used balm on my brows and lashes.
I know...
It's not an easy pill to swallow and it's certainly not easy for me to market. It'd be so much easier to be oblivious to the social constructs and power dynamics at play when we equate fixing our faces and bodies to be more "presentable" to the world with self-care or self-empowerment. The obvious truth is that the corporations that lead this industry are only concerned with amassing and maintaining their own power. We've been fed so many mixed messages since the dawn of advertising that it's hard to know which way is up most of the time. It's even taken me nearly a decade of talking and thinking about beauty every single day to figure out how I feel about it all!
Here, I used rose quartz shimmer balm all over my eyelids, and layered rose quartz shimmer powder on top of it. I've got rose quartz and ruby shimmer balms on my cheeks, and ruby shimmer balm on my lips. Cocoa eye tint on my brows and eyelashes.
So as much as I find myself stumbling over my words to talk about my products and wondering what I'm doing here (another thought - am I drawn to this industry because I hate it?) and frankly, feeling bored of talking about skincare (I'd so much rather talk about the way plants smell!) it still feels important for me to keep showing up and offering what I have to offer, especially as I am turning 40 and am choosing to age naturally.
This is all pink tourmaline shimmer balm - on my eyes, cheeks, and lips. I believe I just used balm on my brows and lashes here. Or maybe cocoa eye tint on my brows and balm on my lashes?
Not aging gracefully, mind you. Nothing in my life feels graceful at the moment. Just, aging. I am aging, as humans do. Imperfectly, because that is the nature of life. This - putting my imperfect aging face on the internet as the "face" of a "brand" - shouldn't be a radical thing to do but it feels kind of punk in a way, which is way more exciting (and somehow more comfortable lol) to me than just being your basic influencer girl who's preening for the camera and trying to get you to buy things so you can be pretty too. Either way, I will be criticized by small people who don't have the guts to show up and firmly stand in their values while sharing something joyful of their own making with the world, so here I am, persisting.
This is also pink tourmaline on my lips - it's so interesting how it looks different in different lighting depending on the other colors that you wear, right?
Maybe my products aren't for you, but I'm confident that they could be if you want an alternative to what's available from mainstream brands. Of course, if you enjoy and have the time and money to spend on designer or celebrity brand products, lasers, peels, injections, facials, etc., and if that's what makes you feel great... by all means, proceed! But the way my products work is all that I need.
This is just mother-of-pearl shimmer balm on my cheeks and lips. Balm on my lashes and brows. Also, in all of these pictures, I'm wearing filter balm and setting powder. (Always!)
And obviously, I'm posting this because I DO hope that you'll buy what I have to offer. Not because you need to be "pretty," but because it's fun and it feels good. Because there's joy in the act of applying these products - they feel good, look pleasing, and smell lovely. As I said in my last makeup post - I think it's natural and normal to want to be beautiful and adorn yourself. So if I can provide an alternative that feels less toxic (mentally and physically,) and more fun for those of you out there who are picking up what I'm putting down, then it's mission accomplished. You can and should feel good in your skin when you use my products.
That's the whole point.
Oh, PS, I finally took new swatch photos/videos of my updated shimmer balm formula:
Until next time!
Stefanie
