Why (And How) I Still Like Facebook

Hi, friends!

A pretty common sentiment these days is that Facebook is garbage. People complain that all they ever see is arguments about politics, oversharing about mundane things, and requests for help with a virtual farm. A lot of teenagers never bother making an account because it's "uncool" now that their parents and other "old people" use it (or because they're concerned about said old people not understanding Facebook etiquette and causing embarrassment).

I can't offer much advice for the teenagers here because A) I don't mind my parents seeing the things I post, B) I've taught my parents how Facebook works, and C) it's honestly cute to see comments like "SUSAN YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL. LOVE GRANNY" on a picture Susan gets tagged in. Granny is doing her best and just wants to keep up with her family online! Yay for Granny!

As for the other problems people have with Facebook, I have a ton of suggestions for improving your experience and getting rid of the clutter.

Don't be afraid to unfollow people.
If you have a friend who only ever posts about political things, unfollow them! I've definitely unfollowed people in the past when I didn't want to completely unfriend them but also didn't care about any of the things they were sharing. Every once in a while, I'll go to the list of people I've unfollowed and check out their profiles to see if they're worth refollowing. If their posts will just clutter my timeline with things I don't want to see, I leave them as they are. (This sounds super rude of me, I know. I promise the unfollowed list is pretty short.)
Related: There's a snooze button.
Someone you know just got a new dog and won't stop posting hourly pictures of them? Snooze their posts and maybe they'll calm down in a while. If not, there's always the above option.

Snooze if you think things will improve in a month. If there's no hope, you can unfollow instead.

You can block pages to avoid seeing their posts when friends share them.
I recently recommended this technique to a friend who was bummed about seeing recipe videos all over Facebook while she was trying to stick to a diet. If you block the pages that the videos come from (Tasty, BuzzFeed Food, etc.), you won't see their posts being shared. Most of the pages I've blocked are for LuLaRoe saleswomen because I had friends who would share their posts to enter giveaways and I wanted to still see my friends' posts without seeing videos about paper-thin leggings. I've also blocked a lot of Facebook games because I really don't care if someone reached level 8,032 on Candy Crush.
You can stop seeing posts from a certain person that your friend is tagged in by clicking "hide all from [person]" or something to that effect. Like if your friend has a relative that decides to tag their entire family in every update about their baby or something, you can hide everything from that person and quit seeing posts about people you don't know. (Why do people do that??)

Don't care about sports but have a friend who excitedly shares every update from their favorite team for some awful reason? Block those posts without blocking your friend.

Turn off autoplay for videos.
Videos starting automatically makes me angry, even when they're muted. In fact, muted autoplay is almost as frustrating as autoplaying with sound because if I actually do want to see the video, now I have to rewind it and turn the sound on so I can hear what I missed while deciding whether or not to watch.

Curse you, autoplay. No one asked for this.

You can turn notifications for a post on and off.
If you've ever seen a post requesting recommendations or advice and wanted to see the results, chances are someone else had that same idea and commented "." or "following" on that post. There is absolutely no reason to ever do that. Just turn the notifications on and you'll see future comments. Or, if you were the first to comment "Congrats!" on a post about exciting news and get a ding every few minutes from other people congratulating that person, you can turn off those notifications just as easily.

I don't often run into the problem of a post being annoyingly popular, but this is how I'd handle it if I did.

Set your news feed to most recent.
One of the biggest complaints I have about Instagram (and a large part of why I never bothered to install it on my current phone or the previous one) is that the posts aren't shown chronologically. Why?! I don't care what an algorithm thinks I want to see. What I want to see is *all* of the things my friends are sharing *in the order* that they're being shared. Clearly, algorithms aren't smart enough to realize that some people need things to be in the right order or else they'll go nuts.

Of course, Facebook is playing around with "most recent" meaning "most recently commented on" or something now, but my news feed is in the proper order most of the time.

Get rid of unwanted groups and group notifications.
I really wish Facebook wouldn't let people add you into groups without your permission. If someone adds you into a group you don't want to be part of (or if you decide you're done being in a certain group), you can leave and also check a box to make people unable to add you back in. If you want to remain in a group but get too many notifications from it, you can adjust those settings to bring the number down to a more desirable level.

Begone, MLM groups!

Turn off excessive notifications from events.
This usually becomes handy when I get invited to an event that's designed to collect addresses for wedding invitations. Even if the couple has a Google Doc or website for people to use to submit their addresses, there are always people who post their addresses in the group discussion area anyway. The ability to receive notifications for only host updates makes that problem go away.

I promise the original picture looked much nicer than my stick figure version.

If you don't block ads entirely, you can hide ads about certain subjects.

The only options right now are alcohol, parenting, and pets, but more topics might be added eventually. It's surprisingly thoughtful of Facebook to let people opt out of seeing ads about these things. I've known people who have had infertility issues or miscarriages and cried over seeing ads about babies and pregnancy. I can imagine that a recovering alcoholic or someone with a fear of certain animals would also prefer to not see ads that would cause an emotional response. Personally, I turned all three of these topics off simply because they aren't relevant to my life and I'd rather see ads for Ulta or Nintendo or something else I may actually care about. (Of course, since I block all ads indiscriminately, it doesn't actually matter. I mostly wanted to show Facebook that I appreciate the ability to do this.)

Way to go, Facebook! I hope they include a way to avoid ads about engagement/marriage someday. That's another subject that can be pretty touchy and painful.

Best of all: Install Fluff Busting Purity and customize to your heart's content.
You may have noticed that my screenshots don't look exactly like what your Facebook looks like. This glorious extension is the reason why. The improvements it makes to my news feed are so great that I never use Facebook on my phone anymore. I'll check notifications there but any and all browsing happens on my computer because that's where FBP can fix everything. Thanks to FBP, I don't see "Bob liked this post" or "Marie commented on this post" anymore. No game or app requests to deny. No garbage cluttering the left side of the screen. Most recent is the default sort option for the news feed. I can even filter out pictures of babies (though doing that would make about half of my news feed disappear).

Browser extensions can be so dang handy. I've been using FBP for years and love it!

FBP may or may not get rid of sponsored posts and ads. I'm not actually sure how effective it is, because I also have an adblocker extension installed. Browsing the internet ad-free is such a wonderful thing.

If I had to only use Facebook on my phone and/or didn't know about all the tips I shared in this post, I'd probably hate it, too. A lot of that still depends on who your friends are and what they post, obviously; if you're friends with a bunch of annoying people, any social media platform would be awful. However, I find that Facebook is the most effective and overall most pleasant way of seeing what my friends and relatives are up to. It's great to still know what's going on with people from my hometown even though I haven't been there in two years. I would feel insanely isolated if I didn't have Facebook to let me see how people are doing. I want to see where your son is going on his mission, your cute selfie, your cat inconveniencing you by sitting on something, the cool cake you made, your flushed face after you ran a marathon, your recreation of an old picture, your fun holiday decorations, your family photos, your blog posts, your ramblings about something you have passion for, your movie recommendations... I want to still feel like part of my friends' lives even though I'm so very far away from most of you.

Facebook definitely isn't perfect, but with a decent amount of tweaking, it's still a great place to share.

Love,
Lizzie

A Digital Christmas Letter

Hi, friends!

I always love reading the summaries of families' years that sometimes come with Christmas cards, so I thought I'd attempt to do a version of that for our family's 2018!

Jared-specific:

• Jared had his second and third IKEA experiences when we needed to buy some bookshelves and dressers.
• He let his hair and beard grow out so we could dress as Hagrid and a glittery dragon for Halloween.

Jared has been continuing to teach Gospel Principles, though now that the class isn't going to exist anymore, he'll probably be getting a new calling soon. He also made appearances at mutual a couple of times to be fake Steve Harvey when the girls played Family Feud and also host our General Conference version of Fibbage. He's the unofficial assistant to the Beehive adviser. :)

He's been enjoying his work and seems to be decently friendly with his coworkers. He didn't get nearly as many travel opportunities as he did in 2017, unfortunately. As part of a seminar thing, he programmed a little gadget to play a few variations of Simon, which I think is pretty neat. We're still loving him getting every other Friday off.

A church friend has organized a Dungeons and Dragons group and Jared gets to spend time adventuring around as a paladin every few weeks. He beat Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey this year and got back into Skyrim again. His options for games to play will be expanding soon because he customized a powerful desktop computer for us as our Christmas present to ourselves. Non-gaming laptops can only handle so much, after all.

Lizzie-specific:

• I got a keyboard and started trying to get used to playing the piano again so that I could get some use out of all the books of music we have.
• I was a leader at YW camp and survived spending a few days away from Jared, the internet, and cleanliness.
• I started this blog!
• My hair finally returned to a naturalish color.

I've now been a Young Women leader for two years and I'm still loving it! Between lessons, activities, meetings, camp, and miscellaneous happenings, there's always something to keep me busy. This year, some of my favorite tasks were helping the girls learn about skincare and makeup basics, coming up with a whole bunch of mini-games for them to play (personalized Taboo about the girls and leaders, Family Feud with questions about church and our town, Fibbage with questions from General Conference, non-digital Quiplash, sphinx-ish riddles, and a page of idiom phrases rewritten with synonyms), and having everyone come to my house to play games and watch Spider-Man. It's also been a lot of fun to chaperone a few stake dances!

My church "job" can take up a surprisingly large amount of time, but when I'm not doing anything for that, I try to make my days productive in other ways. I do basically all of the standard chores to make our home a pleasant place: laundry, dishes, vacuuming, sweeping, organizing, and the like. I can also spend time on hobbies, which is awesome. I get to read, write, work on jigsaw puzzles, play piano, attempt nail art, bake delicious things, and (of course) play video games. Lately, I've been making paper snowflakes to help our living room be even more festive. I'm never bored! There's always something to be done. Some people would probably hate being home all day like this, but I love our lifestyle and feel so fortunate that this is something we can do. (Yay, low cost of living!)

I haven't finished making enough to go along the edges of the cabinet yet, but here's what I've got so far! I have plans for a snowman and the Skyrim logo to also be put onto snowflakes. :)
Top row: Avengers, Zelda, Harry Potter, Pinkie Pie, Mario, Thor
Bottom row: a generic tree and heart (my test snowflake), Zelda, Iron Man, cats, Mario

Now that we're living in our very own house, I love having guests over. We had missionaries over for dinner a couple of times in the house we were renting, but I was never really proud of how it was, if that makes sense. It was functional and as clean as I could get it to be. There was nothing to be ashamed of, I just didn't love the house. This one feels more like a home. The layout is more conducive to a fun gathering, the floors aren't permanently dirty, and everything looks brighter and more inviting. I've hosted a couple of movie nights, Jared had his D&D group meet here once, and we've been having the missionaries come for dinner about once a month. This house has helped me feel much happier about living where we do. (Still not a fan of the town's weather, location, or size, but my home is my happy place.) Oh, and our new neighborhood has at least four adorable cats that occasionally wander outside.

Family happenings:

• We went to Disneyland with my parents, which was a lot of fun!
• We bought a house! That was a huge deal. We also bought some grown-up furnishings (picture frames, a TV stand, a TV to go on said stand) for the new house.
• Our third wedding anniversary happened and was celebrated with pizza and Pokemon.
• We went to Disneyland again and also to Las Vegas to see an Avengers exhibit.
• We got a $300 gift card to Fandango from a Dunkin Donuts cup! (We still haven't actually used any of it because the only theater in town doesn't use Fandango, but we're working on that.)
• My parents came to visit us and got to experience the, uh, loveliness of town.
• We were asked to be Mary and Joseph in a live nativity and got to wear outfits with much more fabric than we normally deal with.

Everything is going pretty well! We love each other, we love our church friends, we love our house, and we love our life overall. From our family to yours, have a very merry Christmas, a sparkling new year, and a lovely time relaxing with your loved ones!

Love,
Lizzie and Jared

Friendship Is Magic And Age Is Weird

Hi, friends!

A lot of you probably know this already, but I'm the youngest of six kids. There's a pretty sizeable gap between my siblings and me. My oldest brother was nearly seventeen when I was born and my youngest brother was eight. (And when I was eight, my first niece was born. There was actually slightly less time between my birth and my niece's birth.)
I have a theory that this unusual timing might be part of why I've never felt strange about befriending people who aren't exactly close to my age. If it doesn't feel weird to talk to my siblings, why would it feel weird to talk to other people who were in high school when I was born?

How old you are is such a huge deal when you're young. I remember being really excited that a friend's older sibling would talk to us during recess in elementary school because we were two grades lower and therefore automatically much less cool. In eighth grade, some people thought it was strange that I would eat lunch with my two friends who were in seventh grade. Age started to matter less in high school and wasn't really very important in college. By now, it's just something that I occasionally have to think about when I'm filling out a form or telling someone how old I am. (I legitimately had to pause for a few seconds the other day before remembering that I'm 24.) It went from basically being a social class to just a fun piece of trivia.

While I obviously made friends around my age while I was in school, I also befriended several teachers. I was one of those awkward kids who would eat lunch in a teacher's room and hang out by their desk to chat when class was nearly over instead of, y'know, socializing with people my own age like a normal person.

A big reason why I have so many Facebook friends with grandchildren is that I quickly got used to interacting with adults through church. I would talk to my teachers and my parents' friends like they were regular people instead of treating them like aliens who were super different from me. I got to know my piano teacher, my clogging teacher, my Young Women leaders, my Sunday School teachers, my seminary teachers, and a lot of other big, scary grown-ups who, as it turns out, aren't scary at all. (Even my really tall Sunday School teacher with the bushy mustache isn't nearly as frightening as he may look to a child.) Transitioning into Relief Society when I turned eighteen was super easy because I was already familiar with most of the women there.

Now that I'm a big, scary smallish, not-at-all-intimidating grown-up, the ages of my friends range from about thirteen to grandparent-of-people-my-age years old. Working with the YW has been a huge blessing in my life for a lot of reasons, but my favorite part is that I've formed genuine friendships with these girls like my leaders did with me a decade ago. They'll tell me about what's going on in their life, send me cat memes, and even come talk to me when they don't have any obligation to do so!

Since we're all children of God, we're really just a huge family. That means we shouldn't hesitate to get to know someone half our age, twice our age, or however old they may be.

I'd already planned for this to be the weekly post before today's news of the adjustments to how youth will age up in the church. (If you haven't heard or aren't LDS, the teenagers will move up to the next class at the beginning of the year they turn twelve, fourteen, and sixteen instead of waiting until their actual birthday.) That timing means that I now have some extra stuff to add to this post.

The YW group in my ward is a bit wonky. We have about nine girls that regularly come to things: two Laurels, five Mia Maids, and two Beehives. With this announcement, we won't have any Beehives starting in January because the two current (active) ones are thirteen and the next girl won't be turning twelve until 2020. My "job" in our organization is being the Beehive adviser. You can see why I may have some questions in this situation.

I don't know what our YW group will look like next year. I'm really hoping to still be part of the leadership in some capacity, even though I won't have any Beehives to work with. Whatever decision gets made, I'm so grateful for the past two years I've had to spend time with these beautiful weirdos every Sunday and Wednesday. I've watched them gain confidence, teach lessons, organize activities, have hysterical giggle fits, and share their testimonies. It's been such an honor to learn from them and grow to love them as if they're my younger sisters. I adore these girls and I'm glad they're willing to be my friends even though I sometimes reference movies older than they are.

Love,
Lizzie

Making My Teenage Self Jealous

Hi, friends!

The other day, I was thinking about how annoying it is to still be dealing with acne even though I've been done with high school for five years. I always assumed that my skin would quit being rude once I wasn't a teenager anymore, but I'm still waiting. These days, I have fewer ~blemishes~ and also better tools for dealing with them, which prompted me to think about the products and useful things that I would've loved having ten years ago.

Skin stuff:

I wish I'd had hydrocolloid patches and the e.l.f. rollerball acne treatment gel. I'm not sure if either of these things were even available when I was younger, but I sure love them now!
The gel is good for run-of-the-mill acne spots. I use it before bed on any areas of my face that aren't cooperating. It is a little drying, which isn't great for someone with eczema who also lives in the desert, but it doesn't usually cause any major problems. I've noticed that acne seems to clear up faster when I use it. Things don't disappear overnight or anything, but this does help.

It's simply unfair to have wrinkles under my eyes and acne at the same time. Not much I can do to get the wrinkles to leave, but I'm doing my darndest to banish blemishes!

The patches are a more recent discovery and I use them for the more, erm, three-dimensional issues. They're honestly pretty gross if you think about it too much. They're designed to suck out the ickiness over several hours. I usually put them on as I'm getting ready for bed and peel them off in the morning, at which point the bump is much more flat and the patch has... thickened a bit. They may be sheer enough that you could wear them during the day if you wanted to, depending on what brand you get. (If they don't match your skin well enough, you can also put makeup on top of them without causing any issues!) As an added bonus, they prevent you from poking or contaminating your troubled skin.

I found this specific pack of patches at Walmart. They're magical, I tell you!

Along with things to help me make acne go away, I'm really thankful to have products that cover it while it's inconsiderately intruding on my skin. Concealer and foundation make me so much less self-conscious about my face! They also help out a lot with the darkness that I've had under my eyes for as long as I can remember.

That outfit and Barney shampoo are so very '90s. I found an eBay listing for that shampoo bottle and it says it's from 1994! I'm also from 1994, though, so I'm guessing this picture is from around 1997. I've had dark, sunken tear troughs for at least twenty years.

Makeup Revolution concealer in C1 and Colourpop concealer in Fair 02.

Fun things:

I never realized how much I love scented candles until earlier this year. I used to think they were kind of dumb, actually. They seemed expensive and I didn't like that the smell of the flame would mix with the smell of the wax. Soon after we bought our house, we went to the area in our Walmart where they have candles and I had way too much fun smelling them all. Since we use a warmer instead of actually lighting the candles, there's no fire smell!

Obviously, having a smartphone would've blown my mind back in the day. When I think about my first phone, my little red Samsung A737, I have to laugh. I remember being jealous of a friend's Juke phone because it seemed so fancy. And hoo boy, the famous Razr was super cool because you could take pictures of yourself without having to awkwardly hold your phone backwards or stand by a mirror! My new Galaxy S9 can shoot slo-mo video, scan my irises to unlock itself, broadcast its screen to our TV, and let me play Final Fantasy IX anywhere. How crazy is that?

Pros of A737: physical keyboard, easy to fit in a pocket, fun to slide
Pros of S9: has a headphone jack, has approximately a billion other nifty features

Another thing that came to mind while pondering this subject was the glorious software that is Steam. Steam, for those who don't know, is a platform for buying and playing computer games. I was super late to the game (ha) and didn't discover it until about four years ago. There are sales all the time and Steam will notify you when things on your wishlist are discounted. Basically, if you want to play games on a computer, this is something you need in your life.

I could go on and on about all the types of technology that would've made life better for young Lizzie (AKA Miriam), but I'll stop after just one more: Personal Progress online. The program was updated in early 2009, when I was a Mia Maid, and I think I'd already lost a Personal Progress book at that point. The ability to keep track of what you'd done online was added in late 2010. I didn't finish Personal Progress until 2012, but I had grown responsible enough to quit losing my book by the time I could've started checking things off online, so I don't think I ever bothered to use the online tracking. As a YW leader, though, I can appreciate that it's super helpful for the girls that need a little help with their organization.

This post would be incomplete if I didn't mention Oreo O's and Trix with shapes. Trix stopped having shapes in 2006 and Oreo O's became unavailable outside of South Korea in 2007. Oreo O's finally came back to life in 2017 and my beloved Trix have recently stopped being boring spheres.

"Real" Oreo O's didn't come back until there was already a fake version available. I think I might be partially responsible for the "high sales" that convinced Nabisco and Post to bring the real stuff back.

Of course, legitimate Oreo O's don't come in enormous bags, so I still buy the fake version.

The world may be getting progressively scarier as time goes on, but there are still a lot of things that are continuing to improve! It's important to look for things to be happy about, and writing this was a fun way of doing that. If you can think of other things I should've included, let me know!

Love,
Lizzie

Makeup YouTubers I Watch (And Ones I Avoid)

Hi, friends!

By popular demand (from zero people), I'm back with another makeup topic! Today, I want to talk about my favorite "beauty gurus" and the ones I dislike for various reasons. Hopefully my thoughts about these channels will help you decide whether or not to add them to your subscriptions if you're the kind of person who has an interest in makeup videos.

The Favorites:

JAMBeauty89 / Jessica Braun

Jessica's videos are mostly reviews, declutters, and trying new things. She doesn't resort to clickbait, she always makes it clear when things are sponsored, and she uses a lot of drugstore products. She also isn't afraid of speaking honestly about things she doesn't like, even if her honesty gets her kicked off of the PR lists of certain brands. Even better, she posted a video recently talking all about sponsorships and how that stuff works. She said she's planning on doing more videos about the things happening behind the scenes, and I really love that openness.
She adores all things Disney and remains humble and normal despite getting fancy packages of free makeup sent to her regularly. She used to be a teacher (before having a baby), so she's able to articulate her thoughts nicely.
There are some things about her channel that I'm not a fan of. Her makeup looks are usually basically identical (shimmery brownish eyeshadow, simple liner, medium pink lipstick). Since having her baby, she now has intermittent videos about baby-related stuff and has started posting more vlog-type videos, despite the fact that her husband's channel is devoted entirely to vlogs. It's her channel and she can do what she wants with it, but personally, I'm here for the makeup and really don't care about anything to do with babies or "day in the life" videos. If I wanted to see that, I'd go watch her husband's vlog channel.

RachhLoves

Rachel is the most bubbly and energetic of all the makeup channels I follow. She can be a little overwhelming at first, but she grew on me quickly and now I love her enthusiasm. Also, she never squeals or yells, which I really appreciate.

She does a lot of reviews and try-ons, with declutters and challenges thrown in sometimes. She does have videos of trying recipes, doing Pinterest hacks, cleaning her house, and talking about mom stuff, but she has a second channel for those things! Her main channel is 99% makeup, which I think is really considerate of her. She uses makeup from all price ranges and doesn't seem to have any sort of bias one way or the other.

One of my favorite non-beauty things about her is that she doesn't show her two children in her pictures or videos because she wants them to have privacy. They aren't old enough to fully understand what it means to be in a video viewed by a hundred thousand people. She had her daughter pick out her makeup when the "My _____ chooses my makeup!" challenge was big, but it happened before the video started and Rachel simply shared little Julia's thoughts and reasoning behind the products she chose. That kept in the adorable factor without exposing Julia to the weirdness lurking on the internet.

Her eyeshadow is usually at least somewhat colorful and she isn't afraid of unconventional lipstick colors. She also doesn't always use eyeliner or false lashes, which is a breath of fresh air in a beauty community so obsessed with enormous falsies and dramatic eyeliner wings. She actually only started using false lashes recently(ish) when she found a certain pair that I don't remember the name of. I think they were partial lashes instead of being designed to go across your whole eye, which made them easier for her to use, and that helped her start getting more into them. This was also at least a few months ago, so I could be remembering things incorrectly.

Zabrena

The queen of purple eyeshadow! I love Zabrena for a lot of reasons. She posts frequently about drugstore makeup; she's done Save Money September and Drugstore December in the past as well as her regular Frugal Fridays series. She also has some super expensive stuff, but that doesn't stop her from loving the really affordable things.

Something she's known for is her Historically Accurate series. She goes into detail about products, techniques, and trends from various times in history and puts a lot of effort into her research.

She is rarely seen without false lashes (and even has her own lash brand!), but she also has great technique with her eyeshadow. It seems like some beauty gurus use falsies to cover up their less-than-great eyeshadow sometimes. Not so with Zabrena! She posted a video a few weeks ago of a real-time application of eyeshadow so that her viewers could see the exact steps happening since almost all tutorials cut out chunks of the process to save time.

She loves using purples and turquoise, which look awesome with her ginger hair. She tends to stick with peachy lip colors and occasionally ventures into darker options.

Like Rachel, Zabrena keeps her two children out of the spotlight. She did a handful of pregnancy vlogs to keep interested viewers updated but didn't let it detract too much from her normal content. I think I've only seen maybe three pictures of her son and two of her new daughter. It's wonderful to see people respecting the privacy of their young ones, especially in the age of "Kaiyson is having the hardest time with potty training, let me tell you about it in detail!! Here are twenty identical pictures of McKartni in the bath!!"

Jen Luvs Reviews

Jen has a daily series of one-minute news updates sharing product releases, sales, controversies, and other current events in the makeup world. She also posts reviews (obviously) and helpful things like what you can learn from a swatch and proof that e.l.f. primers are not lying about how much they contain. She knows a lot about ingredients and the science behind makeup, like the difference between an eyeshadow and a pressed pigment. I think she also does weekly live streams where she chats with viewers as she puts on makeup, but I haven't watched any of those.

From what I've seen, she's level-headed and speaks her mind clearly. I only found her a few months ago and don't watch very many of her videos, but I trust her opinions. She seems to know what she's talking about.

Also, her voice sounds a lot like Elastigirl, which is neat.

So Far, So Good:

Angelica Nyqvist

I just found her channel a few days ago and I already want to be friends with her. She loves playing with color, has a fantastic accent, and isn't afraid to be sassy. Still haven't figured out how to say her last name, though.

Drugstore Maven

She hasn't posted anything in a long time, unfortunately. Her videos are focused on — you guessed it — drugstore products. I found her channel right before her hiatus (?) began and haven't gone back to watch her older videos yet. She seems like a really sweet, sensible lady.

Kayla Hagey

The first video of hers that I ever found was her cat choosing which products she'd use. That alone was enough to get me interested in her channel. She uses a lot of colorful eyeshadow palettes and does tutorials for costumes when Halloween is approaching. She's another channel I found not too long ago and she doesn't upload super frequently, but I've enjoyed the content I've seen so far.

Ehhh... :

Wayne Goss

He's very skilled and mostly focuses on technique videos. Also, I love his accent. I've mostly put him in this category because his videos tend to be very clickbaity. He also pretty much only uses expensive stuff, so I don't really pay attention to his recommendations for specific products. I'm sure that $32 mascara he loves is very nice, but I'll be sticking to mascaras that cost $10 or less, thanks.

EmilyNoel83

She talks about drugstore products pretty frequently and gets semi-creative with her eyeshadow looks. I wish she'd upload her vlogs to a second channel, because of her last ten videos (as of writing this), three have been vlogs. Not to be rude, but I really don't care about her going to see Peppa Pig live with her kids or doing meal prepping.

A big reason she got put in this category is that she was involved in a small bit of drama a little while ago. She collaborated with Makeup Revolution to release two palettes. Tati (see below) wasn't a fan of one of the palettes and said negative things about it in a video. There was some sort of quality control issue with that palette and it's possible that Tati just got one from a bad batch, but Emily's fans basically attacked Tati for her review. Emily didn't do much to get her fans to behave and I think she made a comment on some other review of her palettes that made some people upset. I'm not sure of all the details, but I don't particularly like how she handled her fans using personal attacks on someone simply because she had a bad experience with the palette.

Tati

She gives first impressions of a lot of new products but doesn't do very many true reviews. She uses clickbait pretty frequently, seems to be biased against drugstore products because of their price at times, and has been involved in a few controversies over the years. When comments get too critical, she's been known to remove comments, block commenters, and even turn comments off on certain videos. She's pretty dramatic overall, honestly. On the bright side, she's occasionally entertaining and helpful.

She launched her own brand of hair, skin, and nail vitamins a while ago and loves to plug it frequently. That wouldn't be an issue except that she's leading her subscribers to believe that her absurdly expensive biotin is what's making her look the way she looks, when in reality, she's had work done on her face, has hair extensions, and most likely uses filters on her videos to make things look better than they are.

One of the biggest issues I have with her is that she's really hard to relate to. The four women I mentioned in my favorites category all live somewhat normal lives in Indiana, Canada, Georgia, and Maryland. Tati, on the other hand, lives in Los Angeles and has very expensive tastes. For example, she bought a clear lip gloss from Louboutin that was $85 and simply gave it to her sister when she decided she didn't like it. If I ever lost my mind and bought a plain lip gloss that costs more than a new AAA video game, I doubt I'd be that casual about it.

NikkieTutorials

She's got a ton of skill, but her overall look is a bit too much for my tastes. Intensely opaque foundation and blinding highlight just don't look good in real life. She was one of the first makeup people I ever found. I unsubscribed pretty soon afterwards, though. Lots of clickbait and not very many videos I was actually interested in.

It's A No From Me, Dawg:

In general, most of these people are in this category because of personality issues and drama. Also, it's hard to relate to someone who wears several thousand dollars' worth of Cartier jewelry on a single appendage, has a closet full of Louboutin shoes, and/or owns so many designer purses that their collection looks like what you'd see if you walked into a Neiman Marcus store. I won't be linking their channels like I did for the members of the previous categories.

Jeffree Star

If I had to name the two most controversial people in the makeup world, it would be Jeffree and Kat Von D. Whether or not he's still racist, I'm not sure, but I've never liked him very much. He's crude and ridiculously extravagant. He always seems to be part of some sort of drama and it's dizzying to try to keep up with who he is or isn't friends with. I've heard good things about his line of makeup products, but I wouldn't feel comfortable buying them even if they were less expensive.

Laura Lee

Her voice is one of the most obnoxious sounds I've ever forced upon my ears. Her intro song drives me nuts. Also, it's con-SEAL-er, not con-SILL-er. 

Petty things aside, she's whiny, dramatic, and self-centered. When she was called out for racist things she tweeted in the past, she made the most ridiculous "apology" video that I know of, which has since been deleted (and parodied and memed). I'm not sure which was less authentic, her tears or her apology.

MannyMUA

Manny is another beautuber who gets into drama somewhat often. He used to be good friends with Jeffree and Laura and then I guess something happened and I think they all hate each other now. Whatever.

He's skilled and does a lot of pretty looks, but I'd rather watch someone with a personality that I like.

James Charles

Nope. The way he talks is painful to listen to. His makeup style is just... too much. His nose contour and highlight and fake freckles are the exact kinds of things I hate about stereotypical Instagram makeup. His personality is also really grating to me. I know he's young and everything, but he comes across as an obnoxious brat. Sister spoiled!!

Jaclyn Hill

I haven't actually watched any of her videos because I have no desire to. Maybe I'm wrong about her, but from what I've heard, she basically only posts these days when she wants to sell you something from Morphe. Her lifestyle and drama aren't things I have any interest in. She seems really out-of-touch with reality. I also automatically distrust anyone who works with or actively promotes Morphe because I don't think I've ever heard anyone praise Morphe without also reminding viewers to use their code for a discount.

Oh, and she has an orange eyeshadow in one of her newest Morphe palettes named "Agent." I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't consider Agent Orange to be a positive thing.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about various YouTube makeup people. If there are ~influencers~ (ugh) you think I'd like based on this, let me know!

Love,

Lizzie

My Favorite Obscure Talent

Hi, friends!

Everyone has at least one weird talent that isn't particularly helpful and isn't relevant very often. Maybe you're pretty speedy on a unicycle or you play the didgeridoo. With those, you can at least enter a talent show if you feel like it. Other skills are harder to show off unless you're really looking for a way to do it, like ear wiggling. (What I was attempting to do when I first discovered I can move my ears, I have no idea.)

An ability I seem to have naturally inherited is the rewriting of song lyrics so that they fit into specific situations. This is something my dad is excellent at. I didn't realize it was something I was capable of until I was a teenager and going to Young Women camp.
At camp, each age group would have to say something at roll call twice a day, which usually resulted in silly lyrics replacing real ones. My dad was semi-famous among the campers for his work, which included such classic hits as The Smell Of Biffies, I Ate A Rock, and Leavin' In A Minivan. When I went to camp with my stake last summer, I brought my favorite of his songs with me so that I could teach it to the girls. That song, of course, was his reimagined version of Edelweiss:

Skeeter bites, skeeter bites

Every morning you greet me

Small and red on my head

They keep coming to eat me

Can't make them go, they just itch and grow

Itch and grow forever

Skeeter bites, skeeter bites

Curse you skeeters forever!

As expected, people loved it. It's difficult to find reasons outside of camp to rewrite songs, but I do it whenever I can. Even though most of the songs I fiddle with never actually get sung, it's still a lot of fun to write them.

Earlier this year, my mom was helping to plan a Relief Society activity that was designed to help the Young Women feel more comfortable transitioning into RS as they got older. She had the idea of using a rewritten song as part of the activity. I may have gone slightly overboard and prepared five Disney songs for the occasion. Under the Sea, Mother Knows Best, Something There, Part Of Your World, and I Won't Say I'm In Love have all been Culwelled into songs about joining Relief Society.

When I find a reason to rewrite a song, I see it as a sort of puzzle. I try to choose a well known song that preferably has existing lyrics that can be salvaged, if that makes sense. I copy and paste the actual lyrics into Word and start replacing words and lines while trying to keep it rhyming like the original. I tinker with phrasing so that the syllables match and words aren't emphasized weirdly. The real song gets played several times throughout the writing process and at least a few more times once I think I'm done.

Basically, I'm a way less cool version of Weird Al. His songs (and music videos!) are legendary. Mine are simply amusing.

If you ever find yourself wanting a rewritten song for some occasion, you know who to contact! :)

Love,
Lizzie

My Brain is a Fearful Jerk

Hi, friends!

I have a secret to share: I'm a really anxious person.
Okay, yeah, you could probably already tell. What gave it away?

Anxiety is weird. Because I haven't ever gone to a medical professional to get formally diagnosed, I sometimes wonder if I'm just a neurotic, nervous person and calling it anxiety is an overreaction. I can get away with thinking that for a little while at a time, but then something comes up and reminds me that no, my brain does not behave normally when it comes to this kind of thing. Anxiety also runs in my family.

There are a lot of different flavors of anxiety. Phobias, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder... all kinds of things that can really mess you up. The internet likes to use these kinds of terms to exaggerate their feelings, like someone claiming that their OCD is killing them when they see a picture of several pencils neatly lined up with one askew. (No, that's just a reasonable thing to be bothered by.) Somehow, claiming to have depression and/or anxiety became a thing people would do in order to seem cutesy and on-trend.

Some might argue that because I haven't been officially told by a doctor that I have anxiety, I'm doing that same kind of thing. My counterargument: If you don't believe me, just ask Jared. He isn't a doctor, but he can definitely verify that my brain is frequently fighting against me.

Panic attacks are loads of fun. It's so great to not be able to control my breathing. I love full-on sobbing while continuing to breathe very inefficiently. It's such a lovely feeling to realize an attack is coming and then have to quickly try to isolate myself without making people nearby worry. I love handing my reins to the part of my brain in charge of worrying and getting a chance to focus solely on things that freak me out for a few minutes.
That was heavy sarcasm, in case it wasn't clear. I'm really glad panic attacks are rare for me.

I don't drive. While I do have my license, I haven't been behind the wheel since shortly after I passed the test when I was nearly 21. Being in control of a car freaks me out way more than it should. I'm constantly worried that I'm missing something in the rear-view mirror, a side mirror, or somewhere else. I'm worried about driving too slowly and being in the way of someone behind me. I'm petrified of changing lanes, turning left, not knowing where to go, or having anything unusual happen. Poor Jared has to do all the driving wherever we go. ("Poor Jared has to deal with ____" is basically the theme of this post. My dear husband is insanely patient.)

Before leaving the house, I compulsively check to make sure I have the things I need, even if I know for a fact that I just put my lesson plan in my church binder last night or put my keys in my purse five minutes ago. My brain needs to make sure that my lesson didn't somehow teleport itself out of the binder or that I didn't hallucinate putting my keys in my purse. Rationally, I know it's stupid to double and triple check my binder when I definitely have everything I need, yet I have to do it anyway just to be sure.

When my nail polish gets chipped or if there's an uneven, snaggy bit on a nail, it's really hard to leave it alone. I used to pick off the rest of my nail polish during school if part came off during a class and then redo them when I got home. Now that I know how bad it is for my nails, I've stopped doing that, but it still bothers me a lot when I notice a chip. My nails don't usually become uneven or scratchy anymore either, but when they do, I end up sacrificing the safety of another nail to try to file down the problem. If I'm lucky, I can fix it well enough that it won't drive me bonkers until I can use an actual file at home.

There are a lot of roaches in this town. It's just something that happens here, no matter how clean you are. Something I discovered when we moved here is that I cannot stand roaches. Dead, alive, just a picture on a screen, it doesn't matter. I can't handle looking at them. Something about roaches in particular just disables all rational thought in my head and makes me shiver until I stop thinking about them. My sweet husband has to deal with any and all roach-related things in our house, including sweeping a disturbing amount of dead ones out of our garage occasionally. He's started referring to them as blobs of fluff on the ground and not telling me how many he finds in there so that I feel better. He's an angel, I tell you.

Being late to things is mortifying. If I'm on time, I'm late. I need to be early. I start out by thinking, "Okay, it takes maybe ten minutes to get there, so I should leave at least twenty minutes before it starts, which means I need to wake up two hours before that...well, let's make it three hours just in case. That sounds reasonable!"
This is why I start getting ready for 1 o'clock church at 10 AM.

When I pack for a trip or a visit to Disneyland, I always end up bringing things that don't even leave the suitcase/bag. In my Disneyland bag, for example, I have several napkins, some Ziploc baggies, a plastic grocery bag, two granola bars, some fruit snacks, Ibuprofen, Dramamine, hair ties, a hair clip, nail clippers, moisturizer, Chapstick, Bandaids, hand sanitizer, and a portable phone charger. There's also a water bottle, my wallet, and space for my ears when they're in danger of flying off during a ride, but those are things that everyone should have with them. I know the likelihood of needing a grocery bag to throw up in isn't very high. I've been to Disneyland three times in the past year and never came close to vomiting, but my brain won't let me ignore all the possible scenarios in which that bag could be useful.

As a child, I was overly aware of lines and patterns on floors and sidewalks. If one foot stepped on a sidewalk crack or a line between two pieces of tile, the other foot had to step on one, too. I'd sometimes walk a little weirdly if it meant both feet would stay "even" in regards to how many times they'd landed in a square or on a line. A lot of kids like to hop from line to line when in a crosswalk, but I was focusing on making sure both feet took the same number of steps within the stripes of white. Thankfully, this isn't something I still do. Little kids can walk weirdly and nobody really thinks twice about it, but I probably couldn't get away with walking around like Adrian Monk during the part of the theme song when he's struggling along on a cobbled walkway.

The Twilight books came out when I was in their prime target audience. As a high schooler, I remember going to see Eclipse in a theater and being concerned about the fight scenes making me feel queasy. (This was, of course, ridiculous. The creatures fighting were vampires and wolf dudes. There's really not a whole lot of blood going on.) Worrying about feeling sick and having to throw up made me even more anxious, which made my stomach feel worse, which made me even more stressed out about potentially throwing up. Before I even got into the room to sit down, I sprinted into the lobby bathroom and threw up. That seemed to calm everything down and I watched the movie without any issues. Great job, brain.
Thank goodness for IMDB's content guide. I check it before going to see any movie in a theater now just to be safe. If I'm prepared for the blood and know what to expect, it's generally a lot easier to handle.

Despite being freaked out by fights and injuries, I used to have a really bad skin-picking compulsion. (My own blood apparently doesn't bother me as much as fake blood used on actors.) I couldn't leave ingrown hairs, pimples, or scabs alone because they made my skin bumpy and I wanted everything to feel smooth. There are still scars visible on my legs and arms from repeated scratching and "fixing" that happened years ago. This is another thing that I've gotten a lot better about. It still bugs me when there's a bump of any sort, but my desire to avoid scars has mostly overtaken my need to temporarily smooth out whatever skin problem is bothering me.

The shirts in my closet and socks in my dresser are kept in the order of the rainbow. Our non-Marvel movies are alphabetized. Marvel movies are kept in chronological order. The set of My Little Pony lip glosses I have are in order of the ponies' solos in the theme song. I've organized Jared's collection of fun, colorful dice alphabetically by name. My Pinterest boards are sorted alphabetically according to what the board is about, which is not the same as alphabetically by board title. Some of my favorite puzzles in the Nancy Drew games are the ones where you're required to sort things. I need organization. I can't seem to casually put a group of things together without sorting them somehow.

Jared and I have been rewatching the TV show Monk recently, since we realized there are a lot of episodes he hasn't seen or has only seen a few minutes of. Monk, for those who aren't familiar with the show, is a former police detective who has extreme OCD and a lot of fears. Monk's issues are much more severe than mine and I'm not nearly as dysfunctional as he is, but I do still empathize with him a lot. He and I both realize that our compulsive behaviors and fears are unnecessary, and yet we're unable to just force ourselves to act normally. We do things that others find ridiculous because we have to. Sometimes during an episode, Jared will look over at me with a "Does that seem familiar?" face. He also does that with Twilight Sparkle and Leslie Knope. If you're a Friends fan, think Monica minus the extreme competitiveness.

One of Jared's favorite moments from the show and one that he reminds me of frequently.

If we kept emergency s'more supplies in our car, they would definitely liquefy in the heat. I do keep emergency fruit snacks in several places, though.

Me explaining my method of doing something

Jared pointing out that my method is unnecessarily complicated and/or organized

I'm not really sure what the purpose of this post is. It's kind of a cross between "this is what it's like to have anxiety" and "here's a list of some of my weird problems." Hopefully it was at least somewhat interesting, even if it was a bit depressing.

I promise I'm still a happy person. These issues don't usually mess up my life too badly and I've (mostly) learned how to deal with it when they do. It would be nice to be able to drive and get a pet cat and not overthink everything, but I'm doing fine anyway. Sometimes anxiety wins. Most days, though, I'm still in charge of my life and anxiety is just a permanently wet sock that's always there to be obnoxious without totally ruining anything. You're not the boss of me, wet sock!

Love,
Lizzie

Things To Love About Fall

Hi, friends!

Since I haven't experienced actual seasons in the past two years, I sometimes like to pretend that the weather outside is less frightful than it is. If I keep all the blinds closed and wear seasonal clothing (inside my air-conditioned house), it sort of works.

Living here has made me think a lot about all the things I'm now missing out on. I never thought to be grateful that I could wear a jacket in October until I moved somewhere that made me feel like I was burning when I wore a long-sleeved shirt a few days before Halloween. The post I made listing things I miss about Washington is my version of Frodo and Sam talking about the taste of strawberries when they were climbing Mount Doom. (It also feels like an orcless Mount Doom here for a good portion of the year.)

I might hate this town, but at least it's making it really easy to write about how awesome places other than here are!

If you live somewhere that has a temperature range beyond 60 to 115 degrees, here are some wonderful things to smile about during autumn:

- Maple leaves covering the ground
- Seeing your breath outside for the first time since winter ended
- Cloudy days that turn into rainy days
- The smell of the air being blown in your face by your car's heater
- Putting an extra layer on your bed to keep you warm at night
- Mornings that are foggy like a spooky London scene
- Using your back porch as extra fridge space when you need to keep things chilled for Thanksgiving dinner
- The perfect happiness of hearing stormy weather outside while you're reading a book next to a heating vent and/or under a blanket
- Pumpkin patches and pumpkin-flavored everything
- Seeing footprints in the grass where the cold dew has been disturbed
- Dressing in a lot of dark colors is more socially acceptable (and helps keep you warm when you're outside)
- Seasonal scented candles that make your house smell like apples and cinnamon
- Carving pumpkins
- Watching the leaves change colors and drop from trees
- Egg nog and candy corn show up in stores, if you're a fan of those
- Getting to wear hoodies, sweaters, jackets, and things other than shorts and t-shirts

Next time you experience any of those things, try to enjoy them a little extra for my sake. Appreciate your seasons; there are season-starved people in other parts of the world who only get scalding sun and sandblaster wind for dinner weather.

Love,
Lizzie

Alternatives To MLM Products

Hi, friends!

By now, I'm guessing you're all very much aware of how much I hate multi-level marketing companies. It's something I'm very passionate about and I've made several very lengthy posts about it on Facebook. I'm not going to get into all the reasons why pyramid schemes are awful and predatory in this post, though. Today, I'm focusing on things you can buy if you're in the market for the stuff they sell but don't want to support something so despicable. (As always, no offense is meant to the non-malicious sellers of pyramid schemes; I don't hate you, just the company that's trying to drain your bank account and ruin your friendships.)

LuLaRoe - dresses and leggings
I know finding modest dresses can be a huge struggle, but there is no need to resort to potato sacks with roller rink carpet patterns. If you unironically like the #patternmixingqueen look, you still have better options.

Needs more layers and at least one #LuLahack if I ever want to use it as a "LLR addict" costume. It's a very good outfit for being comfy-spooky around the house, though!

Oh, boy! I've always wanted a paper-thin skirt with intestines all over it! Thanks, LuLaRoe!

For church dresses, I love DownEast Basics. Their sizing is consistent (and realistic!), almost everything is modest, and the styles are generally pretty nice. I won't like everything in the store (or on the website, now that I'm nowhere near a store), but there's always at least a few things I'm interested in. Price-wise, it's not great and not awful. I've bought gently used DownEast clothes from ThredUp in the past to save money.
Old Navy is another place I've had decent luck when it comes to modest church clothes. Their prices are generally a notch or two lower than you'll find at DownEast. Again, their sizes make sense and their styles are cute and flattering.

If an actual XXS person wore this, they'd be draped in a circus tent.

If you just want a soft, comfy dress with a weird pattern, look in the pajama section of Walmart. Seriously, I found a cute Halloween nightgown (pictured above) that I think is pretty comparable to LuLaRoe dresses. The major differences here are that the pattern isn't haphazard, the fabric isn't fragile, I could've easily bought a matching one for someone else, the size small I bought actually fits like a size small, Walmart won't harass me about buying more nightgowns, and it was about $9.

Someone please get those stripes under control. They're all over the place!

For leggings, I'm going to recommend Walmart again. I don't really wear leggings because they aren't pants I don't have much of a reason to, but I do have some that I got for about $4 at Walmart that are very nice. I have plain black ones in case I ever move somewhere that occasionally gets cold as well as the ones with metallic orange witches and bats all over them that I'm wearing in the first picture of the post. Once again, a cute pattern that isn't obnoxious or skewed weirdly. (I also found some silver holographic leggings in the Halloween costume area. Still have no idea when I'd ever wear them, but they're very fun.)

If you've ever wanted to have an optical illusion on your legs, LuLaRoe can do that for you.

There are no words.

LipSense - long-lasting liquid lipstick
First of all, none of my alternative recommendations are going to burn your lips or smell like vodka, so they aren't going to be exactly the same as LipSense. You're welcome. (Also, if a consultant tries to tell you that it's "supposed" to feel like your lips are melting or that it's only doing that because of all the ~wax buildup~ from inferior products, they're definitely lying to you. The only lip product that's supposed to feel uncomfortable is "plumping" lip glosses that basically irritate your lips into being slightly bigger.)
So, if you want something that won't smudge around or rub off, here's what I suggest:
- L'oreal Infallible Pro-Matte Liquid Lipstick: The regular version smells like vanilla frosting and their chocolate-themed line smells like hot cocoa.
- Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink: This smells pretty similar to the non-chocolate L'oreal ones, but closer to yellow cake than frosting.
- Maybelline SuperStay 24: Similar to the Matte Ink, but it has a balm on one end of the tube to help your lips feel and look a bit less dry. The smell is kind of like raspberry lemonade.
- Wet N Wild Liquid Catsuit: I've heard the lighter colors can be a bit patchy. The ones I have are all red, berry, or dark — who saw that coming? — and I've never had any issues with them. There's no discernable smell.
To get these things off your lips at the end of the day, you might want more than a normal makeup wipe. I like the Kiss It Goodbye remover from e.l.f. for getting rid of the color without having to scrub too much.

Younique / Avon / Mary Kay / SeneGence - makeup
Ask me about a makeup product and I can probably recommend something inexpensive you can find in Ulta or other places where drugstore makeup is sold. The only exceptions are eyeliner (since I never use it) and foundation/concealer (since my options are rather limited).
Maybelline Fit Me foundation has a huge shade range and options for dry or oily skin. Milani's eyeshadow primer keeps color from creasing during the day. Wet N Wild makes great eyeshadow quads and palettes. ColourPop's cream shadows are fun and easy to use. CoverGirl has some awesome mascaras. The e.l.f. blushes are very nice. There's a single shadow by Essence that makes a fantastic highlighter.
Seriously, I can find a replacement for any MLM makeup product you may have enjoyed in the past.


Rodan + Fields - skincare
I don't know a lot about skincare, honestly, but it's really easy to find recommendations for whatever your needs may be online. (Watch out for fake reviews, though!) The moisturizer I've been enjoying lately is by CeraVe, since a lot of people in various internet discussions I've found have recommended that brand. If all else fails, talk to a dermatologist, an esthetician, or a friend who's really into skincare.

doTERRA / Young Living - essential oils
Once again, we return to Walmart, but this time we're going to the scented candle area. Essential oils don't heal anything, they just provide a smell and sometimes chemical burns. My preferred method of making my house smell awesome — aside from baking something — is to put a candle on our candle warmer.

It's beginning to smell a lot like autumn...

Want to calm down? Get out a lavender candle and listen to Enya. That'll work a lot better than rubbing concentrated lavender oil on your left knee or whatever they tell you to do.
Also, never ingest essential oils. The same goes for candles. Stick to eating and drinking normal things with supplements and actual medicine as needed.

Scentsy - scented wax
See above. I'd much rather get inexpensive wax smells from Walmart, thanks.

Herbalife / Plexus / BeachBody / ItWorks! /  JuicePlus - weight loss and health
Keep your calorie consumption at an appropriate level and try to make good food choices. If you have a vitamin deficiency and your diet isn't getting you enough, take a legitimate supplement. There are no magic shakes or fat-blocking pills, nor will a wrap have any real benefits. My only product recommendation here is the free MyFitnessPal app for tracking your food intake. I know it's not easy to stick to a controlled diet and do regular exercise, but that's what leads to results.



There are definitely companies and products I'm missing here, but these are the main ones I've seen talked about among people I know.

Saying this makes me sound like a heartless jerk, but please don't buy anything from multi-level marketing companies. No matter how many times your friends claim they own their "small business" that totally isn't a pyramid scheme, they can't change the truth.
The SEC has an official alert advising people to steer clear of pyramid schemes. ("But Lizzie, pyramid schemes don't have products to sell and they're illegal!!" Recruitment is heavily pushed in MLMs because it's extremely difficult to make a decent profit by just selling the products. The products are only there to make things seem legitimate.) There's also a report on the FTC's website stating that MLMs are unfair and deceptive and that 99% of MLM recruits lose money. That report also says, "As a business model, MLM is likely the most successful con game of all time." Can't get much more clear than that.
The best way to actually support someone who's been recruited into an MLM company is to help them get out, not give them false hope by buying their products. I'm absolutely in favor of supporting local businesses and the real small businesses of people you know. When it comes to MLM companies, though, stay as far away as possible.

Love,
Lizzie

"Unwearable" Makeup

Hi, friends!

Since makeup is a hobby of mine, I tend to watch YouTube videos about it fairly frequently. The channels I subscribe to are almost all on the small-ish side (between fifty thousand and one million subscribers) and don't really stick to the Instaglam look that a lot of the bigger "beautubers" tend to go for. One of the reasons I was drawn to these channels in particular is their overall attitude towards unusual colors.

Icy blue highlight and lip gloss that matches, cobalt mascara to tint my eyelashes, lipstick the color of turtles and trees, these are a few of my favorite things...

Makeup is a pretty individualized thing. Depending on your coloring, facial structure, fashion choices, and general preferences, what looks good to/on you might look super unappealing to/on someone else. The Instaglam look I mentioned earlier is not at all my cup of tea; I don't like overly done eyebrows, winged eyeliner, huge false lashes, matte warm brown eyeshadow, overdrawn and peachy nude lips, or bright stripes of highlighter. Those aren't the kinds of things that I enjoy, so I simply don't do them.

It ruffles my feathers when someone describes a shade of something as "unwearable." I fully understand that some lipstick/eyeshadow/highlighter colors would be seen as inappropriate in certain work environments and are therefore not practical for everyday use in a lot of cases. There's probably a big percentage of people who have no desire to wear bold colors, and that's also totally understandable. One of my favorite people to watch on YouTube is a teacher who almost always does very neutral looks. However, when she's reviewing bright products or decluttering them from her collection, she's polite about it. She says that those colors are things she'd personally never reach for and that's that.

Some YouTubers can't seem to show their audience an unusual color without mentioning how dreadfully unwearable it is. Brands like to send every shade of their new launches to influencers sometimes, and a lot of those influencers will then share swatches so that people can see what they look like outside the packaging. I've seen several videos where the person has a great time showing off the pink, red, and brown lipsticks, then scoffs at the blue or green ones because of how ridiculous they are. This mostly happens with lip colors, but I've seen it with other products, too. If it's glittery or too far away from a flesh tone, it gets dismissed immediately as something that no sane person would ever want to wear.

My philosophy when it comes to makeup (and style in general) is that if I like something, I'll wear it. Trends don't really matter to me, aside from making it easier or harder to find certain things. When gladiator sandals were all the rage, I stuck with my flip flops because I didn't see the appeal of weird, strappy things that looked like knee-high socks crossed with a fishing net. On the other hand, there was a certain style of ballet flats that it seemed like every girl wore to church for a while around 2009ish. They were super cute, so I ended up buying some next time I went shoe shopping. They definitely aren't "trendy" anymore, but I still have mine and still think they're cute, which means they still get worn.

Anyone else remember when these shoes were everywhere?

At some point in my journey into the world of makeup, I decided that I like "weird" colors. My stage makeup class allowed me to do all sorts of funky things, like make my skin blue for an ice fairy look or try to turn my face into a galaxy. I'd always wait to wash my face until after I walked back to my apartment so that I could show my roommates. I would, understandably, get some weird looks on the way home. (There were a few exceptions, though; I removed my fake beard before heading home in order to avoid making a hairy mess in the apartment.)
I guess after doing stuff like that, an unconventional color choice didn't seem like a very big deal.

There's a post I made on Facebook a while ago talking about "pulling off" bold colors. What I said back then is relevant to this post, so I'll kind of repeat myself here. The trick to wearing whatever color you want is honestly to just put it on and let yourself get used to seeing it on your face. Keep the other colors you use fairly neutral so the new color isn't as overwhelming. Unless the color is unflattering, you probably only think you "can't" wear it because it's something you aren't accustomed to seeing. If you aren't used to seeing yourself with red lipstick, even that might seem "unwearable" at first, despite that being one of the most standard lipstick colors out there. Once you've adjusted to seeing it on yourself, you'll be able to wear that color outside the house without feeling as self-conscious.

As far as makeup goes, there aren't any actual rules. There are moral guidelines — don't try to look like a different ethnicity — and general suggestions — it's good to blend your eyeshadow and bad to share mascara — but it's really just whatever you want to do with your face. As long as your choices are appropriate for your environment, you're fine.

I'm not trying to convince all of my friends who stick to neutral makeup to go out and buy a rainbow eyeshadow palette or a metallic blue-green lip gloss. I simply hope that more people will have an open mind about the spunkier colors. :)

Love,
Lizzie