Hi, friends!
The fourteenth season of Criminal Minds will be starting soon, so this seems like a good time to talk about the show. If you've clicked on this, I assume you've at least seen some episodes. If you haven't and are still reading this for some reason, it's about a team of FBI agents who specialize in tracking down serial killers based on a profile they create. They use information like who the victims are, what method was used to kill them, where and how the body was left, and any patterns or unique things they notice.
If you haven't seen all the episodes and still plan to do so, beware of the spoilers ahead!
Over the thirteen seasons that have aired so far, all of the agents on the team have suffered in at least some way. A vicious killer targeted Agent Hotchner specifically, stabbed him a bunch of times in non-lethal places, and murdered his ex-wife while their young son was in the house. Agent Jareau's husband was shot, kidnapped, and strapped to a bomb all in one day. Penelope Garcia was shot in the stomach on her own doorstep. Agent Morgan was held captive and brutally tortured, with his pregnant wife being nearly killed by a sniper only months later. Agent Prentiss faked her own death after barely surviving an attack from a terrorist in order to hide from him. That's only a few of the intense things these characters have faced.
Everyone has had awful things happen to them and the people they love, but nobody has suffered as much as Dr. Spencer Reid.
Some people think the reason the writers put Reid through so much is because of how great an actor Matthew Gray Gubler is. Sometimes it seems like they hurt him because they know it hurts the people watching the show. Whatever the reason is, they sure don't hold back.
Reid's mother has schizophrenia and his father abandoned them while he was young. He was badly bullied as a child. He had to put his mother in a mental institution when he was only eighteen. Because schizophrenia is genetic, he's afraid that he'll end up like his mother eventually.
In season two, Reid is kidnapped and held hostage by a delusional serial killer who gets him addicted to Dilaudid. He struggles with his addiction and ultimately overcomes it. He has a really hard time when Agent Gideon suddenly leaves the FBI at the end of the season.
The third season has one episode where Reid identifies with the murderous teenager the team is trying to track. Seeing the similarities between himself and the killer really shakes him.
In season four, he gets held hostage by a cult. He is later infected with Anthrax.
Season eight is where things start to get seriously heartbreaking. He had been speaking to a geneticist on the phone in hopes of finding the cause of and solution for intense headaches he'd been having. She was being targeted by a stalker, so they communicated via letters and phone calls for six months for the safety of both her (Maeve) and Reid. One day, instead of Maeve's voice on the payphone, he hears a threat and worries for her safety. They come close to being able to save her from her stalker, but the stalker shoots herself and Maeve simultaneously right in front of Reid. That was the first time they ever saw each other. He is understandably traumatized by seeing his girlfriend get murdered.
Not a whole lot happens to him in season nine, but he does get shot in the neck by a corrupt police officer and is nearly killed while recovering in the hospital.
Remember the agent who left after the second season? He gets murdered in season ten. Not a good time for Reid.
His mom starts showing signs of dementia in season eleven, which is one more thing Reid has to worry about getting someday.
Mrs. Reid's condition keeps getting worse, so he brings her to his home and hires a caretaker for her in season twelve. (Why he decided that was a better option than keeping her in a facility designed to take care of her, I don't know.) In pursuit of experimental medicine that might help her, Reid travels to Mexico, where he gets framed for drug possession and the murder of the woman he was getting medicine from. Because he, an FBI agent, had been going to Mexico without informing the government, he gets in even more trouble than normal. He gets extradited and put into a regular prison without protective custody and is denied bail.
As one might expect, prison is not a happy place for a scrawny agent. He almost gets killed, gets beaten later, and is attacked yet again for refusing to help smuggle drugs. He agrees to help the smugglers after they murder his friend and he poisons the drugs in an attempt to kill them.
The events that transpired in Mexico start to be more clear (since he was super, super drugged when he was found) and he realizes that the murderer is a troubled girl he saved in a case several seasons ago. That girl, now grown up, has become his mother's new caretaker after killing the one Reid had hired. This is around the same time that the poisoned drug users recover and one of them outs Reid as a federal agent. Reid stabs himself in order to get put into solitary confinement until the other agents can get him out of prison, which they finally do now that the season is ending.
Season thirteen's finale ends with Reid and Garcia being face-to-face with members of a cult, who will apparently kidnap them to make the first episode of season fourteen extra dramatic.
Like I said earlier, everyone on the team gets hurt physically and emotionally because of their jobs, but Reid just cannot catch a break. He's brilliant, caring, and sweet, even after being beaten, shot, traumatized, framed, and jailed.
Please, CBS, give this poor nerd at least one happy arc. No more killing off people he loves, no more shooting him, and no more mom drama. Write in another cute girl for him and don't let her get shot in the head this time. I know MGG is a phenomenal actor and he does a great job of looking sad, injured, heartbroken, scared, and otherwise hurt. He's also pretty good at acting happy, though! Maybe give him a chance to do that? Pretty please?
Love,
Lizzie
Friday, September 28, 2018
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Makeup Organization
Hi, friends!
I got a request to do a post about how I store and organize my makeup, so here we are! Hopefully this is helpful and inspires you to organize something today. :)
Before I get started, I want to say that I know my collection seems excessive. I do have more makeup than I probably "need" to as an average human and non-MUA. However, nearly all of the products are super inexpensive and a good chunk of them were bought at a discount and/or with a gift card. I also watch review videos and seek out several honest opinions before deciding to buy something.
Like I mentioned before, makeup is a hobby for me, which means I do a lot of experimenting. Instead of sticking to the same one or two everyday looks, I use colors that match what I'm wearing or what mood I'm in. I couldn't have put Black Widow's symbol on my eyelids when we saw Infinity War if I hadn't had black shadow, white concealer, and red shadow. It is a lot of stuff, but every product has its own uses.
Some people collect baseball cards; I apparently collect pretty things to put on my face.
(Also, if you see something that looks like dust, it's almost definitely just setting powder.)
My philosophy when it comes to organizing things is the old proverb "A place for everything and everything in its place." This is how I am with my kitchen, closet, laptop files, bookshelves, and as many of Jared's things as I can get away with. (One of these days, he'll come home from work and find that his clothes have mysteriously been organized.) The most helpful strategy for organizing cosmetics is having specific places to keep them.
Amazon is where I've bought all of my acrylic organizers, but that's mostly because if I wanted to buy them in a physical store, I'd need to either limit myself to what the local Walmart has available or drive 90 miles to a real city. (Small, isolated towns make shopping... interesting.) I'll share links to the specific organizers I use and give you an idea of the kinds of things I use them for.
Drawers
This particular kind comes in a bunch of different styles. Mine has four drawers and another piece that can sit on top in a groove. The top part has a bunch of slots for lipstick and some open, generic holding areas.
The drawers house a lot of my smaller items. They're great for holding compact eyeshadow palettes and single shadows.
Because of the way my desk is laid out, I keep the two parts separate, but I used to have them stacked. In the top, I have a whole bunch of lipstick, as well as concealer, mascara, and everyday/essential brushes.
I got a request to do a post about how I store and organize my makeup, so here we are! Hopefully this is helpful and inspires you to organize something today. :)
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| Forgive the random brushes laying on the desk; I haven't quite figured out the best way to store/display the magical wand brushes that a friend gave me for my birthday! I use my old phone as a fancy MP3 player for music as I get ready, so it lives over there, too. |
Like I mentioned before, makeup is a hobby for me, which means I do a lot of experimenting. Instead of sticking to the same one or two everyday looks, I use colors that match what I'm wearing or what mood I'm in. I couldn't have put Black Widow's symbol on my eyelids when we saw Infinity War if I hadn't had black shadow, white concealer, and red shadow. It is a lot of stuff, but every product has its own uses.
Some people collect baseball cards; I apparently collect pretty things to put on my face.
(Also, if you see something that looks like dust, it's almost definitely just setting powder.)
My philosophy when it comes to organizing things is the old proverb "A place for everything and everything in its place." This is how I am with my kitchen, closet, laptop files, bookshelves, and as many of Jared's things as I can get away with. (One of these days, he'll come home from work and find that his clothes have mysteriously been organized.) The most helpful strategy for organizing cosmetics is having specific places to keep them.
Amazon is where I've bought all of my acrylic organizers, but that's mostly because if I wanted to buy them in a physical store, I'd need to either limit myself to what the local Walmart has available or drive 90 miles to a real city. (Small, isolated towns make shopping... interesting.) I'll share links to the specific organizers I use and give you an idea of the kinds of things I use them for.
Drawers
This particular kind comes in a bunch of different styles. Mine has four drawers and another piece that can sit on top in a groove. The top part has a bunch of slots for lipstick and some open, generic holding areas.
 |
| These drawers get shuffled around and reorganized occasionally. This is the current setup. |
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| You'll notice a lot of items from e.l.f. and Wet N Wild in these pictures. Their products are (generally) about as inexpensive as makeup can get. Huzzah! |
Brush storage
Instead of buying an official brush holder, I cleaned out jars that once held strawberry jam, put some plastic beads inside, and stuck my brushes in them. Simple, decently cute, and extremely cheap!
Palette organizer
This is technically an office sorter intended to hold important papers. Oh, well. It works wonderfully as a tool to display and contain my eyeshadow palettes. (This is something that the average makeup user isn't likely to need.)
Miscellaneous stuff container
Every house has a drawer of random stuff, pencils, and probably a few of those tab things that hold bread bags closed. This is kind of my makeup desk's equivalent of that drawer. I made it by cutting a juice bottle and filing the sharp edges away. Not the most beautiful container I could've used, but it does its job and is mostly hidden anyway.
Assorted lip product holder
Another repurposed thing. I honestly forget what this originally held because I've been using it to house lip glosses and such for two or three years now. It holds the kinds of lip products that aren't super stable when put into a normal lipstick slot and some overflow from the official lipstick holder.
Official lipstick holder
Not much to say about this. It's super cheap and keeps lip products in neat rows. You may notice that mine has a lot of unusual colors in it. Most of the "weird" colors live here and the more socially acceptable ones are in the top half of the drawer set or the old container next door.
Lip liners and assorted eye products
Once upon a time, this container held some delicious frosting. These days, it's home to a bunch of lip liners, some eyeshadow sticks, and colored mascaras. I stuffed a tissue into the bottom to help the products be more accessible and I keep the eye and lip products separated with a notecard.
The spinning behemoth
Man, I love this thing. The shelves are adjustable and the whole thing rotates around, making it incredibly convenient. The way I have it set up, everything on the shelves is kept in general order of application. One quadrant has prep stuff (moisturizers, lip scrub), the next has base stuff (primers, foundation, setting powder), the third area has blush and highlighter, and the last section is contour and setting sprays.
The top area is a lot more mishmashy. There's a few lip products, some liquid eyeshadows, straight-up glitter, eyeshadow pigments, normal eyeshadows, and my tube of actual white concealer.
This concludes our tour of Lizzie's makeup desk. We hope you've enjoyed this journey! Please watch your step as you exit, and feel free to stick around a bit longer to ask questions or provide feedback. Have a sparkly day!
Love,
Lizzie
Instead of buying an official brush holder, I cleaned out jars that once held strawberry jam, put some plastic beads inside, and stuck my brushes in them. Simple, decently cute, and extremely cheap!
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| The jar on the right still has its label. |
This is technically an office sorter intended to hold important papers. Oh, well. It works wonderfully as a tool to display and contain my eyeshadow palettes. (This is something that the average makeup user isn't likely to need.)
 |
| Here we see the two most expensive makeup products I own: Too Faced's Chocolate Bar and Sweet Peach palettes. I bought both secondhand (but unused) for much less than the original cost. They smell amazing. |
Every house has a drawer of random stuff, pencils, and probably a few of those tab things that hold bread bags closed. This is kind of my makeup desk's equivalent of that drawer. I made it by cutting a juice bottle and filing the sharp edges away. Not the most beautiful container I could've used, but it does its job and is mostly hidden anyway.
 |
| Various brushes and some pencil eyeliners live here. |
Another repurposed thing. I honestly forget what this originally held because I've been using it to house lip glosses and such for two or three years now. It holds the kinds of lip products that aren't super stable when put into a normal lipstick slot and some overflow from the official lipstick holder.
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| NYX products can be a little pricey, but they go on sale pretty frequently and those glosses are really nice. |
Not much to say about this. It's super cheap and keeps lip products in neat rows. You may notice that mine has a lot of unusual colors in it. Most of the "weird" colors live here and the more socially acceptable ones are in the top half of the drawer set or the old container next door.
 |
| The back row is My Little Pony glosses and the next row up is Infinity Stone glosses. Makeup and nerd merchandise are my two biggest financial weaknesses. |
Once upon a time, this container held some delicious frosting. These days, it's home to a bunch of lip liners, some eyeshadow sticks, and colored mascaras. I stuffed a tissue into the bottom to help the products be more accessible and I keep the eye and lip products separated with a notecard.
 |
| If you notice that my eyelashes are blue or purple, it's because of something from this frosting jar. |
Man, I love this thing. The shelves are adjustable and the whole thing rotates around, making it incredibly convenient. The way I have it set up, everything on the shelves is kept in general order of application. One quadrant has prep stuff (moisturizers, lip scrub), the next has base stuff (primers, foundation, setting powder), the third area has blush and highlighter, and the last section is contour and setting sprays.
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| Quadrant one |
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| Quadrant two (ft. One Direction) |
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| Quadrant three |
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| Quadrant four |
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| Loose pigments and glitters with some lip products in the back |
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| Liquid glitters and eyeshadows, two of the Wet N Wild dragon-themed eyeshadow quads, and tiny One Direction |
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| More liquid eyeshadows, some single shadows, another Wet N Wild quad, liquid lipsticks |
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| Single shadows and the Wet N Wild dragon-themed lipsticks |
Love,
Lizzie
Friday, September 14, 2018
23 Things That Happened While I Was 23
Hi, friends!
Tomorrow, I'll be 24 years old. That seems strange. Instead of focusing on the fact that I don't feel nearly as grown up as I am, I thought I'd look back on some of the stuff that's happened in the past year in approximate chronological order.
Tomorrow, I'll be 24 years old. That seems strange. Instead of focusing on the fact that I don't feel nearly as grown up as I am, I thought I'd look back on some of the stuff that's happened in the past year in approximate chronological order.
- I came up with 31 costumes and posted a picture of one each day in October.
- I started actively fighting against MLM companies and posting about the evils of pyramid schemes occasionally.
- I dyed my hair red, bleached it, and then dyed it turquoise within a short amount of time.
- Jared and I attended Equestria LA dressed as Vinyl Scratch and her bass cannon.
- We went to Disneyland three different times.
- I discovered a seriously delicious recipe for pumpkin bread.
- I completed Personal Progress (for the second time) after one year of being a YW leader.
- We got a Nintendo Switch!
- I started occasionally attempting to do things to my fingernails other than putting one solid color on all ten of them.
- My hair became purple.
- I started playing the piano again.
- We went to the midnight showing of Infinity War.
- We bought a house!!
- I put together a pretty cool game of Family Feud for mutual and Jared came along to be our fake Steve Harvey.
- I was a cabin mom for my stake's YW camp.
- While helping at a church carnival, I got to operate a snow cone machine.
- My hair became dark blue.
- We registered to attend the last ever Bronycon in Baltimore next year.
- We celebrated our third wedding anniversary.
- An order from Pizza Hut was flagged as suspicious credit card activity, which I'm guessing means that Discover has caught on to how much we love Domino's pizza.
- I started this blog!
- I won $300 in Fandango movie tickets from a (free) Dunkin Donuts drink.
- My original group of Beehives all became Mia Maids except for the youngest of the bunch, who will be leaving me in just a few days. (We'll be down to only two girls who come regularly!)
There were some rough patches scattered among the past twelve months, but my year of being 23 was pretty fantastic overall and definitely had a few small miracles involved. God knows what He's doing and exactly how much I can handle before I break. The next year will bring challenges, frustrations, and all that "fun" stuff just like this past one did. It will also give me knowledge, reasons to laugh, more YW shenanigans, and a lot of smiling.
I think I'm ready.
Love,
Lizzie
Friday, September 7, 2018
Hating, Learning, and Loving Makeup
Hi, friends!
If you knew me before college, you know that I wore makeup only a handful of times throughout my high school years. I wore some blue mascara on picture day one year, got my whole face done before my senior pictures, had a friend's friend put stuff on me before a school dance, attempted to do my own minimal makeup before the other school dance I went to, and I probably had some mascara or something for graduation. That's about it. Those of you who met me after 2015ish are probably a bit surprised right now.
For some reason, several factors have combined to work against me and make my under-eye area permanently purple and sunken. I've also had at least one zit somewhere visible on my face every day of probably the past twelve or so years. Without makeup, I basically look like I got lightly punched in both eyes and sometimes have the skin of a stressed sophomore. That's not a cute look. One would think that I'd have jumped on the chance to use concealer as soon as I was deemed old enough. Nope.
Teenagers these days are super lucky when it comes to makeup. Drugstore products are (generally) awesome and you can find help with pretty much any look you want to achieve somewhere on the internet. It's completely unfair that they get to skip the awkward beginner phase that the rest of us had to go through!
Makeup tutorials and review videos have become a huge thing on YouTube. In 2009, though, most of my peers seemed to be stumbling through their makeup routines and just doing their best, which usually wasn't that great. (No offense to anyone I knew back then.) Combine a lack of experience with the teenage desire to not get teased about skin issues and there were a decent number of makeup-wearing girls who looked... really unnatural in the skin department. Oh, and thick, all-around-the-eyes black eyeliner was a huge trend for a while. I was in no hurry to look like that.
An awesome friend gave me a little starter kit of makeup from her company when I was a senior. (Her own legitimate small business, not an MLM.) I went from owning basically nothing face-wise to having two eyeshadows, a blush, powder foundation, green color-correcting powder, a tinted lip gloss, and a few brushes. I still had no idea what I was doing the few times I tried stuff, but it was a start.
I had a lot of trouble applying mascara the few times I attempted that as a youth. I would get goop all over my eye region, wipe it all off with a wet tissue in frustration, and try again. Rinse and repeat. Admittedly, I still get mascara everywhere when I apply it, but I've since learned how to remove just the parts on my skin instead of starting over and also comb my lashes a bit so they aren't a big blob.
The biggest reason I didn't wear makeup before college is out of sheer stubbornness. It was pointed out to me several times that I would look a lot better with makeup on. Instead of realizing that was a logical statement because the entire point of makeup is to enhance one's facial features and correct discoloration, I got super offended. It's kind of like going up to an overweight person and suggesting that they try to track their calorie intake, I guess; I was fully aware that my face was struggling but having someone point it out was embarrassing and unpleasant. Out of spite, I decided I would not put things on my face to try to make it look nicer. Makes so much sense, right? (No. What the heck, teenage me??)
The big transformation began during my first semester of BYU in late 2013. When I started college, I was trying to be more outgoing and friendly since it was a fresh start with all new people. (That's also when I started going by my middle name. I was basically redoing myself.) I realized that I should probably try to not look quite so dead because nobody wants to date a zombie. It helped that none of my roommates knew how ardently I had previously disliked makeup, so there weren't any, "Wait, do you have stuff on your face? Huh??" comments to deal with. It's a lot easier to quietly accept that you were wrong about something than to visibly change your position and have people point it out.
On Sundays, I would struggle through getting mascara on my eyelashes, pat some of the powder foundation under my eyes and on my red spots, and fluff one of my two eyeshadow colors all over my eyelid. Of course, I didn't understand that a low-coverage powder foundation was not at all helpful for covering dark purple or angry red or that eyeshadow needs to be blended, but I was trying, okay?
Something else I didn't understand was that moisturization is important. Growing up near Seattle, I rarely applied lotion, and I mostly did it for the nice smells. I had never thought to put lotiony things on my face. When my poor skin got moved to a desert and suddenly had powders being put on it occasionally, it was not pleased. The skin around my eyes got all red and uncomfortable, and I thought I was having an allergic reaction. That's when I started putting Vaseline all over my eyes every night, though I still didn't think to moisturize my face in the mornings. Oh, nineteen-year-old Lizzie, how completely helpless you were.
2014: In my second semester at BYU, I took a stage makeup class. Don't ask me why I thought that would be useful. I had no intention of pursuing a major in theater or art or anything of the sort, but I decided it would be a cool class to take. This is where things (and by things, I mean my makeup skills) start to get good.
Along with stuff like special effects and injuries, we spent a lot of time learning about general makeup. Where to put highlights and shadows to achieve different effects, putting moisturizer on before makeup helps your skin not hate you as much, the fact that filling in your eyebrows is a thing, and this neat revelation that you can use more than one color of eyeshadow at once! I'm pretty sure at least one or two of the guys in my class knew more about makeup than I did when we started the semester. Man, that was helpful.
At this point, I was a lot better with mascara and had started buying some more eyeshadows and lipsticks so I had more to work with. Makeup became a daily thing instead of being only for church. I'd also found a few concealer-ish products at the two stores I had access to (The Creamery and BYU Bookstore... oof) and was doing a lot of trial and error. I hadn't quite learned that a bold eyeshadow look with bold lipstick tends to be a bit overwhelming, but I'd started experimenting and finally had a way to cover the purple under my eyes.
2014/2015: My second year at BYU saw a lot more experimenting and improving. I learned that eyeliner was not for me, used concealer almost all over my face to even things out, and discovered a love for dark lipsticks and purple eyeshadow. That was the year I got engaged, and my makeup looks surprisingly not terrible in the engagement pictures considering how new I was at the whole thing. (There's an Ulta at/near University Mall in Provo and I remember driving by it, being vaguely aware that it's a makeup store, and thinking that it might be fun to look around in there. Oh, man.)
Summer 2015: While planning my wedding, I decided I'd do my own makeup to avoid the hassle and cost of finding someone to do it, especially since the wedding was on the other side of the country from me so doing a trial run was impossible. That was when I remembered that foundation exists, so I went to Target and bought the exact foundation that my mom uses because I still didn't think about trying to find reviews or anything. Miraculously, it worked on me, too, and I stopped using concealer as a base. Huzzah!
2016: I finally thought to look up something makeup-related online and my eyes were opened to the magical world of reviews, tutorials, and the ability to know something about a product before just buying it and seeing what happens. No more flying blind! I was also becoming noticeably paler than my foundation, so pictures from this period always make me a little uncomfortable.
Towards the end of 2016 is when I placed my first online order for some makeup from e.l.f. and began regularly watching makeup videos. Makeup had officially become a hobby instead of just a thing I did to fix stuff on my face.
2017: I went to a Sephora to have their magical machine figure out what foundation matches my skin. The only one it came up with was $35, really drying, and from the brand of a terrible person. I tried my luck at Ulta and the employee who attempted to match me said that he didn't have anything pale enough and I should try getting a white mixer. Once I started adding white into my foundation, my face finally matched my neck again. Thank goodness for that Ulta guy's suggestion!
A year (and probably too many makeup purchases) later, I'm doing things like watermelon-themed eyeshadow, as much shimmer as I can get away with, and other things that would make my younger self roll her judgmental, bare, bruised-looking eyes at me. Well, guess what, past self? I do look way better with makeup on. Plus, it's fun to apply, dang it. This is one of the few forms of art I have any sort of talent for. My face is my canvas and there are so many awesome colors waiting to be used on it. Just brush some happy little highlight on your cheekbones, blend some phthalo blue into your crease, and relax.
My relationship with makeup has changed drastically in the five years since I graduated from high school. Instead of seeing it as something other people wanted me to put on to make myself less ugly, I think of it as a creative outlet and a way I can make my face prettier and help my confidence. It's fun when people notice or compliment the things I did that day, but I have a lot of fun putting beautiful colors on myself whether or not others care about my efforts. Sure, I hope that the people around me think my makeup looks good, but knowing that there's a decent chance people think I'm bonkers for wearing turquoise lipstick won't stop me from doing that if it goes with my outfit. I have a very Luna Lovegood approach to style choices.
Yikes, that was a lot more writing than I was planning on. When I'm passionate about something, I develop a magical ability to talk about it almost endlessly. I can do this kind of thing with the Marvel movies, Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, Jared, and all the other stuff that I love a whole lot. Posts here will probably be shorter than this one for the most part, but I'm not making any promises.
Love,
Lizzie
If you knew me before college, you know that I wore makeup only a handful of times throughout my high school years. I wore some blue mascara on picture day one year, got my whole face done before my senior pictures, had a friend's friend put stuff on me before a school dance, attempted to do my own minimal makeup before the other school dance I went to, and I probably had some mascara or something for graduation. That's about it. Those of you who met me after 2015ish are probably a bit surprised right now.
For some reason, several factors have combined to work against me and make my under-eye area permanently purple and sunken. I've also had at least one zit somewhere visible on my face every day of probably the past twelve or so years. Without makeup, I basically look like I got lightly punched in both eyes and sometimes have the skin of a stressed sophomore. That's not a cute look. One would think that I'd have jumped on the chance to use concealer as soon as I was deemed old enough. Nope.
Teenagers these days are super lucky when it comes to makeup. Drugstore products are (generally) awesome and you can find help with pretty much any look you want to achieve somewhere on the internet. It's completely unfair that they get to skip the awkward beginner phase that the rest of us had to go through!
Makeup tutorials and review videos have become a huge thing on YouTube. In 2009, though, most of my peers seemed to be stumbling through their makeup routines and just doing their best, which usually wasn't that great. (No offense to anyone I knew back then.) Combine a lack of experience with the teenage desire to not get teased about skin issues and there were a decent number of makeup-wearing girls who looked... really unnatural in the skin department. Oh, and thick, all-around-the-eyes black eyeliner was a huge trend for a while. I was in no hurry to look like that.
An awesome friend gave me a little starter kit of makeup from her company when I was a senior. (Her own legitimate small business, not an MLM.) I went from owning basically nothing face-wise to having two eyeshadows, a blush, powder foundation, green color-correcting powder, a tinted lip gloss, and a few brushes. I still had no idea what I was doing the few times I tried stuff, but it was a start.
I had a lot of trouble applying mascara the few times I attempted that as a youth. I would get goop all over my eye region, wipe it all off with a wet tissue in frustration, and try again. Rinse and repeat. Admittedly, I still get mascara everywhere when I apply it, but I've since learned how to remove just the parts on my skin instead of starting over and also comb my lashes a bit so they aren't a big blob.
The biggest reason I didn't wear makeup before college is out of sheer stubbornness. It was pointed out to me several times that I would look a lot better with makeup on. Instead of realizing that was a logical statement because the entire point of makeup is to enhance one's facial features and correct discoloration, I got super offended. It's kind of like going up to an overweight person and suggesting that they try to track their calorie intake, I guess; I was fully aware that my face was struggling but having someone point it out was embarrassing and unpleasant. Out of spite, I decided I would not put things on my face to try to make it look nicer. Makes so much sense, right? (No. What the heck, teenage me??)
The big transformation began during my first semester of BYU in late 2013. When I started college, I was trying to be more outgoing and friendly since it was a fresh start with all new people. (That's also when I started going by my middle name. I was basically redoing myself.) I realized that I should probably try to not look quite so dead because nobody wants to date a zombie. It helped that none of my roommates knew how ardently I had previously disliked makeup, so there weren't any, "Wait, do you have stuff on your face? Huh??" comments to deal with. It's a lot easier to quietly accept that you were wrong about something than to visibly change your position and have people point it out.
On Sundays, I would struggle through getting mascara on my eyelashes, pat some of the powder foundation under my eyes and on my red spots, and fluff one of my two eyeshadow colors all over my eyelid. Of course, I didn't understand that a low-coverage powder foundation was not at all helpful for covering dark purple or angry red or that eyeshadow needs to be blended, but I was trying, okay?
Something else I didn't understand was that moisturization is important. Growing up near Seattle, I rarely applied lotion, and I mostly did it for the nice smells. I had never thought to put lotiony things on my face. When my poor skin got moved to a desert and suddenly had powders being put on it occasionally, it was not pleased. The skin around my eyes got all red and uncomfortable, and I thought I was having an allergic reaction. That's when I started putting Vaseline all over my eyes every night, though I still didn't think to moisturize my face in the mornings. Oh, nineteen-year-old Lizzie, how completely helpless you were.
2014: In my second semester at BYU, I took a stage makeup class. Don't ask me why I thought that would be useful. I had no intention of pursuing a major in theater or art or anything of the sort, but I decided it would be a cool class to take. This is where things (and by things, I mean my makeup skills) start to get good.
Along with stuff like special effects and injuries, we spent a lot of time learning about general makeup. Where to put highlights and shadows to achieve different effects, putting moisturizer on before makeup helps your skin not hate you as much, the fact that filling in your eyebrows is a thing, and this neat revelation that you can use more than one color of eyeshadow at once! I'm pretty sure at least one or two of the guys in my class knew more about makeup than I did when we started the semester. Man, that was helpful.
At this point, I was a lot better with mascara and had started buying some more eyeshadows and lipsticks so I had more to work with. Makeup became a daily thing instead of being only for church. I'd also found a few concealer-ish products at the two stores I had access to (The Creamery and BYU Bookstore... oof) and was doing a lot of trial and error. I hadn't quite learned that a bold eyeshadow look with bold lipstick tends to be a bit overwhelming, but I'd started experimenting and finally had a way to cover the purple under my eyes.
2014/2015: My second year at BYU saw a lot more experimenting and improving. I learned that eyeliner was not for me, used concealer almost all over my face to even things out, and discovered a love for dark lipsticks and purple eyeshadow. That was the year I got engaged, and my makeup looks surprisingly not terrible in the engagement pictures considering how new I was at the whole thing. (There's an Ulta at/near University Mall in Provo and I remember driving by it, being vaguely aware that it's a makeup store, and thinking that it might be fun to look around in there. Oh, man.)
Summer 2015: While planning my wedding, I decided I'd do my own makeup to avoid the hassle and cost of finding someone to do it, especially since the wedding was on the other side of the country from me so doing a trial run was impossible. That was when I remembered that foundation exists, so I went to Target and bought the exact foundation that my mom uses because I still didn't think about trying to find reviews or anything. Miraculously, it worked on me, too, and I stopped using concealer as a base. Huzzah!
2016: I finally thought to look up something makeup-related online and my eyes were opened to the magical world of reviews, tutorials, and the ability to know something about a product before just buying it and seeing what happens. No more flying blind! I was also becoming noticeably paler than my foundation, so pictures from this period always make me a little uncomfortable.
Towards the end of 2016 is when I placed my first online order for some makeup from e.l.f. and began regularly watching makeup videos. Makeup had officially become a hobby instead of just a thing I did to fix stuff on my face.
2017: I went to a Sephora to have their magical machine figure out what foundation matches my skin. The only one it came up with was $35, really drying, and from the brand of a terrible person. I tried my luck at Ulta and the employee who attempted to match me said that he didn't have anything pale enough and I should try getting a white mixer. Once I started adding white into my foundation, my face finally matched my neck again. Thank goodness for that Ulta guy's suggestion!
A year (and probably too many makeup purchases) later, I'm doing things like watermelon-themed eyeshadow, as much shimmer as I can get away with, and other things that would make my younger self roll her judgmental, bare, bruised-looking eyes at me. Well, guess what, past self? I do look way better with makeup on. Plus, it's fun to apply, dang it. This is one of the few forms of art I have any sort of talent for. My face is my canvas and there are so many awesome colors waiting to be used on it. Just brush some happy little highlight on your cheekbones, blend some phthalo blue into your crease, and relax.
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| What my makeup desk currently looks like |
Yikes, that was a lot more writing than I was planning on. When I'm passionate about something, I develop a magical ability to talk about it almost endlessly. I can do this kind of thing with the Marvel movies, Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, Jared, and all the other stuff that I love a whole lot. Posts here will probably be shorter than this one for the most part, but I'm not making any promises.
Love,
Lizzie
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