"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

Kickstarter of Misery

Hi, friends!

In March of 2017, I learned about a Kickstarter project that I was really excited to back: Lisa Frank makeup made by a company called Glamour Dolls. The makeup was inexpensive and seemed like it was going to be really pretty. I was a little hesitant because I wasn't sure that Glamour Dolls really knew what they were getting into; they didn't seem to know much about Kickstarter in general. At that point, though, I was still 90% enthusiastic and 10% skeptical.

Then the lies, excuses, bad decisions, and disappointment began.

For most Kickstarter campaigns, stretch goals are what the creator does to thank backers for exceeding the original funding goal. This campaign raised ten times more money than what they were hoping for. For whatever reason, Glamour Dolls decided that their stretch goals would be what any other campaign would have called add-ons. Our extra funding gave us the opportunity to give them more money if we wanted the extra products. Weird, but not a deal breaker.

They hadn't decided on any of the colors for the products before the funding was completed, so they started running surveys to let backers pick what colors they wanted. This was, in my opinion, a huge mistake. There were two very distinct groups of people voting for colors: Team "Lisa Frank Makeup" Means Bright, Rainbow Colors In Cute Packaging and Team "Lisa Frank Makeup" Means Painfully Average Colors Of Makeup In Packaging With Lisa Frank Art On It. Unfortunately for me and the other members of Team Fun, the people who voted for the lipstick to be rose, mauve, or nude (seriously?!) vastly outnumbered the people who voted for blue, purple, green, and other colors that you can't necessarily find from every makeup brand that ever existed. In the survey to decide on the highlighter color, 74% of the responses voted for opal, which is possibly the most standard highlighter color possible. That was exasperating. We all backed the project with our own idea of what the makeup itself would look like, and it quickly became very clear that we hadn't all been on the same page in that regard. Despite the announcement video for the campaign involving rainbow leopard print lips, there were a ton of people hoping for the makeup to be as neutral and "grown-up" as possible.

A month after the funding was completed, I was already starting to seriously regret my decision to back the project. Neutral color after neutral color was being chosen for the makeup, people requested that the makeup bag be plain white with rainbow trim instead of having Lisa Frank designs on it, and I got more and more disappointed with each update.

We were told that the unicorn lip balm we would be getting was a unique mold and design. Like a lot of other things we were told, that was a lie. Identical unicorn lip balms have been spotted at Hot Topic and on several websites.

The original estimate was that the makeup would be finished and sent out to backers that September. (Spoiler alert: September came and went, as did the next September. No makeup yet.) Kickstarter campaigns rarely deliver on time, so that didn't bother me, but the delays were not at all explained. By the time we were supposed to have our makeup, we still barely knew anything about the project and had been mostly kept in the dark about production progress. We were told to expect an update within a certain time frame, no update would come, and Glamour Dolls wouldn't even acknowledge their failures.

Glamour Dolls had been working on a blush brush and a bronzer before the campaign started, and because they started before they made their Kickstarter, they decided it would be fine to not tell us that those products would be going out in Ipsy bags. (Ipsy is a subscription service that sends a bag of assorted makeup to their customers every month.) They neglected to tell us until backers started finding out and probably wouldn't have said anything if people hadn't called them out on it. Their "Kickstarter-exclusive" shade of a single eyeshadow was also available for purchase on the Glamour Dolls website, which was another slap in the face.

A Facebook group was created by some backers so that information could be shared. The Glamour Dolls team was doing an awful job of communicating and had been giving us more excuses than answers for far too long.

As far as the backers knew, we would be able to get everything in the collection from the campaign. However, Glamour Dolls had a deal with Hot Topic that involved making an exclusive eyeshadow shade that was only available from Hot Topic and not part of the Kickstarter. (That eyeshadow was a very blah burnt terra cotta color, by the way.) It also seemed like the eyeshadow singles came in packaging with a fun design on the lid, but that design was only on the cardboard box that the shadow came in and there was a purple-and-white, much less exciting design on the compact itself. A surprising number of people were surprised by that, myself included.

Originally, backers were going to be given a digital background with Lisa's art. Out of fear that the background(s) would be stolen, they decided to give us "vintage" postcards instead. Oddly enough, those postcards had QR codes on them that lead to a Lisa Frank app. Smartphones and "vintage" don't really go together.

Another issue with the postcards is that a small number of them were going to be signed by Lisa Frank. What Glamour Dolls didn't tell us is that each postcard would have what looked like a signature and message from her. The people who had the blush brush and bronzer in their pledge had those delivered at some point in November 2017 as a gesture of good faith - though Ipsy customers had received them much earlier - and those packages mistakenly had postcards in them. Everyone was happy to see what appeared to be a signed message on their postcard until people in the Facebook group realized that everyone had one identical, printed message. When backers who weren't in the Facebook group sent messages of excitement to Glamour Dolls, they chose to not point out that none of the signatures were authentic. They lied by omission by letting people continue to believe that they'd gotten a genuine signature on their "vintage" postcards.

I don't know how many updates ended with a promise to give another update the next week or at least within two weeks and were followed by the next update a month later instead. It's really not that difficult to type out a quick, "Hi, we're still alive and working on things!" even if there isn't any real update to share. That would've been a lot less frustrating than being ignored for a month at a time.

Backers started using social media and emails to beg for updates. That didn't work, because of course Glamour Dolls wouldn't actually listen to feedback. People began leaving reviews on their Facebook page to warn others about how frustrating and irresponsible the company was. After so many people left negative reviews that the rating had dropped down to about two stars, Glamour Dolls finally decided to remember that their backers existed.

In March of this year, they promised to be more consistent with their updating and share something every 7-10 days. They did okay at that for a while, then went silent for nearly four months. Not only did they not update us, but they deleted perfectly civil comments on their social media and even turned off commenting on their Instagram pictures.

The radio silence is what sparked the huge influx of people requesting refunds. I finally requested mine on August 1st, was informed that a refund had been issued and should go through within 7-10 days, and believed that for a little while. When my money never got put back in my account, I realized that it was the beginning of the end. Lots of other backers were getting the copy-and-paste response promising a refund and then not hearing anything else when they would ask when their money would be refunded. Soon enough, even the canned responses stopped coming when people asked for refunds.

I realized that my only hope of getting my money back was talking to my bank directly. I found a dispute form to fill out, mailed it to my bank along with proof that I had requested and been promised my refund, and hoped for the best. Thankfully, I did get my full refund and breathed an enormous sigh of relief when it happened.

Their most recent update, from late September (which was the first one since the end of May), was useless. I'm convinced that the update was only posted to give them legal cover. Glamour Dolls mentioned in one of the comments on that update (not in the update itself, for whatever reason) that they were no longer giving refunds to backers.

They never addressed the refunds that had been promised and not given. They didn't address blocking backers on Instagram for leaving comments wondering about the Kickstarter. No updated delivery estimate.
Possibly the most ridiculous part of the update was that they told us how they (supposedly) spent the money from the campaign. Including the BackerKit add-ons, $475,685 were raised for this makeup. They apparently paid $15,329 for production samples, $45,615 for Lisa Frank's artwork, and $510,754.04 to Lisa Frank. Did I mention that their original funding goal was $30,000? Does anyone else see some major problems with those numbers? There's also the fact that their production matrix seems to blame Lisa for the delays on almost everything. (The matrix also says that the art for the eyeshadow palettes haven't been finalized yet even though they literally showed us what definitely seemed to be finished art on those palettes months ago.)

What should have been a fantastic, fun campaign was a complete disaster. I don't know how much blame Lisa Frank and Glamour Dolls each deserve, but my enthusiasm for both companies has been thoroughly murdered.

Whatever happens with this collaboration in the future is no longer my problem. I really hope that the other backers finally get either their products (very unlikely) or their refunds (also pretty unlikely) like they deserve and that more people hear about this through articles and social media.

Don't be afraid to back things on Kickstarter; usually, they go a lot better than this one did. I would, however, advise you to never, ever, ever buy anything from Glamour Dolls. I'm not sure how much longer they'll be in business anyway, but it's still good to know.

Love,

Lizzie

I'm "Too Old" For This

Hi, friends!

I like a lot of things that people my age are "supposed" to grow out of, at least according to the killjoys of the world.
Disney movies and superheroes are meant for children. Video games are mindless wastes of time used by antisocial teenagers. The Harry Potter books are aimed at pre-teens. And, the biggest one, My Little Pony can only be enjoyed by four-year-old girls. All of that is, obviously, codswallop.

Some people seem to think that a form of entertainment being suitable or appropriate for children means that anyone who's older shouldn't or can't like it. I'm not sure why adults are expected to exclusively watch/read things that have profanity, gratuitous violence, a historical setting, or other things that make them unappealing to a younger audience. Sorry, but being a grown-up doesn't mean I've automatically stopped liking fun things and only want to watch Civil War documentaries. And if adults aren't supposed to be able to enjoy cartoons and silliness, why must parents suffer through so much torture to entertain their kids? (Some kiddie shows are genuinely awful to sit through, though. Looking at you, Caillou.)

Maybe it's just a Mormon (Latter-day Saint) thing, but I know a lot of people who love Disney movies. They're wholesome, promote good values, have fun music, and the animated ones are really pretty to look at. Why shouldn't a grown-up watch Moana or The Incredibles? The Incredicoaster is arguably the second most intense ride in Disneyland and California Adventure, with the Guardians of the Galaxy elevator of horror being the most intense. Clearly, Disney thinks that these movies are things adults should be able to like.

I genuinely don't understand people who think superheroes are just for little kids. Yeah, a lot of kids love Spider-Man and Batman, but it's not like the recent hero movies have been aimed at the kinds of humans who still get scared by the monster in their closet. The DC movies are pretty intense, and six-year-old me would not have been happy to watch any of those. Even Marvel movies have their scary parts. There was a little girl (maybe eight or so?) next to me in the theater when I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming who was obviously bored for most of the movie and seemed freaked out during the parts with the Vulture.
Jared and I went to see the Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. exhibit in Las Vegas in September. There's no way the average child would have the patience or desire to go through it as slowly as we did to read all the information. There were interactive parts that kids would've enjoyed, but I would've been pretty upset if I'd paid for my child to go through there only to have them glance at the informational screens, say the costumes looked cool, and then ask if we could leave and get McDonald's. The merchandise store had a handful of kid-sized shirts and a whole lot of shirts that would've fit Jared or me. All ages can appreciate superheroes!

Video games are assigned ratings to give parents a general idea of how old their child should be before playing it. Nowhere on any video game have I ever seen a maximum age. If anything, video games are easier to enjoy as an adult thanks to increased patience and puzzle-solving abilities.
A lot of games from the past are getting remastered or ported or otherwise becoming playable again. The teenagers willing to look past older graphics can enjoy those games, but the main audience for those are the adults who played those old games when they were younger. When it was announced that Final Fantasy IX was going to be released on the Switch, I was so happy that my face legitimately got uncomfortable from excessive smiling. I played that game as a kid, played it in college using an emulator, bought it on Steam (and my phone) when it got remastered, and will probably end up getting it again on the Switch next year.

The local Walmart has a decent selection of onesies at the moment for people who want to have a Halloween costume but also want to wear pajamas that day. I found a Pikachu onesie (in the boys' section) that fits me and, while I have no plans to wear it in public, I love that thing. If officially licensed Pokemon onesies can fit an adult woman, adult women are allowed to enjoy Pokemon. I don't make the rules.

My parents bought the first two Harry Potter books for me for Christmas when I was five years old. My mom read them out loud to me at night. I grew up loving Harry Potter and still love it as a 24-year-old adult.

This was taken in 2002, I think. A bookstore in the general vicinity of my house had some kind of "Read a book with Curious George" event. While we were waiting for the guy in the George costume, I wanted to take a picture next to the Harry Potter cutout.

2017 me in the Hermione costume my mom made when I was in high school.

The Harry Potter books have their issues (and don't get me started on JK Rowling refusing to leave that universe alone all these years later), but they're fantastic entertainment for anyone old enough to read them. I'm a firm believer that everyone should read at least one of the books, especially if they saw the movies and enjoyed them. The books are way better than the movies. Just don't read The Cursed Child, because it's basically a terrible fanfiction that should never have existed.

And now, the unicorn in the room. My Little Pony might be aimed at keeping young kids entertained, but it's also incredibly fun for adults to watch. There are tons of clever (but not gross) jokes and references written into the show that kids can't appreciate. Their advertisements have parodied things like the iPhone, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Game of Thrones. The episodes themselves have very obvious allusions to shows and movies that came out before I was born, so there's no way they were included for the sake of toddlers.

This is a list of references made in one of the episodes from season seven. I don't think there are many little kids who have seen Say Anything or Flashdance.

The old movies were dull and only existed to sell toys, but the TV show has characters with personality traits and hobbies beyond tea parties and brushing their manes. There are villains and problems and good friendship lessons that anyone can benefit from.

Adults can absolutely appreciate things that aren't necessarily targeted at them. Doing so doesn't make them immature. Don't get me wrong, I still watch a lot of crime shows and read murder mysteries. I'm just saying that I can love both Criminal Minds and My Little Pony. I have the six-hour Pride and Prejudice in my movie collection as well as Tangled. My age doesn't define what content I do or do not enjoy.

There's a difference between being childish and childlike. Personally, I think most of the grown-ups in the world could use a little more wholesome entertainment in their lives.

Love,

Lizzie

I Miss Washington

Hi, friends!

This post isn't going to be a very cheerful one. If you don't want to hear me complain about where I live, go ahead and close this tab. (However, if you want to feel better about where you currently live, carry on.)

When Jared was looking at potential jobs for after college, neither of us actually thought we'd end up here. This was the "haha, like we'd ever move there!" option. He liked the sound of the job itself, but when we learned it was in the middle of the desert, it got immediately moved to the back burner. I thought we'd end up in Wisconsin or maybe somewhere on the East Coast. We eventually realized that this job is the one that made the most sense financially. I'm happy that Jared has this job and for a lot of other reasons, but there are still some days when I cry about living here.

I miss experiencing seasons. I miss feeling the air turn colder in September. I miss getting a runny nose from being outside. I miss foggy mornings. I miss worrying about whether I would be warm enough in my Halloween costumes. I miss condensation on windows. I miss leaves dropping from trees and never crunching when I stepped on them. I miss sweaters and hoodies and gloves and scarves. I miss making cocoa with numb hands after sledding. I miss not having air conditioning and feeling miserably hot for one or two weeks every summer when it got up to 90 degrees. I miss shivering outside.

I miss the color green. I miss grass that only ever needed to be watered in the summer. I miss clovers and dandelions in my backyard. I miss the sound of cars driving by on the wet road. I miss gray skies and always wondering if it would rain today. I miss the view of Mount Rainier being obscured by evergreen trees. I miss the hems of my jeans getting soaked and making my ankles cold for hours. I miss having to put on different shoes than I wore earlier in the day because the first pair is still wet. I miss leaving umbrellas open to dry in the living room. I miss looking out my window and seeing rain illuminated by the streetlight. I miss hanging my jacket over the shower door to let it dry. I miss squirrels. I miss seeing seagulls in unexpected places. I miss hills and winding roads lined with ferns and trees. I miss going barefoot outside. I miss the way flowers and plants look when they've been rained on. I miss finding tiny frogs and snakes. I miss never using sunscreen. I miss thinking that nature was beautiful.

I miss suburbs. I miss Fred Meyer and Safeway and Target. I miss, "Oh, this store doesn't have any X. Let's try a different store!" I miss Southcenter Mall. I miss choosing which movie theater to go to. I miss seeing Starbucks stores everywhere. I miss Wendy's and Jamba Juice and Dairy Queen and Costco. I miss Fairwood Library. I miss all the schools having airbrushed mascot art done by Mr. Bogle. I miss Kent Station. I miss being painfully close to PAX West in Seattle without actually going to the convention. I miss everyone being annoyingly passionate about the Seahawks. I miss the guy that would spin the Little Caesears sign in Fairwood. I miss going to a grocery store and not hearing country music playing in the background. I miss the Renton Stake.

I miss walking along trails with my dad. I miss making freezer jam with my mom using the berries we grew in the backyard. I miss the cozy cabin-themed family room. I miss driving by the Pepto Bismol pink walls of my elementary school. I miss looking for the bullet casing in the rocky walls of my old church building. I miss getting lunch at IKEA with my mom. I miss playing baseball golf at my dad's work. I miss the tumbleweeds we found during a road trip and kept in our garage. I miss my front yard being covered in pink petals when the blossoms would start falling off of the big tree. I miss grabbing a pen or pencil from that drawer in our kitchen and seeing that it had the Boeing logo on it. I miss coming home to a house that smells like pumpkin pie on a random Tuesday in October. I miss squeezing past boxes of food storage to get into the car when we parked in the garage.

I miss my skin being normal. I miss not having to put lotion on at every opportunity. I miss not needing to smother my hands with moisturizer and cover them with gloves overnight. I miss the tap water being soft and safe to drink. I miss having thick hair. I miss using Chapstick for the fun smells instead of to prevent my lips from cracking open. I miss only having one or two pairs of shorts which barely ever got worn. I miss being able to have my hair down outside without worrying that the wind would tangle it or use it to drag lip gloss across my face. I miss being able to shop for clothes at stores other than Walmart. I miss keeping my phone in my jacket pocket for most of the year until it was finally too warm for an extra layer. I miss thinking WALL-E's little cockroach friend was cute because I'd never seen a real cockroach until I was 21.

I love my house. I love my church friends and my church "job." I love that Jared is happy with his work. I love the two little drive-through shops in town that sell milkshakes and sodas. I love having a Southern California Disneyland pass. In general, I love my life. I just wish this town wasn't the way that it is.

Love,
Lizzie