Okay so a little disclaimer, this was the post I had intended to make last week. I had it completely written out and everything, but hadn’t scheduled it, and was too busy at work to post it. I know it’s probably a little weird to post this in this context since obviously it’s no longer my birthday, but I still wanted to share! So without further ado, enjoy!
For this week I wanted to choose a very special product, because for me it’s a very special Tuesday — today is my 23rd birthday! I really wanted to share with you guys my all time favourite product, so I really put a lot of thought into what I would share with you guys this week. After a while, I started to realize that it was waaaaay too hard to find the perfect product, especially since I’m committed to only sharing the best with you guys, so really all of these products are special.
Around the time that I was writing this post, I shared a poll on my twitter account asking my followers which makeup product they could absolutely not live without. For me, it was easy — while I do LOVE highlighter with all my heart, I cannot go out feeling as I’m looking my best without lashes. I’ve tried many mascaras in my lifetime, but none of them blew me away to the extent that I felt that I could go without lashes. For me, falsies are the most important step to creating a polished, finished makeup look.
So this week, I’ll be sharing one of my all-time fave lash brands with you — Lilly Lashes! As you guys may remember from my last Tuesday Favourite lash post, I generally like a more natural look to my falsies. While the Sephora lashes look 100% natural, these lashes certainly look a lot more extreme — which can be exactly what you need for certain makeup looks.
I love pairing these especially with winged eyeliner, as it not only keeps the lashes from looking too extreme, but the lashes themselves are long enough you can still see them perfectly from a distance, even with heavy liner. They make a great bold look, and pair especially well with heavier makeup looks. (Edit: I ended up wearing these on my birthday and got endless comments from my coworkers about how fabulous they looked, so they really are fantastic!).
So, if the natural look isn’t really your thing, or you’re looking to try something a little more bold, give these lashes a shot! Not only are they beautiful, but they last forever so long as you care for them properly.
If you want to check this product out, you can find it on Sephora here!
This week’s posts has to do with a topic that currently has a lot of relevance to my life. This last month, as many of you may have noticed, has been incredibly overwhelming for me. Just one month ago, I began the process of moving into my new apartment — which has been incredibly challenging in itself, because although I’ve been living in Vancouver for five years now, I essentially had to start from scratch. Four months prior, I sold all my furniture and therefore moved into my place without even a bed frame or a mattress. On top of that, I legitimately had to move all my belonging via buses and cabs as I don’t have a drivers licence (and for my fellow Vancouverites, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how painful relying on cabs for absolutely anything is — yet alone moving across town).
However, that was just the beginning of my crazy month. Around the same time, I began a new job as a hostess at a bar — right in time for their “busy season”. As such, my job has been incredibly time consuming and exhausting — I do love the environment and my coworkers, however I also work on my feet in a busy, high-stress environment 6 out of 7 days of the week, leaving me with little energy to complete other tasks when I arrive home.
On top of that, I actually have one more class I’m taking currently — Biopsychology — as well as trying to maintain my blogging schedule, errands and appointments, and of course, a social life.
For a while my stress consumed me entirely — I was hardly able to function. However, I took a step back, reevaluated, and have since began to manage my life a little better. My hope is to be able to share what I’ve learned with you, so that if you’re feeling a little in over your head with life right now, this advice just may help you stay afloat.
Take One Night Off Per Week
Self care is important. If you’ve been following me since I started my blog, you KNOW how big of an advocate I am for taking time off for yourself. If you have a busy schedule, taking a whole day or weekend to spend on yourself may be unrealistic. However, I truly believe everyone should learn to prioritize one night to yourself. Not only does taking a self-care night help you destress and put your upcoming week in perspective, but it helps to refresh you in the way that a night of going out, socializing, or procrastinating never could.
The key here is that you’ll have to learn to manage your time to do this — but trust me, it is WAY more important in the long run to have time to yourself. If you feel like you spend all your time procrastinating on your work and don’t have time, take the self-care night first. Trust me — you’ll have time to do your work after (and you’ll get it done in a much more efficient manner!). I’ve met so many people who claim they don’t have time to take a night to themselves, but really — you do. No matter what, you can always find a few hours to yourself. If it really seems too daunting, just try half an hour a night! It’s still beneficial to feeling refreshed in the long run.
When you take your night off, make sure to clean and tidy up first — maybe it’s just me, but mess gives me anxiety, so I can’t fully relax in an untidy space. Clean up, light a candle, make a tea or drink of your choice and choose a relaxing activity to spend your night on. You’ll feel so much better the next day, trust me.
Make Time To Socialize, But Control Your FOMO
This one was a big learning curve for me. Back when I was in University full time, it felt like I could always make time to socialize — I never once missed a major event for anything. However, especially with work, I’ve had to learn to be okay with missing social events. It doesn’t do you any good to stress about missing out — there will always be another social event. That being said, you should try to make time to see friends a few times a week — it doesn’t have to be anything big! I often grab dinner with my coworkers during my break, and I try to see my friends from University at least once a week.
However, you shouldn’t prioritize your social life over your real life. It can be daunting to learn, and it can make you feel like you’re missing out on events or being left out. If you don’t have time in the week to complete all your tasks, such as work, school, or basic tasks such as showering/cleaning/eating/etc., it may be time to admit you prioritize your social life a little too much. Take a step back and remember your friends aren’t going to forget about you if you can’t attend every party! There’s always going to be another one, so if attending is a detriment to keeping your real life maintained, it may be best to skip out for once.
Learn Prioritizing Over Time Management
Okay, I know prioritizing and time management may kind of sound like the same thing, but hear me out! For those of you who are already fantastic at time management, you may have already gotten this one down. But if you don’t, and feel like you have more going on if your life than you have to fit into your schedule, learn to prioritize the important things first.
For me, my top priorities are school and my job. After that comes keeping a clean room and regular schedule (which I’ll be discussing next!). Unfortunately, next comes blogging — while I wish I could make it more of a priority, making sure I complete my class and show up on time for work are more important. Next is scheduling appointments — personally, I know getting my eyes checked and attaining my drivers licence is more important, unfortunately, than my current dire need for a hair cut. Next comes other things, such as seeing friends and decorating my apartment, for example.
Everyone has their own priorities, but I’ve learned to accept that while I may have to wait a few weeks to have time available to get my eyes tested or buy furniture, I will get there eventually (and I can get by in the meantime). Time management, for me, has become more than just scheduling my daily activities — it’s learning what has to be done RIGHT NOW, versus this week, versus sometime this month or even year. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it could be a good practice to try this out — it can help you from feeling in over your head with all your responsibilities.
Keep A Clean Room And Regular Schedule
Part of feeling overwhelmed may be your environment or lifestyle. For me, my life feels 100% less complicated when I have a clean room, am showered and put together, and have had 8 hours of sleep the night before. With my job’s unusual and ever-changing hours, it’s not always possible to plan out going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day. But I’m always sure to get at least 7 hours, shower before I leave, and not let my personal space get too messy.
So many people love to brag about how they were up until 5 am last night completing tasks, and are running on a mere 3 hours of sleep — but that’s super unhealthy and deep down we all know it. Plus honestly, it’s often unnecessary to live life that way. If you can just maintain these three basic things, it will help you feel like you have your life under control.
I’ve discovered maintaining sleep and my space has had a huge impact on my overall health as well — a few years back, I was the QUEEN of all-nighters and pulling off tasks at the last possible minute. However, I spent years feeling crappy and tired and my immune system was almost non-existent — seriously, it felt like I was always sick. In the last two months, even with how crazy busy I’ve been, I’ve yet to stay up late completing tasks and have managed to look at least a little put together whenever I leave my house. So far, I’ve managed to avoid getting sick — fingers crossed I keep it up!
Take A Breather
Sometimes you need to stop, take a minute, and realize that everything is going to be okay. It may feel like everything happening now is the end of the world (over the last few years, I’ve dealt with this feeling more times that I could ever count). However, no matter what you have going on right now, you will survive this. Plus, probably won’t even remember it in a month’s time. As long as you keep moving forward, everything is going to be okay.
The only thing that can hurt you, really, is not moving forward with your tasks. Odds are, you’ll push through whatever’s ahead just fine. But, let’s say you don’t. You fail a test, maybe, or crazy, worst-case scenario — you get fired. It’s going to be okay. It happens to so many people who are able to move on to great things afterwards. Just keep moving forward, remember that whatever’s happening probably isn’t as life-ending as it feels in this moment, and everything will be fine eventually.
And that’s my advice to you all this week! Maybe this doesn’t work for everyone, but personally, I’ve found it all to be life-changing. Two weeks ago, I couldn’t cope with everything I had going on — but now I feel like my life is back on track. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep up with blogging a little better, too — I’ve had so many many things recently I’ve been dying to share with you all! So stay tuned for a couple of super-delayed posts in the next few weeks, and remember, if you’re feeling overwhelmed — just take a step back and reevaluate. It’s going to be okay.
If you have any advice relating to this topic, feel free to share! I’m still learning myself and would love to hear it.
Stay tuned this Tuesday for my upcoming Favourites post — for real, this week! I promise!
Lots of love, and take care of yourself this week!
Glossier Balm Dotcom in Birthday, Rose, and Coconut
Welcome back friends!
This Tuesday I wanted to share my absolute fave lip balm with you, Glossier’s Balm Dotcom. This was the first product I ever bought from Glossier, and immediately I was sold. I have a couple other fave lip balms that I may share a post on that work just as well as these, but these ones really are my favourite.
First of all, since purchasing these my lips have almost never been chapped since. Even when they’re completely dry, they feel smooth. On the rare occasion my lips do get chapped, this fixes it up 100% within a few hours. No more fighting chapped, painful lips for days. Seriously, these lip balms have your back.
Second of all, the tube makes them super easy to apply. While I do love solid lip chaps that come in a lipstick tube, I kind of struggle with ones than come in a pot as I always have acrylics on that make it hard to remove the product. But something about the somewhat-liquid form of this product makes it work soooooo much better than other lip balms I try, plus you can apply as much or as little as you want.
Even better, although this may be kind of “meant” for lips, it does work anywhere on your skin. I’m often prone to getting small, super-dry patches on my upper arms, elbows and knees, but this stuff helps moisturize these areas as well.
AND, on top of everything else, they have 7 flavours/tints to pick from! I personally generally like to stick to neutral colours for lip balms, but if tinted is more your vibe, they have you covered. Plus if you order three, they’re discounted!
Anyways, enough ranting from me. You get it. These lip balms are amazing. It’s probably dramatic to say they were life-changing, but they kind of were. If this sounds like something you’re looking for, you can buy them on Glossier here!
That’s it from me for now! Hope y’all are having a great Tuesday.
Hope you’re having a lovely Tuesday! This week I figured I’d share one of my new favourite products, the Tarte Rainforest of the Sea Deep Sea Collagen Super Serum! I know I promised a post on all my skincare soon but I had to share, because MAN do I love this stuff.
I had spent a while wondering how to include a collagen-based product into my skincare routine for a while when I stumbled across this product at a Tarte online sale. I got a tester bottle on a whim, but the instant I tried it I wished I had bought the full-size product. First of all, collagen is amazing for your skin. This product boasts that it improves the skin’s plumpness, brightness and firmness and it really does live up to the hype.
Not only that, but my skin feels immediately smoother and incredibly soft directly after application. I love to use this product in the morning as it absorbs super quickly, leaving my face feeling refreshed — and it doesn’t interfere with my makeup application after! I’ve read online that collagen is most effective when ingested (ie. supplements) which I’d love to try, but the effect of this product is clear as day on your face as well.
If this product speaks to you, be sure to check it out here!
Sometime soon I’m going to do a whole post on my full skincare routine, so I’ll keep it brief. I find a lot of toners contain alcohol, which is super drying for your skin. My skin is already incredibly dry as is, so I don’t want to put anything on it that may irritate it more.
Before using this product, I was using the Fresh Rose Floral Toner, which is also a great alcohol free toner for dry skin (and apparently also a setting spray? Which I had no idea about until I searched up the product to add the link but! The more you know!) However, one day went I went to go grab a re-fill, this product caught my eye. The Rose Deep Hydration Facial Toner seemed like the same product, only better, so I did a little research. I was hesitant to change products from something I’ve been using for so long as I was worried that the excess hydration would cause breakouts or oiliness.
The one largest complaint online about this product is the rose petals in the bottle clogging the spout (which have yet to be an issue for me), so I decided to go for it. Now that I have, I would never switch back. Yeah, the rose toner was great and didn’t leave me with feelings of tightness or dryness. But this stuff is EVEN BETTER. It contains hyaluronic acid, which is amazing for hydration, as well as being alcohol free.
I’ve been using this stuff for a month or so now and I’ve already seem changes in the freshness of my skin, the hydration, as well as the appearance that my skin is more even and radiant. Seriously, this stuff is amazing. If this sounds like the product you’ve been looking for, check it out on Sephora here!
That’s all for now, be sure to check back in next Tuesday for more!
Sincerely, Meredith 