Hey everyone!!

This week in class I was tasked with creating a “family tree.” Not my biological tree though. I had to make a tree of people who influenced me and then dive a little further back into those people’s histories.

I came up with five people: Jeffree Star, James Charles, Jaclyn Hill, Jackie Aina and Jordi from itslikelymakeup. These people have all influenced my makeup journey and without them I am pretty sure I would have no interest in this hobby at all. They are creative, intelligent and inspiring. When I began my tree I started with my all time favorite, Jeffree Star. Jeffree has such an extensive history. Fun fact: he didn’t even get his start in makeup, it was in music. After music, he quickly transitioned into makeup where he created his own brand which includes apparel and accessories as well.

Another inspiration of mine is James Charles. He has the most creative content of any YouTuber I have ever watched. He also, just so happens, to get inspiration from Jeffree Star. James is 19 so he grew up watching a lot of the same people that I do. Jeffree and James also have in common that they have both collaborated with Morphe cosmetics. James made an eye shadow pallet and Jeffree made a brush collection with them. It was interesting to see my little family tree overlap a little bit. Jeffree’s brand has gotten so big he was able to collaborate with other YouTubers, like MannyMUA, to release a product. James is on the rise as well with his brand Sisters apparel.

Next up, Jaclyn Hill. She is a beauty queen and one of the very first people to get started up in the make up community. Jaclyn has a very heavy background in makeup having started this journey working at Mac Cosmetics. Funny enough though, she also has a collaboration with Morphe. Jaclyn has released 5 pallets and a brush set with them. Seems like Morphe and I get our inspo from the same place.

Jackie Aina is an interesting character. I got into her randomly by just watching too much YouTube to be honest. I came across a video and instantly loved her material. I find that she has honest reviews of products and her application of them is flawless. She has a collaboration with Sigma brushes but what stuck out to me the most about her wasn’t any of those things. Jackie is an extreme activist for color inclusivity in the makeup community. Not enough people who have a big voice choose to use it to talk about important issues and she does.

Lastly, I chose one of the YouTubers I have been following for a while, Jordi. Jordi is the only makeup artist that I follow that doesn’t live in the United States, she is from Canada. I also cannot seem to find her last name anywhere. I included Jordi because she has a couple of collaborations as well as her own makeup line. Her collaborations are with Furless Cosmetics (furless, meaning vegan). She has a lip gloss and brush set with that company, but the brush set was limited edition so I can’t hyperlink that unfortunately.

Well that’s my tree guys! I hope you like it. Let me know if ours overlap at all!

Hey beauty lovers!!

This week I made a game. It is no secret that I love make up, so when I was faced with the task of creating this game I wanted to base it off of something that I like. I also wanted to involve my blog audience, too. I feel that submitting it onto my blog would give me a quick way to reach out to a very large audience.

A benefit of the application that I used, Twine, is that my project will be on a hyperlink. I can upload this game anywhere. If I wanted to text it to someone I could or upload it to facebook/Instagram/Twitter. Being able to upload it to those platforms will give me a lot of feedback and I’ll get it quickly too!

So what is the game? I developed a program where you can pick my makeup for me. In class this week, like I said, I learned about interactive narratives and this example fits in perfectly for all my followers on here. If you follow this link you can play the game and then let me know what look you ended up with!

The application I used was Twine and it was very easy for first time users. I was able to navigate the website quickly and get a hyperlink to the project with very little conflict. When designing a network structured narrative I think this would be the easiest application to use.

What I thought was pretty fun about the project was how many different outcomes I could come up with. (*Spoiler*) In the game I have a hair, eye shadow, eyelash, and lipstick option and that created 16 different makeup looks. This is exciting because that means everyone that plays can get a different look!

Designing this actually wasn’t the easiest thing I have ever done. I thought I would be able to just make the networking structure of the narrative from the beginning and work my way forward on the computer. (The picture below is what the format looked like) That was not how this worked. That strategy became very hard, very quickly. I came up with the idea, which was the makeover, then had to come up with all of the options I wanted and then draw out the web on a separate sheet of paper. So, I drew all of the little branching parts and labeled them and that made it waayyyy easier to do step-by-step on the computer.

Something that I can take away from this project is to. Plan. Things. Out. I was so rushed and just wanted to throw everything together and this application quickly showed me that slow and steady wins the race. Planning out the networking structure of the project on paper first, then actually designing it saved me so much time in the long run.

If you play the game, leave a comment below and let me know what makeup look you get and if you liked it! I hope you guys enjoy the game, let me know what you think!!

Hey guys! Back again with some interesting thoughts in the beauty world. Don’t you think it would be cool to be able to pick your favorite makeup artists’ look for the day? Like select the foundation they use and what concealer? Well now you can!

Sites like Instagram and Twitter have a cool feature now where you can set up polls and have your followers vote on them. I feel that beauty gurus have really honed in on this and used it to their benefit. Their viewers would love to feel involved in what they do and this creates an interactive environment that followers seem to love.

How do they use this feature to their benefit? Simple. There are several steps to a makeup tutorial that require different products to be used. Foundation, eye shadow pallets, and lipsticks are all things that can be voted on. A common way for a YouTuber to set this up would be to have a poll say “Which lipstick should I use today?” And underneath of that there would be two options; Mac or Tarte. The Social media users then vote on which they would rather see the Makeup artist use.

The cool thing about this method of interaction is that the viewers don’t know what the makeup look will be until the YouTuber uploads the video. James Charles did this a while back in this video. I also thought it was pretty cool how he showed the percentages from the polls on the screen. It doesn’t show how many people vote though so I can’t tell which platform would be the most popular. For James, he has 15 million followers on Instagram and 3.4 million followers on Twitter so Instagram probably works better for follower involvement.

Overall I feel that this is a very unique way for followers to be involved in a makeup journey. I have definitely taken part in one of these polls and then went to YouTube to see if what I picked made it in the video!

Hello All! This week, instead of some beauty guru goodness, I’ll be telling you about how I combined Instagram elements into a project– Enjoy!

The inspiration for this story came from my use of Instagram. I love that social media platform for personal use and thought it would be fun to incorporate that into a project. I tried to mix that into my blog topic which is beauty so the first thing that came to my head was “#love”. Since it was a remix, I decided to combine #love and #hate and see how opposites attract. The fun part about this was formatting the text of the captions from the #hate posts onto the pictures from the #love posts: picking the font style, the font color and the layout… I love that kind of stuff! The challenging part was having the captions make sense with the picture that I paired it with.

I think this project carried an element of unexpectedness because from looking at the posts, they kind of just look like regular photos. The elements combine so well from two sources that don’t- love and hate. But that was my intention, I wanted to show that opposites can mix together in a good way. Which ultimately made my theme “opposites attract”. The blending of those elements also made this a little more than just Instagram posts. I was able to convey a message.

There were many artistic choices I made with this project. First, I decided to get my content from profiles all over the world. I got some pictures and captions from Peru, Spain and Germany. This made things a little hard when trying to read the captions though. Second, I used different fonts for the different pictures and that was able to contribute to the meaning of the picture. For example, with the cherry blossom picture, I was able to use a light script to convey a soft message rather than a dark bold font. Lastly, I was able to change the font of the caption to match the photo. In the pizza picture for example, the color didn’t contribute to the meaning of the image, it just made the font easier to read. Other font colors were chosen to match the tone of the picture. I could add dark font to make the meaning deeper or white/light font to make the message seem happier.

Instagram had the advantage of providing me with a lot of content within seconds. The hashtag #love has over 1.5 billion posts, so I had a lot to choose from. I found it difficult to combine the captioning though, from a technical standpoint. I had to screenshot the image from #love and then exit that search screen. Then, search #hate and find a coordinating caption. After that, I emailed all the pictures and captions to myself and had to format them within my sideshow. It wasn’t difficult, but it was kind of repetitive and allowed room for error when transferring the captions to the image since I typed them onto the image.

I learned something very valuable through this project though, which goes deeper than just the combination of love and hate. This project made me realize that anyone, from anywhere, doing anything can take your information from the internet. I am a girl from the US, making a post for class with images from couples in Germany who just posted the image for their own pleasure- and they have no idea. Although I did credit their post and I did nothing improper with it, that can’t be said for everyone on the internet though.

Thanks for listening and I hope you liked it!

Hello my beauty lovers… This week I tried something a little different. I put down the blending brushes and mascara and traded it for oven mitts and a baking pan. I made cookies!

I wanted to post this baking journey on Instagram because it seemed like a cool new way to experience baking for me. I thought I could explain my process in detail which is different for Instagram. For example, my third post had two paragraphs of explanation to it but a normal caption for Instagram might only have two words, “baking time.” But I thought that was pretty cool, like a story time!

I also really like how the form I picked, Instagram, works with baking. I can post a picture for each little part of the story and it also posts it in order! I could have used other social media, like twitter, but that has a word limit on captions so that wouldn’t have worked. The hashtags I used also let me interact with anyone who comes across the tags. They can follow the page, like my posts and follow along with the story.

I found it very entertaining to post this story in chronological order. I was able to space out the posts so they were done in time with the baking process. For example, I allowed 10-20 minutes in between the mixing picture and the picture with the dough on the pan. This allows for a very genuine, real-time experience with my audience! Although that was the fun part of this experience it was also kind of difficult. I had to make sure I took pictures at every stage, posted them in order and, make sure the caption was typed up in time to post before the next step. In order to make sure I did all of this correctly, I made sure to make the recipe first and then focus on the social media. For example, the second post was of all of the ingredients. I read the recipe, measured the ingredients and then took a picture. This allowed me to make sure the recipe was taken care of and then I could work on my captions later.

Some artistic choices I used during this project were my captions and a filter that I threw on the last post. The filter made the burned cookies look a little better. Instagram is usually used to post successful things and enhance good things, so, since this was a fail, I tried to make it look a little better. In my captions I was able to add emojis to make my long captions a little more personable which added a fun aspect to it as well. The hashtags I added to my baking post also gained me some follows from other baking pages! My friends and family followed the page as well and shared some love with likes and comments on all of my posts.

This storytelling was unique because Instagram allowed me to release my content quickly. As soon as I typed it up, it was ready to go. I think from now on though I will keep my posts limited to only one a night or maybe make my captions a little shorter… I noticed my likes went down as the night went on so maybe it had to do with that. Instagram has a cool feature where you can select to post more than one picture at a time and use a single caption for all of them instead of blowing up your followers timelines with (burnt) cookies for an hour.

Overall, I think my social media & baking account was so much fun! Maybe I can run this beauty blog and a new baking page… any thoughts?? Before my next baking post I think I should figure out what burned those cookies though! Haha

Hey guys!! I’ve recently discovered my favorite way of finding new make-up looks/ideas. I really like compilation videos or “mash-ups”, they show a bunch of different looks in one video. Some videos show a lot of eye shadow looks done by one YouTuber or like this video, you can draw inspiration from more than one artist.

These videos are awesome too, because they allow for another artists’ twist to be added to the look if they recreate it. They can remix the look! For example, if someone watches a tutorial of a bronze smoked out eye shadow look, they can recreate that and then add a thick eye-liner to it. That way you can still see where the inspiration came from but also, what new element was added to it.

James Charles does an amazing job at demonstrating 1) how to recreate a look but 2) how to add your own personal touch in this video. He shows what look he is going to draw inspiration from and does it (quite perfectly). Then, instead of putting yellow on the inner corner of both eyes, he does pink on one. A very simple, but easy way to create a selective remix!

I feel like originality with makeup totally depends on your outlook and passion in the field. If you just wear make up for work or don’t enjoy the process for putting it on you can wear the same look all the time. For YouTubers, however, originality is their career! People watching YouTubers want to see new creative content. No one is going to continue to watch new videos of the same make up tutorial.

Originality for make up brands is also imperative. Sales for a company will plummet if they keep releasing the same product. People who have purchased it already are not going to purchase a second version and this will cause you to lose customers. Not releasing new products consistently will also make gaining new customers hard.

I am sure we have all heard of the James Charles x Morphe collab. This is my personal favorite brand-YouTuber collaboration. In this collaboration, James created an eye shadow pallet with the well-established make-up brand, Morphe Cosmetics. The pallet is stunning and it has every shade you could ever need for an eye shadow look. James made sure to include vibrant rainbow colors for detailed looks as well as brown and black shades for a blown out smokey eye. All of his other fans must have been looking forward to it as well because it has sold out EVERY time they restock it.

James mentioned that the only bump they ran into in the production process was that he wanted to perfect the formula of the eye shadows before the pallet released. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it does require Morphe’s labs to continue testing the shadows as well as pushing back the release date until the testing phase is over.

Technology, YouTube in particular, was a great way for James to announce his collab. As soon as he uploaded his video it was able to reach his 1 million subscribers as well as any person who uses YouTube. He was able to swatch all of the colors, show some eye looks that he created with the pallet, and easily reach all of the people that the content is suited for.

Collaborating is such a unique way to blend the beauty community; you get to create and share ideas and products in such a fun way. James is a huge internet name, so collaborating with Morphe was good for him as an influencer to put his name on a product and for Morphe as a business to sell that product. Working together gets both of their names out and then they are both able to profit from the product. . . Everybody wins!

Hello and welcome back beauty lovers… Today we are going to be talking about hacking. Not like computer hacking and stealing passwords though. I am going to be telling all you lovely listeners some of my favorite beauty hacks! So, “hack” in this sense is just something to make your life easier.

I am super into very detailed eye shadow. Smokey eye shadow is a great way to enhance your eye shape. . . That is, if it is done correctly! I personally noticed when I first started using eyeshadow that I could get the shadows to blend nicely but then I would get an ugly cloud of pigment on my outer corner. This is where all of the fall-out would land and where all of the colors mesh together as well.
This first trick will help you get the perfect shape every time. Putting clear Scotch tape under your bottom eyelid to shape your eye-shadow while you blend it out will give you a clean line every time. When you are satisfied with your blending abilities simply take the tape off and reveal your look.
Bonus: For those of you into winged eyeliner it will also give a great guide for that as well.

The second hack will be good for any of you who love mascara as much as I do (which is a lot). Have you ever gotten a mascara and noticed that it got flaky and dry too quick? This hack will help you save your mascara and get a few more uses out of it. All you have to do is put the mascara in hot water. Let your mascara hang out in the hot water for about 10-15 minutes and take it out. This should make the formula a little better.
This will usually be enough help but if your mascara needs a little more redemption you can add eye drops! This is good for all you beauty lovers with sensitive eyes because you can pick the drops that go in as well. Just add 3-4 drops and stir it with the mascara wand and you’ll be good to go.

This last hack is for all my people with long hair. Im talking long hair. I came across this hack when my hair grew further than about halfway down my back. Curling my hair took forever, my arms would get sore and half of the curls would fall out into straight pieces before I was even done!
This hack is simple; Put your hair in a high ponytail, and then curl 1 inch pieces. This will allow you to skip having to section your hair off and then curl it. You also wont have to worry about curling it left-to-right or top-to-bottom. Just take pieces of hair in any order, curl them and then, take the
ponytail out.
I noticed with my hair that this method also adds some volume since all of the curls aren’t going the same way. If you notice that taking the ponytail out after curling your hair damages the curls too much, try wrapping the ponytail one less time. This will make sure that the hair isn’t pulled as tightly when you are all finished!

See guys, hacking isn’t so bad after all. I use these hacks all the time and I love them. Beauty hacks are just a way to get glam and get going!

mo·ti·va·tion
n. 
1)The act or an instance of motivating, or providing with a reason to act in a certain way. 2)The state or condition of being motivated or having a strong reason to act or accomplish something.
3)Something that motivates; inducement; incentive

I had such an easy week. Such an easy, snow-piled, freezing-temperature filled week. I had all of my assignments lined up to do: Marketing homework due Wednesday, a Forensics exam Thursday, and a Physio Psych exam and a blog post Friday. I’ve had weeks with a lot more and weeks with a heck of a lot less.
I had nothing to do Monday or Tuesday but I found myself not doing anything to help prepare for these four manageable tasks. I was running in circles finding useless things to do.

I went grocery shopping. I went to Bath and Body Works. I hung out with friends. Then, classes got cancelled Thursday.. YAY! No Forensics Exam! No studying for my Forensics exam. Which then just fed into this lazy cycle I had found myself in. Literally anything that involved procrastinating I was doing.

So, after a week of doing nothing, I walked into my physio exam completely unprepared, and then I decided. I decided that I hated the anxious feeling that not studying gave me.

In short, I struggled and didn’t like it. So, I am going to use this post as a motivational reference. If I find myself in a rut I can read it. If I am bored I can read it. And If I find myself completely unmotivated, I can read it. As I post this, I am going to make it public, so maybe you can too.

Snap. Add filter. Post.

And there ya go. that’s all it takes for a post to reach millions (filter optional). Okay, well for me the post would only reach like 600 people but that’s besides the point. The point is, with make up brands that is all it takes to reach millions.

New Product? Post it. New makeup tutorial? Post it. New Hair Style?
Post. It.
Social media has revolutionized the beauty community. Instead of having to go through television commercials like car brands, clothing companies and other organizations, makeup brands cracked the social media code.

I mean, even the inspiration to write this post came from an advertisement for ColourPop’s new hyped-up mascara.
Want to know where I found the ad? On Instagram! It is the company’s first mascara and they went all out. 7 colors, including a plain black but ranging from pastel purple to a beautiful blue.
All of the advertising?? On social media. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who found out from that post since it has thousands of comments and likes already.

ColourPop isn’t even the most popular make up brand in the world but, with 6.9 million followers (including myself),
a single post helps their advertising game so much. Social media is for more than just selfies and I think brands like ColourPop got it all figured out.