I'm one of those people that's never really had a thing. I'm not especially, stand-out good at anything, I don't really have any talents as such and growing up I seriously felt that. I play the comparison game way too much as it is, and when I was younger it was even worse. I played the trumpet but there was someone better than me and I wasn't really that good. I was awful at sports, I couldn't understand music or sing, in art class I was consistently one of the worst and academically I was only ever mediocre and average in my classes. I wasn't particularly pretty or outgoing or confident either, I didn't have loads of friends and I wasn't part of the popular group who were friends with the boys from the school over the road. Nothing I did ever really stood out or got any attention - basically, I've been a bit average my whole life and I've always felt that. I think some of it is due to seven years at grammar schools which put a massive amount of academic pressure on you, and I'm also convinced part of it comes from being a middle child - middle child syndrome is real, don't fight me. 

Things changed a lot when I left my first secondary school and started somewhere fresh for sixth form. I'd started my blog at this point and I'd begun to feel I was quite good at writing and being a helping hand for people who needed it. But the other thing that I'd fallen in love with at that point was makeup. I started wearing makeup when I was around fourteen - at my first school we weren't allowed to wear it until Year 10 so I didn't really know much about makeup until then. But I loved watching YouTube videos and reading beauty blogs and that's where my appreciation for makeup started. I discovered facepainting and SFX when I was about sixteen and that's when I felt that makeup was really becoming my thing. I went from strength to strength when I learned how to do winged eyeliner in December 2015 (genuinely it changed my life) and this is I guess where I really fell in love with the art of makeup.

I started my Instagram account and people actually seemed to like my SFX stuff and my bodypainting, and even crappy close up pictures of my eye makeup of the day and I genuinely remember feeling so excited because I thought I'd finally found my thing. And turns out I had - I started getting more followers and my friends at school used to wait to see what makeup I'd wear that day, which glitter I'd use or if I did blue eyeliner. I remember one teacher telling me that my blue eyeliner was 'perhaps a little too bright for school' and I nearly gaped, astonished at her audacity. As I said earlier, I've never been a particularly outgoing person in terms of my demeanour or the clothes I wear and at that point makeup became the way I expressed myself - I wore glittery eyeshadow and blue eyeliner because I loved it, I loved the process of doing my makeup in the morning, half an hour of complete solidarity all to myself. I looked forward to doing it each morning and taking a picture and posting it on Instagram. I think the point where I really went makeup is MY thing was when I got voted 'best eyebrows' and 'best makeup' in my Year 13 yearbook polls last year!! The euphoria was real, kids.

University only developed my love - while I stopped bodypainting because I didn't want to be 'weird' I discovered that Manchester is much more open to crazy colourful eyeshadow and cool eyeliner than my little southern town is, and now that's my norm, it's actually rare to see me in neutral colours and no winged eyeliner now! And honestly, the online beauty community has just been wonderful - the inspiration and support I get online is madness and I feel like I'm in such a good place with my skills right now. I still have so much to learn but I'm getting better and learning more with each look I do and each look that gets more and more support just gives me even more confidence in myself and my skills and my 'thing' and the fact I have a thing - and it feels bloody brilliant.

Oh - and just to keep me humble and to remind everyone that practise is EVERYTHING (and having way too much time on my hands) here's a five year throwback.

Em xx

Does Taking A Break Make Me A Bad Blogger? | Life Update

You know, I've really been struggling with blogging lately. I've been struggling with things in my personal life too - relationships, moving home, my attitudes to my body and health, just a lot of things seemed to have been going south recently and as a result my blog plummeted south as well. So I took a break. And some would say that it makes me a bad blogger because at the end of the day, I've got an audience and I've got a duty (?) to keep up posting and I made myself feel like a bad blogger and like I owed something to my followers and while some would argue I do, I'd argue I don't actually 'owe' anyone anything.

I think it's important to stress that I do this as a hobby, I don't want to have the pressure on myself to constantly be posting new and exciting content, I remember the days when I literally used to just bash out a someday summary, chuck in my last selfie taken on a Samsung Galaxy Fame and publish it just like that. And honestly, I wish blogging was still as simple as that. There was no pressure to find the perfect flower wall photo location or pose perfectly or have a gorgeous flatlay or write something deep and meaningful - this platform used to be my online diary of sorts and I kind of want to take it back to that - to it's roots, you could say. So that's pretty much what this post is - just a someday summary life update kinda post because, even though it's perhaps not the sort of post people want to be reading, it's what I want to write and surely my platform means my rules?

So what have I been up to in my break, I hear you ask?! Well, honestly not much. Like I said, my big move from halls to house was done and it went very smoothly (apart from someone getting attacked right outside my house the first night, and then my housemate's key getting stolen in the post - I aged thirty years that night out of pure stress and worry but luckily there's no way of tracking the key to the house so we gooood) and honestly, I'm so ready for next year because our house is so lovely and I just wanna live there already!! If anyone wants a post on my house and the move from halls to house let me know!

Like I said, I've been getting back to my roots a bit and with that has come getting back into my makeup and my arty farty looks  which is so much fun!! I've got a post coming out in a few days about why makeup means so much to me but trust me, this got me emotional seeing how good my most recent look turned out - you'd be right in thinking I nearly cried at the amount of love I got on it but then couldn't cry because wet glitter just is not the one.

I also turned 19!! I feel like I wait ages for my birthdays to roll around for some reason haha because all my friends are older than me! This year was a little different as both my mum and dad were at work, my older sister is up in Manchester and my little sister is on NCS so I faced the prospect of a birthday alone at home - until my grandma heard and her exact words were 'well, we can't have that!! Think about what you'd like to do and you and me will go out!' so we spent a lovely day in Waterperry Gardens in Oxford (call me boring but I love public gardens) and we also had afternoon tea which was SO GOOD. This is also where all the pretty flower photos breaking up this post came from!!

I think that's about all to update on at the moment to be honest! My July vlog will be coming out in a couple of weeks if you're interested in seeing what I got up to on video - I'm also umming and aahing over whether to start doing makeup tutorials again? I'd really like to but at the same time I never feel like they're very good or helpful, YouTube is hard enough to grow on as it is so I might stick to Instagram for the time being! Let me know if you feel differently though.

What have you been up to recently?

Em xx