Make-Up to Self-Love: My Journey to GenBeauty

Ahhh it feels good to be back from a long hiatus! Sorry for the wait, but I ended up on a different journey than I had anticipated. For those of you that have been following my blog, you may have caught that I made it a goal to do more make-up. If not, you can read more about that here. What I didn't realize is that my goal was actually making up for what I was truly lacking - self-love.

Before this year, I really fell off in everything, but mostly, I fell off in taking care of myself. I gave up on how I looked, I barely even looked in the mirror, thinking that I "didn't need to." That I was past the stage of vanity and too old to be into how I look. I gave up on my hobbies, thinking that I need to spend all my time getting my life together, and shouldn't waste my time on anything that didn't promise a return. I don't even know where and how this mentality started but I know everything changed as soon as I started giving myself and my passions attention again.

I don't know (and honestly don't care to recall >,<) how long I was feeling this way, but I know that a gig towards the end of last year changed everything. I hadn't done a performance in awhile and realized crap, I have no cute clothes, no idea how to do my make-up anymore, what am I going to do? I obsessed looking all over the internet for ideas on what to wear and how to look because I became so detached from the "fashion/beauty" world. I ended up getting so inspired from spending hours perusing Instagram and Pinterest that I practiced putting on make-up and putting together different outfits. I lost track of time in doing so because I was so into it, and I missed feeling that way. I decided that in the next year, which is now this year, I would do more of what brought that feeling which I thought was make-up.

I felt I owed so much to the social media community for bringing back this fire in me, that I also made it a goal to share as much as I had consumed. I wanted to ignite that same fire in someone, because of how good it made me feel. That became my motivation. So I posted, everyday. Make-up looks, how-to videos, just trying to stay as consistent as I could. Fast forward to now, I ended up catching some of my favorite brands attention and I started receiving PR packages. I even got accepted into the ipsyOS Creator program where I attended GenBeauty as a Creator for the first time.

I will write a separate post on the actual event with a vlog but I wanted to write a precursor onto how I even got into the event in the first place. I had to be in a place of self-acceptance before I would have even considered stepping foot in an event like this, and I'm happy with how all my resolutions played out. It was never about make-up.. Beauty doesn't come from make-up. It comes from making yourself feel good enough to put yourself out there. It just so happens that taking the time to put on make-up and allowing myself to, is what helped me feel beautiful. We all have flaws and acceptance is key. Make-up was never meant to cover them up, but rather accentuate other features we can be proud of.

What I loved about GenBeauty was a lot of vendors acknowledged our possible differences and capitalized on that. For example, Briogeo customized their best-selling hair treatment with oils that correspond to individual hairtypes. Purlisse customized selections of samples based on peoples skin. But what I loved most was this wall they built called "Speak Pretty" where women could leave positive notes in this wall and receive a positive note for themselves. It was so empowering and that positivity to me, is beauty.

I used to think these kind of events were corny but I honestly think, you can gain something from everything. It's really what you make out of it. I'm really happy I went and I can't wait to share my experience with you in the next post! Did you go to GenBeauty? What did you love most about it, and what brought you there? Let me know in the comments below!