Day 25: Beauty And The Mom

Before I begin with today's blog, I just want to say thank you. After yesterday's blog, so many of you reached out to me, offering kind words and well wishes for my big reunion with my little brother. I'm happy to report that everything went well beyond my best expectations. My little brother turned out to another slightly varying version of me and my older brother. Within ten minutes I felt like I had known him my whole life. Turns out I'm not so unlovable, and thanks to all of you who were kind enough to take the time to remind me of that. I've got nothing but love for each and every one of you.

We look so much better when we're not all crying our eyes out!

 Now, back to business.

As I have mentioned (many times over), I am a Twitter fiend. As far as I'm concerned, social media is a disease for which there is no cure. And even if there was a cure, I wouldn't want to be treated. I would be crawling under the barbed wire fence of Twitter rehab, desperate to escape.  I don't want to quit! And  you can't make me!

A pleasant side effect of my addiction, however, is that I have discovered some incredibly interesting people and things that I may not have ever discovered here on Mom Island, where I typically reside. But out of everything I've been exposed to, I've surprised myself by liking beauty blogs the best.

It's not because I'm particularly into fashion, trends or keeping up with a strict beauty regime, but for almost the opposite reason. Maybe once upon a time, back in a life that doesn't really feel like it was ever mine now, I was moderately concerned with being stylish, but now I'm mostly just concerned with being clean and awake. Mine is almost a scientific fascination that stems from looking at things that I can't possible comprehend or figure out how to fit into my own life. I'm a mom. And while that doesn't make a difference for a lot of people, for me it does. I have approximately thirteen seconds to myself everyday and if I'm not hastily trying to scrape out a blog or emptying a dishwasher that is somehow, inexplicably, always full, I'm sleeping. Beauty tends to rank pretty low on the list. False eyelashes? Lip stains? Make-up primer? Ain't nobody got no time for that. But cargo pants and strawberry chapstick? I'm all over it. My utter lack of glamor isn't depressing so much as it is a simple fact of life. I wouldn't know how to look pulled-together if pulled-together smacked me upside the head. Sad, but true.

And yet here I am, completely obsessed with beauty blogs.Yeah, I guess I don't really get  it either.

My favorite beauty blog (there are many, many to chose from) is a great little nugget of joy called Into The Gloss.If you've never checked it out before, what are you waiting for? I highly recommend it. It's a beautiful blog (sounds like a no-brainer considering it's almost exclusively about beauty and beauty-related things, but you'd be surprised by how many ugly ones are out there) but the best part about Into The Gloss is the writing. Words can't express (ironically) how great the writing is. It manages to be relevant and informative, but also hilarious and...human. And really, the thing that's held me back from liking beauty blogs all this time (aside from my aforementioned momness) has been the writing. A majority of beauty columns, blogs, or articles have always seemed rather dry and humorless to me. Not to mention mind-numbingly boring.  Do I want to read a dry, mechanical twenty-two step process  to get your nail polish to dry faster? Not especially. Do I want to hear about how a famous NBA player is oddly, inexplicably, obsessed with a ridiculously expensive face cream usually reserved for people like Sharon Stone? You bet I do. You'd be amazed by the things I'm willing to read about, if they're well-written. All of the lovely people at Into the Gloss seem to realize and embrace this fact. It's obvious that they are people who love the beauty and fashion industry while at the same time not taking themselves too seriously when it comes to the things that they write about. It's a beauty blog, not a cure for cancer, but it's fun and feel-good. Two things that we could all use a little bit more of sometimes, in my humble opinion. Even the sloppy, slightly out-of-touch mamas of the world.

And who knows, maybe I'll read enough of it so that some rubs off on me but if not, that's cool too. In the romantic comedy of life, I'm more of the funny, slightly frumpy best friend than the dazzling, stylish Kate Hudson-esque protagonist. But don't worry, that's completely fine with me.

Cargo pants are wicked comfortable.