June 2018 – A Midwest Belle

Hi, friends!

I’m back and so excited to jump into the swing of things again! The first thing I wanted to share with you all was my June Ipsy bag.

I’ve gotten a lot of subscription boxes in the past 3 years, but the only one I’ve stuck with is Ipsy. While this is definitely personal preference based on what you want to get from your subscriptions, Ipsy delivered what I had wanted: lots of makeup, and fun/unique products.

The past few months my excitement for Ipsy has waned a little, as the products they’ve been sending haven’t been up to usual standards for me. That doesn’t mean that I plan on getting rid of it, however! I still love Ipsy and intend to continue receiving it.

This month, the bag is incredibly summery and bright! Yellow is fast becoming a favorite color of mine, which is surprising since so many people seem to dislike it. I love the bold color blocks and could definitely see myself using it.

You can also see the spread of products I got this month! I prefer colored makeup products, but I do really enjoy the cute aesthetics with some of these so I can forgive the lack of makeup.

I don’t have a closeup of the brush unfortunately, but it’s the Firma Beauty 102 Elite Blush Brush ($15.99). The bristles feel nice and soft, but I’m not sure I would ever pay that much for a brush. I tend to use the same brushes every time I do my makeup. Still, this is great quality and I think I’ll make an effort to try it out soon!

The next product that took my attention were these sheet masks!

These are the Biobelle #UnicornGlow Perfect Radiance Facial Masks ($4.99 each). I haven’t taken these out yet, but I think the packaging looks adorable! It’s got high ratings on the Biobelle website and looks like it even has little pictures on the mask itself. I’m excited to see whether this fits my face properly (I have a short face) and if it hydrates like it claims to!

Continuing with the cute theme is the Cake Beauty Desserted Island Body Mousse ($2.59 sample size value; $22 full size). It’s scented like vanilla & coconut, plus has aloe vera in it, which is perfect for summer! It’s also the perfect size for traveling.

Next, I got the MAC Prep + Prime Skin ($6.20 for the sample size; $31 full size). I have about a million primer samples already, but I’ll never say no to some new makeup! This primer claims to reduce redness, even skin tone, and make your skin more radiant. I think it’ll be fun to give this a shot! I want to see if it really does reduce redness, since that’s a problem I have.

My final product for this month is the one colored makeup item! It’s the Nomad Beauty Illuminating Highlighter in Midnight Sun ($2.45 for the sample size; $17 full size). It’s a really pretty gold-champagne color that looks really good on my skin tone! It’s also vegan & cruelty-free if that’s something you’re concerned with!

Overall, I’m very middle of the road about my bag this month! I hope that next month they send me some more makeup (especially lip products!) and cute items like the body mousse and face masks.

I hope you all enjoyed my Ipsy bag for June! Do you get Ipsy or any other subscription box? Let me know!

Hi there everyone! I know that I’ve been gone for a while, and I’m so sad about that!

I started this blog, and I had a great plan. I was going to post 2-3 times a week, I had an editorial calendar and a vision in front of me.

Then I graduated, and the strangest thing happened to me. Instead of having this great drive to constantly work and improve upon this amazing new blog, I began to feel as though I had no energy to do anything.

This feeling of lethargy didn’t just stay with my blog: it touched every part of my life. I had no desire to do anything. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I didn’t want to try to find a job, I didn’t want to even go outside on a walk. I was constantly feeling stress about everything in my life, big or small.

So why? Where did all of the excitement from graduation go? Where was all of that spunk I had for so long?

My old roommate was talking to our other roommate and me when she said something that finally felt like an answer: post graduation depression. Her mom had mentioned it to her, and when she mentioned it to me I finally felt as though I could understand what had given me such a dramatic shift in attitude.

It completely makes sense, too. Suddenly my entire world was shifted completely: no more school, which had been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I’m expected to move out of my parent’s house and become independent with my new job. The bar was suddenly set so high for me, and I wasn’t ready to deal with that.

Unfortunately, my feelings aren’t necessarily unique. So many people deal with the exact same scary changes that I do and feel the same or similar feelings that I do.

So why don’t we talk about this?

I wish I could give a concrete answer! Maybe because society stigmatizes mental illness so much that no one wants to discuss anything related to it. Maybe because people are afraid that if everyone knows that there will be negativity associated with college less people will want to go there. Who knows!

I completely understand that people all have different experiences when it comes to graduating college, or really any big life event. My experience with this depression may be totally different from someone else; some people may only feel a brief sadness for the life they had that is now behind them. It’s completely subjective, but I feel like it needs to be talked about for people like me, who are hit with a serious fear of the future and don’t know why.

I hope this helps someone, or creates dialogue for people to consider in the future! Either way, I’m a message away if anyone needs to chat! I will be returning once more to the blog, renewed and ready to go.

Month: June 2018

June 2018 Ipsy Bag

Post-Graduation Depression: The Thing Everyone Gets, & No One Talks About