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Liquid Lipstick Battle

I started this series on my previous platform and my collection of liquid lipsticks has grown since then lol. I absolutely love liquid lipsticks, they have just become a favorite for me. If you see me wearing makeup, I am usually wearing a liquid lipstick lol. I will link the last post I’ve done with this series here http://naturalledrea.blogspot.com/2016/07/liquid-lipstick-battle-part-3.html

Okay I do have a few requirements on if I am going to love or dislike it. It has to be comfortable to wear. I have tried some liquid lipsticks that felt super dry or tight on my lips and it was just a no go. The second is the wear time. I don’t like when I spend all the time carefully applying the lipstick for it to last for an hour or so. A good liquid lipstick should last most of the day and sometimes you can’t help with the fading from eating and drinking throughout the day but it should still last. The last requirement is pigmentation. I want a bold, colorful lip and have been disappointed by some liquid lipsticks that do not have that pigmentation outside of the tube.

With that being said, do any of these liquid lipsticks live up to my requirements? Let’s jump into the reviews.

Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink(Believer)

I have seen this liquid lipstick floating all around on Instagram and wanted to see about it for myself. It seems like the drugstore brands are giving the high ends ones a run for their money. This is a really great liquid lipstick. It does not feel dry on my lips at all, has an okay wear time and super pigmented. I would suggest picking this one up if you are ballin on a budget.

Hourglass Opaque Rouge(Icon)

I saw Curly Nikki wearing this in a picture and she stated that this had a really good formula, one the best she’s tried so I had to get my hands on it. She was so right about this lipstick. It meets all the requirement and has a really amazing formula. I honestly would like to pick up more of these plus the packing is super cute lol.

Dope Queens Cosmetics (Royal Reign)

I discovered this Black Owned Business on Instagram and decided to support when they were running a sale on day. I’m not sure what took me so long but these liquid lipsticks are amazing! Dope Queens has so many unique colors and the formula is just everything. It just feel so lightweight on my lips that I forget I have it on. I just love these liquid lipsticks lol.

The Lip Bar (Drama Queen)

I heard all about this Black Owned Business when they were on Shark Tank. They persevered despite what was said on the show and have such a successful brand. The recently opened up a brick and mortar store which is amazing and are being sold in Target. If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is. I was excited to see The Lip Bar was going to be a IMATS last year and made sure to set aside money for their table lol. I absolutely love this liquid lipstick too. They also have a lot of unique colors and lightweight formula. The pigmentation is just everything and then some lol.

Too Faced Melted Matte (Granny Panties)

I crack up everytime I wear this lipstick because of the name lol. I heard some mixed reviews when this first launched and of course being the curious being I am, I had to try it. I have to say that I really like this one as well. The formula and wear time is pretty amazing and I just love the unique color of this one pictured.

Overall, I loved all of these liquid lipsticks mentioned. They all are just amazing and I highly recommend you try at least one of them ( well you should try all of them lol). I will do another review on a few more liquid lipsticks soon and let me know some of your favorites. What are some of your favorite liquid lipsticks? Comment below and let me know. Have a great Easter weekend if you celebrate it and see you guys Wednesday!

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On A Personal Note…

It is that time of the year again….Allergy season and I am currently suffering. Funny thing about me is that every allergy medicine makes me drowsy, even if it is “daytime”, I still feel drowsy. I have to wait until I get off from work to take something because I would be asleep at my desk lol. I am with you if you are suffering through allergy season too.

I can’t believe my newsletter is launching next week, next Monday to be exact and I am low key freaking out! I am so happy that people subscribed to it and I want everyone to enjoy it. I wanted to be able to connect with my audience outside of social media because you never know what may happen. Remember when Instagram and Facebook went down last month.

I think it is important to have a way to reach and still connect with your followers. I was so scared to even do this newsletter. I started it sometime last year and stopped when I was in a funk about my blog. I wasn’t sure at the time if I was going to continue blogging but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. One of my goals this year is to be fearless and this was scary jumping into this. I am still tweeking a few things but the first issue is just about done. I am so excited about it and know it will be a success.

I have also been struggling with the direction of my platform. I know when I initially started, I was basically all over the place talking about everything. I felt like I was doing too much and just switched gears. I find myself wanting to broaden what I talk about but it is about my audience. I can’t just talk about whatever and expect people to keep coming back if it does not relate to them.

I know my main focus is the hair and I have been enjoying doing the hair demos and trying out different products. I know I stopped with the makeup tutorials and fashion posts, I’m not sure if I should bring those back every once in a while. My other focus is bringing awareness to Black Owned Businesses. I felt it was important to use my platform, as small as it is and support my community and culture. Black Owned Businesses really need our support and if I can help them gain some exposure or new customers, I feel like I have done my part. There are times I want to talk about motherhood and marriage but I know a lot of my audience does not have kids or is single. It seems hard when there are things you want to blog about but it doesn’t relate to your audience.

I know I will figure things out and get it together lol. I feel like I am doing well with keeping up with the goals I set for myself this month. I sometimes feel myself getting overwhelmed but I know how to take a step back and regroup. I am just looking forward to everything this year has to offer. See you guys tomorrow!

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Wash N Go Demo F/Kinky Curly

Okay, what happened to the Spring weather lol? It was so nice the beginning of this week and now its cold again. This is why people are getting sick lol.

Today on the blog is a throwback post that was featured on my other platform back in June 2018. It is wash n go season for me when it get warm outside and I usually purchase a bunch of hair products to try out. I will most likely be doing another wash n go series this Summer so stay tuned for that. Today’s hair demo will feature products by Kinky Curly.

So that is it for that hair demo. If you have any suggestions on products I should try, leave them down below. Have a great weekend and see you guys Wednesday!

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Your Friends Don’t Have To Support You But Are They Bad Friends…..

Before we jump into this post, please watch there following video. This is where I got part of the inspiration for this post.

Okay so hopefully you watched the video in its entirety. Now I’ve been going back on forth on posting this or even talking about this topic for several reasons. I honestly don’t want to come off as complaining but I have struggled for a while about people I actually know supporting what I do.

When I first started blogging of course I had no clue what I was doing as I taught myself as I went along. I assumed that people I knew would automatically support me. I assumed that they would repost my content, comment on my posts and so on but there were crickets at first. I had to realize maybe they didn’t know about blogging at all or understood what I was doing. You do have to give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes. I just assumed they would ask about what I’m doing or how everything was going but not really. I had one of my friends help me create a series on my blog reviewing hair products when I first started which I really appreciated but I honestly felt like I was in this by myself.

You honestly can’t assume things about others and assume that your friends will automatically support everything you do…but I feel that if they are supposed to be part of your support system or tribe, they support you no matter what it is. If I wanted to quit my job and become a professional pencil sharpener, you should support me even if it doesn’t sound too good lol (bad example but you get the point lol). Even if it is not directly supporting you by reposting but behind the scenes support like letting you know about typos (which I am thankful to those who point them out because I never catch them all) or giving constructive criticism on how you can improve. I had to learn the hard way about the different types of support.

I also had to learn not to stress out about those who don’t support directly or behind the scenes. It would literally drive me crazy sometimes but I would never ask them why. I never somewhat confronted those and asked why. I honestly just assumed and I am at fault for that. Should you ask people why they haven’t been supporting you? I think you should be able to have those types of conversations with your friends and not have any issues. Now what would get to me sometimes is seeing other people I know reposting their friends and shouting them out and so on. It made me feel some type of way but then I had to turn and look at myself and ask was I doing the same thing. I can’t point the fingers if I am doing the same thing.

After watching the above video, I felt some type of way at first. I thought your friends should care about what you do and support what you do but then you really have to ask yourself if you do the same for them? Do you support them in the way they support you? If that support scale is uneven, what end are you on?

If your content is trash, someone should be telling you about it and not let you continue on putting out trash. Your friends should want to see you improving and doing better. I know my content was not so good at first and I had so much to learn. I am thankful to those who helped me improve and get better at this. I know I still have some ways to go but I feel my content is better then when I first started 5 years ago. I want to see you win and succeed and if I can help you improve, I will. After really thinking about what was really said in the video, it started to make sense to me and I didn’t feel as offended when I first watched it.

Friendship can be very tricky because everyone has their own opinion about them, what they expect out of their friends and so on. I may not have the same views as the next person on friendship but I honestly feel that you should support each other. I am not talking about big grand gesture support but little things count as well. You should know when people genuinely are not for you and are somewhat toxic. If you honestly don’t feel the support, you should talk to your friends and see how the conversation goes. Maybe everyone needs to work on supporting each other.

What are your views on support from your friends? Let’s discuss. See you guys tomorrow!