A More Beautiful Life

Jealous of all those girls that seem to have perfect lives and faces displayed for all of social media to see?

Don't be. Your life is every bit as amazing as theirs is and you should never be ashamed with what you bring to the table.

Want to know as secret about those girls?

Let's use me as an example- I consider myself decent looking, fairly average in the grand scheme of things, a typical every day person you could say.

Below are two photos, one is how I generally look on a daily basis as I tend to be lazy about hair, makeup, contacts etc. The other is a picture of a "me" that doesn't exist 99.5% of the time. Can you guess which one is which? (Hint: the one with glasses is my daily look)

 Surprise! Normally I'm not all dolled up and looking "fabulous" 

Want to know why? BECAUSE LOOKING LIKE A MODEL TAKES FOREVER.

Seriously guys in that second picture I have a spray tan, topped with self-tanner topped with foundation to smooth out my complexion. I have about a pound of mascara on each eye, eyeliner, eye shadow, and lipstick on. My hair was colored and trimmed just days before this shot was taken. I whitened my teeth with whitestrips for weeks and ultimately the photographer still airbrushed my skin/ whitened my teeth. Do you not understand how many hours of my life I wasted for one photo where I look like a completely different person? One where I did only half of what some girls do to put on makeup (Have you seen the number of different makeup brushes girls have?) These girls spend ages going through strict routines for cleaning their skin, applying make-up, working out, and eating healthy all to have "that look". It takes time, money, and lots, I mean LOTS, of dedication.

And you know what? That's 100% okay for them. These girls find beauty to be an important aspect of their life. Girls like this want to put in the time and effort to have flawless skin, a perfect body, perfectly shaped eyebrows. I look at their blogs and I envy their ease at looking so flawless while I'm sitting at my desk with slightly messy hair, little to no make-up and multiple acne spots covering my chin. At the same time I know I don't want to be one of them, not because I think they're shallow, but because of one simple fact.

I'm lazy and I don't have a ton of extra income. Do I really want to spend all my time making myself look like another person? Do I really want to throw my extra income into the expensive makeup because I think I'll look better? And when I say better, I mean that much closer the "perfect"? They say, "But it's only $20 dollars and it really enhances the make-up you wear". Christ, it took me 22 years just to feel justified spending more than $20 on a pair of shoes. 

Looking perfect online is exhausting people, and I for one am not going to even try to convince you my life is a fairytale filled with beauty and perfection. The real world is far more imperfect, and in my opinion, much more interesting. I don't want to belittle those of us women who pursue their ideal looks- brava to you girls because you have ten times the dedication that I'll ever have. For now I think I'll leave that sort of thing to those girls and focus on other areas of my life.

Cheers,

Ash