Introducing new contributor Lolo Michelle!
As you might know, I’ve been in the process of interviewing contributors recently. Lolo’s application immediately stood out: she’s funny, smart, a great writer, and obsessed with beauty. For her first post, we thought it only fitting that Lolo highlight one of her all-time favorite products, the classic MAC red lipstick Ruby Woo (she’s wearing it here).
Nantucket.
Doesn’t the very word conjure up images of money and summer and blazing white sand and the foamy sea?
“I worked myself to the bone in Nantucket last winter. And it’s so flashy and loud! Impossible place to relax,” said nobody, ever.
When E. and I were trying to decide where to spend a few idle days in Massachusetts, Nantucket immediately sprang to mind. I’ve been dying to go there for years, and once we discovered there was an amazing Relais and Chateaux property called The Wauwinet on the island: ’twas done.
Charlotte Casiraghi is the new face of Gucci Beauty. Princess Grace’s granddaughter has already been shilling for Gucci for a while, but only for their Forever Now campaign highlighting iconic Gucci elements like floral patterns and red-and-green striped handbags. Now, she’ll be fronting their Gucci Beauty ads.
When I opened up to you guys yesterday about my latest blogging existential crisis, I couldn’t have imagined feeling so gratified by the responses. Several other beauty bloggers who have been in the game for years chimed in on Facebook, and it was incredibly heartening to realize that I’m not alone in those occasional feelings of doubt, inadequacy, and frustration. I received a few emails from readers, too, and I just want you all to know that I appreciate you SO much. It’s these conversations and connections that remind me why I write.
You know those times when you’re so frustrated you feel like you could pull your hair out, and all you want to do is throw a pillow across the room, slam a door, and stomp on the ground?
Yeah. That’s how I feel about now.
Every few years, I go through a existential blog crisis, wondering what my next step is going to be and trying to take stock of it all. For various reasons that I can’t go into–and the not-being-able-to-go-into-it-yet aspect is KILLING ME–I’ve felt much less angsty these past several months. Life has been very good, I’ve been working on a few different projects that will be unveiled soon-ish, and I am beside myself with excitement over finally being able to reveal them to you.
But I’m sure you’ve noticed that I haven’t been blogging as much recently–and when I have, it’s much more surface. Which I hate. Which makes me frustrated. Which makes me miss the old days when I was one of the only games in town and there weren’t five billion blogs–beauty or otherwise–to choose from.
How do you distinguish yourself when you’re drowning in a sea of people younger; more energetic; more social-media-inclined; more makeup-swatch-obsessed; more in tune with pop culture (my confusion over Beyoncé-worship makes me feel like a pariah screaming at kids to get off my lawn); more willing to devote their lives to endless events and networking and profile curating and image-management and spinning on the hamster wheel of “This is the facade I choose to present to the world, even though it’s not real”?
When your personal life is flourishing, but for some reason it’s just not translating into your writing, what do you do?
In truth, I think I’m suffering from run-of-the-mill writer’s block (blogger’s block?), which is a shade ironic seeing as I’m working fast and furiously on my next book and am zipping right along with that. But this here blog is almost 10 years old, and every once in a while I feel like Norma Desmond, muttering about how I AM big, it’s the internet that got small.
Sometimes I worry that my best professional years are behind me, and that I’m never going to be as prolific, popular or creative as I was in my 20s. I worry that writing about mascara launches and skincare how to’s and Kate Middleton’s latest triumph simply isn’t enough for me–that my voice is shriveling and wasting away, 140 characters at a time.
I know tomorrow or the next day, I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled programming and all will be well. One of my most valued personal traits is resilience; I’m usually pretty good at picking myself up and dusting myself off, no matter how bad the scrape.
But I miss talking to you guys truthfully, and I just wanted to let you into my current headspace for a second. I really miss having you all in residence there. Soon again, I hope.
When I was younger, my mother was all about organic and natural products. She shopped at health food stores way before Whole Foods even existed, and would do (to me) weird things like drink raw, unpasteurized milk, eat local honey for its immunity properties, and spend way too much money on the organic produce upgrade. Of course, this is all super common now! A trend-setter, Mama Jolie was.
Perhaps as a reaction to my mother, I’ve never paid much attention to the quality of my foods. Sure, being raised on organic fruits and veggies means that you’re naturally drawn to healthy foods, so luckily I’m hardly a chips and cookies addict. But I never really cared whether something was organic, locally-grown, soy or not soy, with hormones, or sustainably-raised. As long as it was relatively healthy and tasted good, I was in!
Hello from Duxbury, Massachusetts! E. and I are here visiting his mother, and we’re staying in a rambling old farmhouse that overlooks the bay: it’s absolutely gorgeous. My photos are few and I’m up against the clock with book edits, so here’s a sneak peek. This is a picture of the Boat House, as seen from our massive Kennedy-esque lawn.
Snip, snip, Pippa chops it off!
Presenting my April Beauty Favorites!
How has the month of April sped by so quickly? It was one of the first months in recent memory when I literally didn’t go anywhere. Luckily, I have two fun trips on deck: Boston and Nantucket next week, and Delray, Miami and Key West in June!
For the time being, though, I’ve had to live vicariously through my fellow members of the Luxury Travel Blog Network.
Mrs. O Around the World had the most eventful month, with trips to the Maldives, Dubai and Paris to celebrate her birthday! Lucky girl, eh? I’m dying over how blue the water was in the Maldives. Yeah, that looks like paradise.
