Beauty Is....

I've been finding myself redefining beauty lately. After nearly a year of daily cosmetics reviews, it suddenly hit me that I'm overwhelmed with products, some of which work, others that don't, none of which I truly need. Now, had you asked me a year ago if I needed them, the answer would have been a definitive YES! I truly took comfort in being surrounded by beautiful things, among them perfumes, makeup, plenty of lipstick. It was incredibly important to me to discover the perfect products to make me, well, perfect myself. I felt that if I could just get my hands on the ultimate eye shadow, stumble upon the most glorious perfume, ferret out the reddest of red lipsticks, life would be complete...or at least more exciting.

However, I've recently been reading a book called "The Truth About Beauty" by Kat James. James is a makeup artist who found herself working in high fashion in New York City, surrounded by the most beautiful people in the world. She herself was partly responsible for their beauty, as a matter of fact. Yet at the same time, she was grossly overweight and undernourished, a mere shell of what she could have and should have been.

Sounds like every other cliche'd diet book out there, right? Wrong. James makes some profound observations in her book, one of which truly speaks to me: "I'd become a physically distorted beauty statistic for our times--heavy, but well coiffed, meticulously made up, manicured, perfumed, powdered, and groomed..." Wow, is that ever me! I'm not obese by any means, but I've got quite a ways to go before I can be considered thin by anyone's standards. I also rarely feel good. I'm blessed to have fairly good health (totally undeserved given my atrocious health habits), yet I never feel good anymore. I see people all the time who have tons of energy (admittedly, in today's toxic environment there aren't a whole lot of them, but I know a few), happily living out their lives to the fullest every day. I want to be one of those people.

The reason I'm telling you all of this is that the posts on this blog may be changing a bit in the near future. While I still have a gazillion products to try and review, I also want to upgrade not just my cosmetics drawer(s), but my life and lifestyle. I'm making small changes, like adding 2-3 additional servings of organic fruits and veggies per day. That shouldn't be hard, given the fact that I've been known to go days on end without consuming a single recognizable piece of produce. I also intend to start being more conscious of the ingredients I'm putting on my skin. Did you know that 60% of what you apply to your skin is absorbed into your body? Yeah. So all those chemicals I've been slathering on for years may or may not be as good for me as I thought. I intend to start researching all of those ingredients and determining which of them is suitable for me. I'll share my findings with you so you can do the same.

I want to start to pare down my life, bit by bit. I don't want a more organic diet...I want a more organic life. One in which I'm able to prioritize more effectively. One in which I make conscious decisions about what I consume, both physically and at the mall. I want less excess and more meaning in every aspect of what I do.

What does this mean for this blog and for all of you? Well, it means that you may be getting fewer reviews of some of the hottest new collections to hit the malls each season and more informative pieces about ingredients and their effectiveness, as well as reviews on simpler, streamlined beauty products and routines. I'll be sharing my journey and what works best for me, not just spitting out theories I've picked up along the way. I'll be your guinea pig, as it were.

Don't worry, this won't become a tree-hugger, sanctimonious know-it-all blog in which you're told what you can or can't use, purchase, or do regarding your own personal beauty. Rather, it will be a series of snapshots of my own personal journey as I try to regain some perspective about what beauty means to me as a human being...and that may or may not include red lipstick.

I hope you stay for the ride.