Box Swap with Ashley Nicole!

Welcome back, little birdies!

Over the past few months I have been in cahoots with another lovely blogger, Ashley. We became friends on twitter and quickly started bonding over the fact that we are American bloggers in a mostly British dominated blogosphere. We've gushed over the beautiful country of England in which she now lives, and a country I'm excited to visit someday and I've followed up with her posts that deliver a variety of content.

We quickly started talking over the idea of doing a small box swap together seeing as the U.S. and the U.K. do have different makeup that aren't easily accessible in each others countries. We took maybe a little over a month to plan everything out and gather our goodies before shipping them off to each other. I found it funny that our boxes arrived both on the same day.

I opened the box to find a very sweet card (which by the way, Ash. Your hand writing is FAB. Sorry for my chicken scratch haha.) and my goodies that were all wrapped up like little presents to open.

The first item I unwrapped was a Revolution makeup palette. It instantly became a favorite seeing as it is an exact dupe for Urban Decay's Naked 3 palette. It's small and compact so it'll be easier to travel around with rather than the UD palette.

The next thing I opened and was SO excited to receive was the Sleek Highlighting Palette in Solstice. Sleek isn't easily accessible here in the States, so I was nearly bursting with joy when I opened this up. The gold mirrored packaging of this itself got me excited let alone the beauty that was in it! There are 4 shades in this Highlighting palette. They're called Ecliptic, Hemisphere, Subsolar, and Equinox. It does come with a small little dense brush to apply the product which I think I'll use until I get myself a proper fan brush. This palette also includes what's got to be the best mirror ever. This palette is definitely travel friendly.

When I looked into my box there was this kind of thick box thing all wrapped up. I couldn't put my finger on what it could possibly be so I was eager to open it up to find out. This is like, the coolest thing ever. It's Seventeen Instant Glow Pink Bronze Bronzing Rocks. Yup, you read that correctly. Bronzing ROCKS. Whhaaat!? It says in the back to "Dust these beautiful rocks over face and body for a shimmering bronzed glow". I am ALL over the sound of that. Ashley is trying to make me into a beautiful little disco ball. :)

I then opened up what I knew to be a lip product seeing as how it was wrapped. It was Sleek's Matte Me in the color Birthday Suit. I'll be honest and say that I didn't read what type of lip product it was before I quickly swatched it on my hand. What I noticed after I swatched it was that although it went on really creamy, it dried and became very matte. I kid you not, I had to wash my hands SEVERAL times before it could come off. Very long lasting. I am super excited that Ashley decided to send me this as well. It's great.

The last product that I received was another lip product. It's by the brand GOSH, a brand I've never heard of before. Ash, picked out 134 Darling, it's an absolutely beautiful nude shade which is a staple in my collection at the moment. It is just sligghhhtly drying so I do put a light nude cream on top of it. Makes for the perfect nude combo.

(I'm not sure why the pictures make it look like two different colors. It's the same lipstick :) )

Big THANK YOU to the beautiful Ashley for wanting to do this swap with me and for the absolutely beautiful gifts that were sent. I love each and every product and have even more fun doing my makeup with them. I look forward to our next swap next year. Please check out her blog and send her over some love because her and her blog surely do deserve it!

Thanks for reading!

Until Next Time,

Jay

Confidence, Self Worth, + Love

Welcome back, little birdies.

This is something that I wanted to write for a while. I realize that my blog is beauty and fashion focused but Blissful Beauty Bird is still my creative outlet. So with it being an outlet, I decided I wanted to write down how I was feeling and publish it for my readers to read if they so pleased. In all honesty it's just something I want to let out and put into perspective for myself to see how I'm feeling and hopefully to look back at this years from now, when I no longer feel this way and realized just how much I've conquered. This will be very informal as I don't know how to let out my feelings properly. I'll just kind of ramble. Sorry about that.

I don't really know where to start with this so I'll start with how I feel confidence wise. I have never really been a confident person. I've always been really shy and would often doubt my capabilities. Confidence as in how I look, I've never really felt "pretty". What's "pretty" anyways? I've had low self esteem about my looks a lot. I never felt I was pretty enough to be loved by a good man. I never left the house without make up. No matter how badly I used to do my makeup during my teenage years. I always found flaws in my looks and if it wasn't one thing, it was the other. Not that long ago on the #PrettyLittleChat we had a talk about confidence. It made me realize how I view confidence now that I'm a bit older (because you start thinking a little more clearly when you're 23 apparently). It made me realize that I don't just see confidence as how someone looks. How I view a truly confident person is someone who loves themselves for what they've got, for what the Lord has given them. (No matter the shape nose or ears, or what color eyes they have ect.) Someone who is independent, they could get things done and haven't a need to depend on others. Someone who is kind. They love to help others physically and mentally. Someone who is humble and thankful to the Lord for what He has provided in their life. Someone who is genuinely happy and not just because of money. Someone who is happy with the little things in life like quality time with their friends and family all the way down to just happy to experience the day. I feel as though I'm slowly growing into that kind of person how I envision a confident person to be. Although I still have a lot of growing up to do when it comes to that and with life in general. It's just to know I've taken those first few steps towards it. That in of itself is motivation to keep going.

Self worth is something I still struggle with. Something I have to find in myself. I know I shouldn't be defined by the things I can't do. I always seem to not try things because of fear of failure. I never felt I was very good at anything which hinders what I do. When I think of "talents" and think of how some people can sing, some can dance, some can speak multiple languages. I feel like because I don't really have a talent that there isn't much great with me. I used to draw a lot but even with that I didn't feel good enough. Even with my writing. I love my blog but I don't feel as though I'm a good writer but maybe that's something I'll learn to do better in time. The sense of self worth ultimately makes me think of relationships. I have a tendency to feel as though someone wouldn't want to be with me because I can't do this or I can't do that. Sometimes it even ties in with my looks and I feel that no one would ever look at me as someone beautiful from the outside in. I've always been a hopeless romantic. I wanted the happily ever after with the prince charming and to just feel that unconditional love for someone. That we would grow old together and still fall in love with one another like if it was our first day. What scares me is that with everything I've mentioned before I feel like I will never find that person or if I do that it wouldn't last long and they'll eventually get tired of me and find someone else. Sometimes I find myself pretty down in the dumps because I haven't found the "one" when I watch everyone around getting together or getting married or having babies!

I don't have the answers to my feelings towards all this. And to be honest, this isn't everything I'm feeling. I just didn't want to get in too deep. The only thing I can do for myself right now is to stay focused on the Lord and try and stay positive about things. I'm only 23 which means I have plenty of years to figure myself out and sort out all these feelings to hopefully, eventually, update that I see myself differently. Hopefully I'll be able to update you on how I truly see myself a confident person who is happy with absolutely every bit of myself and my talents and maybe even at that point, have found someone I deeply love who loves me too.

It feels really good to just let out how I'm feeling about things. Just to let them out and not have them all bottled up inside is definitely worth it. With that being said, if you finished all that, I applaud you. I am sorry for the ramble and how disorganized it was but I was just writing things down as they came up. I didn't make bullet points for this. I also apologize if you read this all hoping I have found my way past these feelings and haven't yet. I'll get there.  Thanks for reading and if you're feeling the same way I am then I hope you find out much quicker than me just how amazing you are.

Until next time,

Jay