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Hello Beautiful Souls,

It’s Megan here from my blog The Chronicles of Megan. The title comes from my desire to document my life, and take a snapshot of where I am right now. Currently, I spend a lot of time experimenting with makeup and trying out new products, but my goal is to write about it from the lens of empowerment and positivity. I’ve been a blogger for about a year and a half now but when I hit my 1 year mark in November I wrote a huge post documenting my journey growing as a blogger, a human, and a lover of makeup. Some of the key lessons from that post I wanted to highlight:

• Makeup is a completely individual experience, unique to the person wearing it.
• At the end of the day, makeup comes off. It doesn’t hide inner ugliness or permanently alter your personality.
• Makeup is simply a product, but it’s the person wearing it that counts. At the end of the day, people will remember your smile and compassion anyway.

Also in that post, I detailed my struggle with being an authentic blogger while loving makeup. I’ve always had this inner conflict with makeup. For me, I always viewed it as expressive, artistic, and creative but in the eyes of some others, and often society, makeup is considered shallow, vain, and fake. The latter things are not what I wanted to be associated with my identity at all and so I’ve had a hard time embracing my love for makeup. What I’ve come to find though, is that makeup is one of those things that’s unnecessarily politicized, instead of taken at face value for the artistry that it is. While there are several factors including body imagery, self-esteem, societal standards, and plenty more to consider, makeup itself is not inherently bad. Don’t get me wrong, some of these things do hold merit and are associated with the use of makeup, but makeup itself is not the problem. I’ve come to learn that it’s society and its views on makeup, women, and the industry that need to change.

I’ve taken it upon myself for the change to start with me. Through my blog and associated social media, I portray myself as authentically as I possibly can. I bear my flaws, embrace my love of makeup, and spread positivity where I can. I hope to show everyone that I’m strong, empowered, creative, and I love myself with and without my makeup. I’ve learned that you can be an empowered person and wear makeup, as long as it’s for the right reasons—the most important reason being you. To quote my previously mentioned post, “It’s about wearing makeup for the right reasons. Not because it makes you better than someone, not because it makes you look ‘beautiful’, not because it’s what you’re ‘supposed to do’, and especially not for boys. You should wear makeup because you want to and that’s it. You should wear makeup because it makes you comfortable, because it’s fun, and because you are still the same, genuine, authentic person without it and you let it shine through that makeup. Beauty always comes from within; everything true and good comes from the heart.”

Makeup is absolutely powerful, and so too the people that wear it. I wanted to not only talk about this power, but share it with others as well. Now that I’ve had another half-year of blogging under my belt I wanted to take some serious action and spread this powerful message. So, I created the social media campaign: The Self Love Selfie.

I wanted to showcase that despite our insecurities, there is always room for more self-love, positivity, and growth that will help us overcome them. The purpose of this project it to promote self-love and empowerment for your whole self no matter if you wear makeup or not. It is about removing a stigma that those who wear makeup are always hiding behind insecurities, are inferior, vain, shallow, or dim. Likewise, those who choose not to wear makeup don’t disregard the way they present themselves to other people, or are lazy, or think they’re better than those who choose to wear it. It is about embracing everyone, whether or not they choose to wear makeup because neither is a “right” option—it is always a personal choice and preference. At the end of the day, we all should be wearing makeup or not wearing makeup for all the same reasons: for ourselves, for our own comfort, for our own versions of self-love and self-care, for our self-expression or self-identification, for our own motives.

It’s about reclaiming our own faces and bodies to do with what we please, and overcoming objectification, societal pressure, and stereotypes. The bottom line is that your self-love comes first, whatever that looks like for you, and we should all be willing to embrace that in one another instead of tearing one another down for wearing or not wearing makeup. Beauty is bigger than all of this. The most beautiful people are the ones with kind hearts, who are authentically true to themselves, and who spread love.

I invite you to participate yourselves by posting your own Self Love Selfie with half of your face done up in makeup and the other half bare. Caption it with your journey for self-love and makeup and how they intertwine. Be sure to use the hashtag #TheSelfLoveSelfie, tag me on Instagram @chroniclesofmegan (or using any of my other handles linked below), and make sure you account is public so we can see it!

The final takeaway from that 1 Year post, I wanted to share is the point that we are all multifaceted people. Despite my love and passion for makeup and blogging, I still am more than that and more than the one side that social media portrays me to be. What you don’t see on the other end of the screen is my love for yoga, how I geek out over finding the perfect font (#graphicdesignnerd), the time I spend with my family, friends, and dog, my quest to eat only delicious food, and my never ending attempt to get through my Netflix queue. Most prominently, though, you won’t always see my fight for social justice and my work to create equity for women. I am a firm believer in women helping other women; if not your fellow sister, who is looking out for you? Within the beauty community I wanted to overcome all of the negativity that comes from being pitted against one another. I don’t want to be in competition with my fellow bloggers, but I want to have their backs as they have mine. “Girls compete with one another. Women empower each other.” Like I said before, I want change to begin with me. I want to prove that I am more than just a beauty blogger and I am capable of creating change beyond the frame of social media. That being said, I wanted to create an Etsy store that provided other women in business marketing materials that could be easily accessible to them and that were designed beautifully. I am currently selling styled stock photography in partnership with the marketing company that I work with as my day job. These styled desktop images give the perfect feminine touch to your creative business or blog. Bundles include a .psd and .jpeg file which can be used anywhere you please! If you would be so kind as to help a fellow woman out and browse, favorite, and like my shop LimeworksDesignCo. I would appreciate it! I am also looking for a few bloggers in need of such materials to create a post promoting my new shop in exchange for their own free image bundle. Please contact me at [email protected].

Thanks again to Melisa & Deynece for allowing me this opportunity to not only share a different perspective on beauty and to be a part of their amazing Exploring Beauty Series, but to hopefully engage you as well in empowering one another, if not through my own campaigns, hopefully somewhere else. If you gave this entire post a read, I applaud you. Thanks again!

All my love,

Megan T. || The Chronicles of Megan

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