my no-makeup month

I kind of hate wearing makeup. Skin makeup, more specifically. I like lipstick occasionally (not on campus, which is where I am most days) and although I like the smokey eye effect, I really cannot do more than mascara and liner. I tried, once. I somehow managed to look like a raccoon with a black eye. Which is odd, since raccoons already have that look naturally. (If you ask me, that takes some serious skill in its own right.) But yes, that is how bad my eye shadow job was. 

The makeup I hate wearing is foundation/concealer/powder/all the other ten trillion products made for skin. I do resign myself to wearing foundation occasionally for job interviews or for work or if I just want to look polished. I hardly ever feel like I'm required to wear makeup, except for the previously mentioned job interviews.

I decided that I am going to take on April (and the last seven days of March) makeup-free. It's not even about making a statement; it's just because I don't want to so I'm not going to. Also, my skin gets really red. So red and spotty that it looks like I have a rash, which obviously isn't good. I don't want to run to the dermatologist quite yet, as my skin usually leaves there looking worse (please don't give me anymore salicylic acid, christ). Plus, there are a few "home remedies" I want to try first. Though I use that phrase loosely, because don't think I'm about to go eat one raw onion per day (though I do love onions) or start oil pulling (I can't sit there for twenty minutes doing that, I've got shit to do). I mean things like...drink more water (a novel concept, I know). I have some rice mask sheets I got for Christmas so I'll use those. And, you know, the whole no-makeup thing. May not help, but it certainly won't hurt.

I was trying to get a sans-makeup photo with decent lighting. I think I took like 50 pictures. It wasn't until I was looking through them that I realized how red my skin actually is. I blame this on: 1. it being way past my bedtime right now, and 2. my bathroom, oddly enough, has pretty flattering lighting, so I don't see all the imperfections the way I do when staring at dozens of horrid photos of myself.

Unfortunately, I'm only putting one here. The rest are getting deleted immediately.

Glamour shot!

On a positive note, I love my crazy hair. Frizz for life!

Much love.

i'll never let you sweep me off my feet

How good are you at not judging people? I'm talking about the more generalized judging that is unnecessary and usually negative.

I won't lie, walking through campus every day, I get to see all the interesting and unique styles people have (ignoring the leggings-and-sweater girls. No shade. I wear the hell out of that outfit too). One thing I struggle with, though, is sizing a person up by what shoes they are wearing. I know that sounds so...stupid. You're right. It is. But if you didn't catch on from this post here, I have a thing about shoes.

I once read that an interviewer would not judge a potential employee by what clothing they wore to the interview but by the shoes they wore. They said that it gave a better idea of a person's attention to detail and blah blah none of you care. My point is, if clothes are a sentence, shoes are the punctuation at the end. Might not seem important, but it provides the tone of the entire thing as a whole.

Now, I want to be clear: I don't judge a person's character by their shoes (again, excluding this post), just their fashion sense.

You'd think that a college campus isn't the best place for judging footwear, seeing as most people are walking a fair bit and thus are less likely to walk around in 4-inch heels. This is true. But that's where two other events/situations come into play: 1. career fairs, and 2. my work.

i change shapes just to hide in this place but i'm still an animal

This is my second year working in retail part-time while going to school. In 2014 I worked at The Limited, then I transferred schools and moved to a different city in January 2015. In October I got a job at White House Black Market, which is, in all honesty, very similar to The Limited. It's just more expensive. I do like it for the most part, but it's really changed my outlook on clothes. Constantly being around brand new sparkling fresh clothing that I don't own is...weird. My sense of style hasn't changed, but I have gotten more varied when figuring out how to style something that I normally would pass right by, but...it's much more than that.

I've been typing and retyping this paragraph, trying to accurately describe the sensation that I get from new clothes and going shopping since I started working in retail, but I can't seem to figure out how to explain it.

Anyways, I thought I'd put together some outfits using at least one main piece from WHBM. This is how I would wear these clothes if: 1. I was allowed to style them this way, and 2. I had enough money to buy them. (I do get a decent discount, but I still have to be very selective with what I buy. If they want their employees to constantly be decked out head to toe in their clothes, they'd have to, like, quadruple our pay.)

Without further ado...

button-front pencil skirt 98.00 | leather ankle-strap heels 125.00 | fringe clutch 98.00 | others

florals? for spring? groundbreaking.

How many fashion blogs have used this quote during spring? Seriously, I should start keeping count.

So it's more than halfway through March and it's caught me off guard just a bit. February in Kansas is so blah, and suddenly it's the third week of March and it's warm enough to wear shorts some days and sandals most days. I love the transition seasons, which is unfortunate because more often than not they pass by in a blink here. We routinely see snow in April and then in May it'll be 80+ degrees out; in the fall, we can experience days where it's 100 degrees even in September, and suddenly in October it's time for coats. It's frustrating to live in Kansas if you do not like or cannot deal with extreme weather; on the plus side, it's never boring.

i do believe it's true that there are roads left in both of our shoes

I have a story that makes me sound like a bitter old woman, but I don't care

See these shoes?

The dirtier, the better.

The shoes epitomizing all things Instagram-posting, Starbucks-going, leggings and baggy sweaters-wearing hipster girls?