Prior to a few days ago, my makeup lived in a drawer in my very ancient and childish bedside cabinet and in various bags. A lot of it is sticky, fruity 12-year-old-girl lip-glosses, ancient bottles of dried up nail varnish and garish eyeshadow. However, a lot of it is also makeup that I have bought, known how to use properly and used over and over again.

I began to really care about makeup about three years ago. My skin began to deteriorate as I got closer to leaving secondary school - my anxiety developed a lot during sixth form and I also managed to make a very misguided decision with regards to my choice of friends. I didn't apply makeup correctly at all until very late in summer 2013, which is when I started watching beauty bloggers like Zoella and Sprinkleofglitter. I actually stumbled across the entire beauty blogging YouTube community when watching a DailyGrace video. YouTube is an amazing thing.

Since then I've spent too much money and thrown myself into the makeup world. Makeup is an incredible thing - anything that enhances female confidence and allows people to express themselves in their very own, personal manner is a good one in my book. I am still learning, of course - contouring and liquid eyeliner are my current nemeses - but my goals of appearing endlessly glamorous are getting slightly closer.

A few days ago I watched Zoella's makeup collection video (the most calming and satisfying types of videos) and I decided to clear out just the one drawer in my desk for my own makeup 'collection'.


This was quite eye-opening. Looking at all the makeup you own in one glance is enough to stop you buying any more ever again! Typically the morning I did this, I had ordered 2 brushes and an eyeshadow palette from feelunique. Oops. The next time I feel the urge I'll just open the drawer and look at it for a bit.

I thought I might talk about some of my favourite makeup products and also how I organise them. I used Glossybox lids (another reason I have so much, although there are a few things in this drawer that I would never ever use) for my (26, ahem) lip products and my eye makeup. The rest was made up by concealer/powders/foundation etc. It mostly fit in nicely.


As a combination skin girl, I love my powder. My T-zone always needs a touch-up after a couple of hours, especially if I've been out for a walk (I am so unbelievably unfit). I used Rimmel's Stay Matte for a while, which was fine and very cheap and easy to repurchase, but the packaging was a little vulnerable and it seemed to run out very fast. I eventually turned to a more expensive option.

MAC's Mineralise Skin Finish powder looks so pretty and leaves me looking slightly glowy. It seems to settle better on top of my foundation and concealer (the Rimmel one had a tendency to drag my concealer slightly away from the areas it was intended to cover as I applied it) and the packaging is much more durable. I bought this 4 months ago and I don't think I'll touch pan for the same time again. That makes the £22 price tag a little less scary. I will probably buy this again, but I am also eyeing up their translucent setting powder. Decisions, decisions.

(MAC Mineralize SkinFinish Natural in Light)

The little pot you see in the middle of the picture is a Stila blush that I am absolutely obsessed with at the moment. I initially bought it under the impression it was a contour/highlight product (??self??) but even when I discovered its true purpose I loved it. This is so subtle and pretty - perfect for any day, any season. I am constantly wary of putting too much blush on (I have a So Susan blush that I cannot make subtle. It always makes me look like I'm having a hot flush), but not with this product. This was £15 and will last me a long time, too!

(Stila Baked Cheek Duo in Pink Glow)

Now we come to one of my All Time Faves. Soap and Glory is one of my favourite brands ever (more so for their bath/body than anything else, tbh) and I was looking for a highlighting powder for summer in Boots one day - this caught my eye. It is a slightly pink highlight, but perfect for gently swiping across cheekbones and nose for a little extra glow. I can't quite remember how much this was (£11 rings a bell) but it will last me forever. Also that packaging is amazing. It looks a bit weak and can get extremely grubby, but a little magnet stops any product getting out or anything leaking onto the product. Love it.

(Soap & Glory Glow All Out Luminizing Radiance Face Powder)

For some reason the thought of running a proper blog (aside from my Tumblr, obviously) never really crossed my mind. As a dormant writer I suppose I limited myself to (fan)fiction only and I've found it hard to pick fiction writing back up over the past year or so.

But anyway. Hello. I'm Catherine, I'm nineteen and I live in London with my parents and younger brother. Slash Leeds, where I'm 1/3 through an English Literature degree. How fancy. I'm also 1/3 through Paradise Lost and I'm already struggling. Why did I decide to pick the most demanding text from my summer reading to do first?

That is me, though. Make decisions and look back and go 'Oh, hang on. I could have done that.' Then I frantically ensure I haven't ruined my life. Casual day to day events. I do think I picked the right degree; I definitely would have said 'Hang on, I should be reading plays and arguing for Sylvia Plath's legacy at this exact moment' had I picked History or Politics. I feel at home in an English lecture or seminar. The process of reading is often taxing (possibly an issue...?) but once I have read and understood a text I love having Opinions and Expressing them. I think lessons are the only time I really feel comfortable expressing how I feel, maybe because I feel it's more acceptable there.

One thing I should probably mention in this very rambly introductory post is that I suffer from a pretty major anxiety disorder and everything that could and does come with it. I think I spent most of my late teenager-hood in a state of social anxiety and then I moved to university and developed Proper Grown-Up generalised anxiety disorder. Panic attacks and shit. It's really glamorous.

Panic attacks make you strong, I think. Somehow you have to sit and bear this feeling of crushing doom and horror while you feel hot, cold, nauseous, on edge. And then it's over and you just....get back to what you were doing. How do us panic attack sufferers do that? You're left with remnants of that panic attack for the rest of the day; I mainly feel like a failure because I can't stop my body from freaking out when I least expect it. I am on propranolol as of five days ago and I think it's helping? My mum was quite reluctant for me to take medication because when she was a teenager she was basically put on tranquilizers - don't blame her.

I'm not sure what I wanted to say in this introduction. I think I want anybody who reads this to know a little bit about me. I haven't really written anything like this before (though I could argue that this post is an amalgamation of all my Tumblr text posts) and I don't know how good I'll be at writing anything regularly. But I think it's nice to have a personal outlet. I also (try to) make YouTube videos when nobody is around and I can sneak my Dad's camera, which pretty much functions as the same thing except my channel is very much focused around anxiety. I'm really decided on that - my channel is about mental health, particularly anxiety. This blog, ideally, would be for life updates, my love of makeup and some recipes. I'll probably talk about my favourite TV shows too. (Right now - Rookie Blue and Pretty Little Liars. Though GBBO is back next week which takes over EVERYTHING)

I'll link to this post on Tumblr and Twitter, but not before I make sure my theme is pretty and I've sorted out links and things. If you like, let me know a little bit about you and how on earth you start a blog!!!

Catherine
xxx